22. Sabrina
— ? —
Sabrina
Rain had been coming down since morning, a steady gray curtain that turned the world outside the windows into a watercolor blur.
We were on our third Barbie movie of the day.
Ivy was wedged between us on the couch, wrapped in her elephant blanket, completely absorbed in the adventures of a princess who was also a popstar who was also somehow solving an environmental crisis. I’d lost track of the plot around movie two, but Ivy seemed to understand every nuance.
“Mommy, watch this part,” she whispered urgently. “This is where she saves the dolphins.”
“I’m watching.”
“You’re looking at your phone.”
“I’m watching with my ears.”
“That’s not how watching works.”
Killian caught my eye over Ivy’s head and grinned. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
The dolphin rescue reached its dramatic conclusion, and Ivy cheered quietly, then immediately demanded the fourth movie.
“One more,” I said. “Then we’re doing something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like… anything that isn’t a screen.”
“But it’s raining.”
“We can do puzzles. Or bake something. Or play a board game.”
“Barbie is better.”
“Barbie isn’t better than real life.”
“Barbie is definitely better than puzzles.”
She had a point. I was too tired to argue, so I queued up the fourth movie and settled back into the cushions.
Killian’s arm was draped across the back of the couch behind me, not quite touching but close enough that I could feel the warmth of him.
He’d been doing that a lot lately. Existing in my orbit without crowding, available without demanding, present in a way that felt new even though it shouldn’t have been new at all.
I was aware of the warmth of him the way you’re aware of a fire in a cold room, a low, constant pull I kept telling myself I was too tired to feel.
My eyes kept snagging on his hands where they rested near my shoulder, the span of them, and I remembered, with zero permission, what they were capable of.
I looked back at the movie. Barbie was resolving her environmental crisis. I didn’t absorb a single frame.
Halfway through the movie, Ivy started to droop. Her eyes fluttered closed, then snapped open, then closed again. Her head tilted sideways, coming to rest against Killian’s arm, and soon she was out cold.
And snoring.
The tiny sounds were absurd, a rhythmic little rumble that seemed too loud to be coming from such a small person. Killian looked down at her with an expression of helpless amusement, then looked up at me.
I pressed my hand over my mouth to muffle the laugh that wanted to escape.
“Did you know she snored?” he whispered.
“She inherited it from you.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You absolutely snore. It’s like sleeping next to a freight train.”
“That’s slander.”
“It’s documented fact. I have recordings.”
“You recorded me sleeping?”
“For evidence. In case I ever needed to prove it in court.”
He was grinning now, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and the sight of it went through me, warm and unwelcome.
“I should put her to bed,” he said quietly.
“Yeah.”
He gathered Ivy up with practiced ease, cradling her against his chest. She made a small sound of protest but didn’t wake, her snoring continuing uninterrupted.
He carried her down the hall toward her bedroom, and I sat alone on the couch and listened to the rain and tried to sort through the tangle of emotions in my chest.
The movie was still playing, but I’d stopped paying attention.
I was thinking about the past few weeks.
The spreadsheets and the labeled snacks and Sir Cuddles, which I’d grown genuinely attached to despite its absurdity.
The way Killian had been present, consistently and without complaint, even when I was cold or distant or difficult.
He was trying. Really trying. And I was starting to believe it wasn’t just another temporary effort that would fade as soon as life got complicated.
He came back and settled onto the couch beside me, leaving a careful distance between us.
“She’s out,” he said. “Didn’t even stir when I put her down.”
“The Barbie marathon exhausted her.”
“It exhausted me too. I had no idea animated princess politics were so complex.”
“There’s a lot of intrigue in the doll world.”
He laughed softly, and I felt it more than I heard it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Honestly.”
“Tired. But okay.” I hesitated. “Actually, I feel… I don’t know. Weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Weird like I miss you.”
He went very still.
“I’m right here,” he said carefully.
“I know. But I’ve missed you even when you were here. Does that make sense? I’ve missed the version of us that actually talked to each other, that laughed together, that felt like a team instead of two people sharing a house.”
“I’ve missed that too.”
“I think maybe…” I stopped, searching for the right words.
“I think maybe I can forgive you. Not all at once, not completely, but I think I can start. I want to talk about it, about that night and what you said and everything that came after. But I’m too tired right now. I’m too tired for the heavy stuff.”
“We don’t have to do heavy stuff.”
“But we should. Eventually. We can’t keep avoiding it.”
“I know. And I’ll be ready whenever you want to have that conversation. But tonight…” He shifted slightly closer. “Tonight can just be this. If you want.”
“What I want is a hug.”
He opened his arms, and I fell into them.
It was the first time in weeks that I’d let him hold me without any agenda, without sex or crisis or negotiation. Just his arms around me and my head against his chest and the sound of his heartbeat steady beneath my ear.
The fight drained out of me. All the tension I’d been carrying, the walls I’d built, the defenses I’d maintained so carefully, they crumbled under the weight of his warmth.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against my hair. “I’m right here.”
“I know.”
His hands moved in slow circles on my back, and the comfort of it was almost overwhelming. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be touched without expectation, to be held simply for the sake of being held.
Somewhere in the middle of it, the comfort shifted.
I became aware of his body in a different way. The solid warmth of his chest against my cheek. The way his hands felt through the thin fabric of my shirt. The scent of him, familiar and intoxicating after all these years.
I whispered his name.
He pulled back just enough to look at my face, his eyes searching.
“Sabrina?”
I kissed him.
It started soft, tentative, a question more than an answer. But when he responded, when his mouth opened under mine and his hands tightened on my waist, the tentative part evaporated.
He started to pull away, responsibility written all over his face.
“We should probably-”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him again.
“Stay,” I said against his lips. “Stay right here.”
“Are you sure? The doctor said-”
“The doctor said to avoid stress. This isn’t stress.” I shifted in his arms, climbing into his lap, my knees bracketing his hips. “This is the opposite of stress.”
His breath caught. His hands found my waist again, steadying me, and I could feel the tension in him, the effort it was taking to hold back.
“Ivy-”
“Is asleep. And snoring. We’ll hear her if she wakes up.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” I rolled my hips against him and watched his eyes go dark. “You won’t hurt me.”
We moved together slowly, a gentle rhythm that built heat without urgency. I could feel him hard beneath me, could feel the answering ache building low in my belly, and for the first time in months I wasn’t angry or scared or guarded. I was just here, in this moment, with him.
“I love you,” he breathed. “God, Sabrina, I love you so much.”
“I know.”
“I need you to believe it.”
“I’m starting to.”
He kissed my neck, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. His hands slid under my shirt, warm against my bare skin, and I arched into his touch.
“I want you inside me,” I whispered.
He groaned, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. “I want that too. But I need to be careful with you. With both of you.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“No. But you’re precious.” He pulled back to look at me, his expression serious beneath the want. “Let me take care of you. Please.”
Before I could respond, he shifted us, laying me back against the couch cushions with a gentleness that made my throat tight. He settled between my legs, his weight braced on his arms, and kissed me deeply.
Then he started to move down.
He kissed my jaw, my neck, the curve of my breast through my shirt. He pushed the fabric up and kissed the skin beneath, his mouth hot and reverent on my stomach, pausing for a moment over the barely visible swell where our baby was growing.
“I missed this,” he murmured against my skin. “I missed you. You have no idea how much.”
His hands found the waistband of my leggings and pulled them down slowly, his fingers trailing along my thighs. I was trembling, my breath coming in shallow gasps, anticipation winding tighter the lower his fingers went.
When his mouth found me, I nearly came off the couch.
He held me down with one hand on my hip, the other reaching up to cover my mouth, muffling the sounds I couldn’t control. His tongue moved in slow, deliberate circles, learning me again, finding exactly the right rhythm.
“Quiet,” he breathed against me. “You have to stay quiet for me.”
I bit down on his fingers, and he made a sound that might have been a laugh, and then he stopped teasing and got serious.
The feeling climbed in slow, deliberate steps, each one leaving me higher and more undone, until I was trembling with the effort of staying quiet. He read me with the ease of years, easing off every time I got close, holding me right at the edge until I was ready to beg for it.
“Please,” I gasped against his hand. “Please, I need-”
“I know what you need.”
He gave it to me. One last, devastating stroke of his tongue, and I came apart, the release rolling through me in deep pulses that seemed to go on and on. He worked me through it, gentler now, easing me back down until I was boneless and spent.
When he finally lifted his head, his eyes were dark with satisfaction.
“Okay?”
“More than okay.” My voice came out hoarse. “That was…”
“I know.”
He crawled back up the couch and pulled my leggings back into place with careful hands, smoothing the fabric the way you handle something delicate and precious. Then he gathered me up in his arms and stood.
“I can walk,” I protested weakly.
“I want to carry you.”
I let him. I let him carry me down the hall to our bedroom and lay me on the bed and pull the covers up around me. I let him undress down to his boxers and climb in beside me, his body warm against mine.
“Stay,” I whispered.
“More than anything in the world,” he said.
We fell asleep wrapped around each other, and for the first time in months, I slept without bracing for the space where he used to not be.