Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Christine
I’m breathing like I ran here, like something chased me into this moment and hasn’t let go yet.
My chest rises too fast, my lungs struggling even though nothing is moving anymore.
He hasn’t let go of me, his hands are still on my face, still holding me there like he’s making sure I don’t take it back.
I wait for a reaction, a question, anger, or relief.
Anything.
This is the moment I’ve replayed too many times to count.
I’ve had different versions of it. Better ones. Worse ones.
In some, he walks away.
In others, he demands everything.
In none of them does he stand there like this.
Silent, looking at me like he’s trying to see past what I’ve said into something deeper, something that doesn’t change depending on what I choose to admit.
It feels different.
Real in a way I didn’t prepare for.
“Say something,” I whisper, because the quiet is biting in now.
His gaze doesn’t shift or soften. Doesn’t harden either. It just stays on me, locked, like he’s processing something.
“Fuck.” He lets go abruptly, his hands dropping from my face as if the contact burned him.
He turns away before I can respond, before I can read anything else in his expression, his back to me as he takes a step toward the door.
Then another.
He’s done. He’s walking out of this the same way he walked into everything else, on his terms.
Something in me snaps.
“Robert…” I move after him, closing the space before just as he steps out of the door, my hand catching the back of his jacket, fingers curling into the fabric, pulling just enough to stop him.
He halts.
“Don’t,” I bite out, my voice lower now but still bristling. “Don’t do that.”
He doesn’t turn immediately, but he stays still. Planted in place.
I close the door behind me.
“I just told you the truth,” I continue, my fingers clenching around his jacket. “Don’t you want…”
He turns quickly, and my grip slips. Whatever I was about to say stops.
“What do you want me to say?” He asks, his voice slicing like a chainsaw through wood. “That I’m grateful you decided to tell me now?”
“You think this was easy?” I fire back, keeping my voice down because of the room behind us, because Blue is right there, sleeping through something that could change everything for her. “You think I woke up one day and decided to keep your child from you for fun?”
“That’s exactly what you did.” His eyes darken.
“I didn’t even know how to process what happened back then,” I snap, my voice still hushed but cutting now. “You think I was in a place to come find you and say what? That I was pregnant with a man I barely understood?”
“You understood enough.”
“That’s not fair.” I shoot back.
“Neither is this.”
I shake my head slightly, my hands balling into fists.
“How dare you act like I made this choice lightly?” I want to punch or scratch something, but I do neither. “I was alone, Robert. Completely alone. I had to figure everything out without you.”
“And I didn’t get the chance to be there,” he shoots back, the stiffness in his voice cracking just slightly. “That wasn’t your decision to make on your own.”
“I didn’t have you,” I push. “That night didn’t come with a promise. It didn’t come with anything I could hold onto and say you’d be there if I called.”
He exhales, dragging a hand over his face like he’s trying to reset his mind.
“That doesn’t mean you had to erase me from it.”
“I didn’t erase you,” I counter quickly. “You weren’t part of that because you weren’t there.”
Silence drops for half a second.
“I could have been, Christine,” he breathes, his eyes flickering to reveal what I’ve been missing. Fear. “And… now, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with that.”
I swallow, my gaze sweeping past him for a second before I force it back to him.
“You think I do?” I ask, softer now. “You think I’ve had this all figured out?”
He watches me, and for the first time since this started, there’s something else in his expression. It’s not anger. It’s not an accusation either. It’s closer to… uncertainty.
“Are you…” My voice cracks. “Are you scared?”
“Bloody hell, I am.” He doesn’t miss a beat.
A door creaks open behind us and we both turn in its direction.
Aisha is already halfway into the hallway, her eyes moving between us once, taking in the tension, and the volume we’re barely holding down.
“Take it somewhere else.” She tssks, unimpressed. “Some of us would like to sleep without front-row seats to whatever this is.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, throwing a hand dismissively in the air, and she disappears into her room, the door clicking shut behind her like an exclamation mark.
“Come with me.” I look back at him.
I reach for him again, this time, my hand finding his jacket with purpose, my fingers curling into the fabric as I pull.
I turn, leading him down the short hallway, the distance between us closing again whether either of us is ready for it or not.
I open my door and step inside, pulling him in with me.
I start pacing, letting go of his jacket.
The room suddenly feels too small, the air too thick, like everything we left unsaid out there followed us in and is now choking me.
Robert doesn’t follow my madness. He just stands there watching me. But with the way his brows pull together and his lips thin, I know he’s thinking. Hard.
“What are we going to do?” He asks, the confusion and fight draining out of him.
“What?” I scoff, pausing to check if he’s really asking me that question.
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know!” I snap before I can put a leash on my tongue, my voice rising despite everything in me telling me to keep it down.
“I don’t know, okay?” I start pacing again.
“I didn’t think…” I stop, shaking my head, my hands lifting like I can physically push the thought away.
“I didn’t think you would ever show up.”
My chest cramps, something like claws digging into my heart.
“And then you just…” I let out a breath that doesn’t go anywhere, my lungs not cooperating, my body suddenly out of sync with everything else. “You just show up. Like this. Like you can just step into something that’s been my life for years and ask me what we’re going to do…”
My breath stutters. It stops. Starts again, jams, shallow, my chest heaving too quickly now, my fingers biting into my ribs to force it to slow down.
I hate this.
I hate that it’s happening in front of him.
This started after I had Blue, one of those strange, cruel perks that came with motherhood.
The first time it happened, she had slept six straight hours, and instead of relief, panic took over. I woke up convinced something was wrong, my heart racing before I even made it to her crib.
“Christine.” His voice wades through it.
Closer.
I don’t realize he’s moved until his hands are on me, one at my arm, the other coming up just enough to help me without trapping me.
“Breathe.”
I try, but it doesn’t work.
“Look at me.”
I do, because I have to. Because there’s something in his voice that doesn’t leave room for anything else.
“In,” he tells me quietly.
And I inhale a little too fast.
“Slowly.” He chides softly.
I nod, trying again, and this time it works.
“Out.”
The air leaves me, shaky, but it leaves.
“Again.”
This time, we do it together, over and over again until my chest stops fighting me. Until the panic loosens its grip just enough for me to feel like I’m back inside my own body.
My shoulders drop slightly, my breathing stabilizing.
And I hate how much I needed that.
“We’ll figure it out.” His hand slides a little higher, resting at my shoulder now, not holding me in place, but just… there.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
His other hand comes up, brushing lightly against my temple before he leans in, pressing a kiss to my forehead. It lingers a second longer than it should.
“We will figure it out.” He presses another kiss.
This time, my eyes close before I can stop them, my body going still in a way that has nothing to do with panic this time.
Another kiss to the side of my forehead. Then dragging to my temple. Then sliding down to my cheek.
Each one slower than the last, like he’s not rushing toward anything, just… moving.
Until he isn’t. Until there’s nowhere else for it to go but… My lips.
The contact is light at first. Almost testing. More like a question neither of us asks out loud but we both have the answers to.
My mouth parts, and I breathe him in, catching on the freshness of his breath.
That’s all it takes.
The kiss deepens, his hand clipping at my shoulder, the other sliding to the back of my neck, holding me there as the space between us disappears completely.
And just like that, everything else fades.
The argument, the fear, the questions waiting on the other side of this. All of it pushed aside by something hotter. Hungrier. Something that doesn’t wait to be resolved before it takes what it wants.
And it is good. This is where I go when there’s nowhere else to go.
Tongues on tongue, messy, consuming. Arousal stirring in my loins, rising fast, too fast, my body clenching around it like it doesn’t know what to do with how much it wants.
Everything feels too sensitive, a tender ache that borders on pain.
My nipples harden, begging… no, demanding to be touched, bitten, squeezed. My sex throbs, swollen, wet, aching to be filled, to be taken, to be invaded.
He groans into my mouth, the sound rough, dragged from somewhere deep as I press into him, feeling the hard, unyielding press of his cock against me.
One second we’re standing, the next we’re moving, hands everywhere and nowhere at once, trying to hold and to pull closer.
My fingers catch his jacket first, fumble, miss the buttons, then find it again.
He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh against my mouth, rough, like even this, this mess of hands and urgency gets to him.
“Hold on…” he drawls, not pulling away, but enough to tug it off himself, the fabric dragging against my arms as it slips free and drops somewhere behind us.