Chapter 31
Back in the car, I slump against the passenger seat, wondering if I can even stay awake all the way to Blossom Park.
Then I check on Wes, who is putting on his seat belt. He looks just as tired. Slightly pale. And utterly silent. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? Because tonight has been a lot.” I gesture toward a mid-level chain hotel across the large road from the hospital lot. “We could get a room there.” Then, because I don’t want to be misunderstood, I add, “Just to sleep.”
He looks from me to the hotel and then back again. “Okay. That’s probably a good idea. You look like you’re about to drop, and I feel the same way.”
“Okay then. Let’s get a room.”
The hotel room is clean and generic with one large king-size bed.
I don’t care about the bed situation. As soon as we get up to the room, it feels like I can barely stay on my feet. So I go to the bathroom, wash my hands and face, take off everything except my panties and the camisole I wore beneath my top, and climb into bed.
Wes has been as quiet as he was all evening as he waits for me to finish in the bathroom. Then he takes a shower and comes out in his boxer briefs and an undershirt.
I’ve left his lamp on so I can see him as he walks around the bed and sits down, breathing a few times before he climbs under the covers beside me.
He turns in my direction, so our eyes meet before he turns off the light. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No. I think so. I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either.” He makes a soft, rough sound and reaches for me. Pulls me into his arms. “I don’t know anything.”
“Me either.” I sigh in relief as I snuggle against him and feel safe—right—for the first time since we returned from our honeymoon.
“I’m sorry it’s turned into such a mess.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s partly my fault.”
“Well, yeah. But it’s also partly mine. I don’t know. We were stupid to think we could get through with The Plan without getting things messed up between us.”
“I guess.” He adjusts me against him, moving us into a more comfortable position. His arms are still holding me tight. “It did help Blossom Park though.”
“It did. It saved us. I wish things didn’t feel like this between us now, but I still can’t really regret that we tried.”
“I know. I feel the same.”
We’re silent for a long time, holding each other under the covers of the dark hotel room. I’ve never understood until right now what it means to take comfort and strength from someone else’s body, but that’s exactly what I’m getting from Wes right now.
I need it, and he’s giving it to me.
I hope I’m giving him the same thing.
Because I want to.
I want this to be reciprocal. I want to give him exactly what he needs.
And I want to keep giving it to him for the rest of our lives.
After a long time, he finally loosens his arms and moves back enough to cup my face with one of his hands. “Okay. Tell me the truth, Ella. What do you want to happen now?”
I know what I want. At last.
I’m absolutely certain.
I knew it for sure when I saw him run toward the burning car and save the life of a stranger.
Not that the one action changed who he is. Rather, it confirmed what I already knew.
The man he is. Not the weird little nerd of our childhood but also partly that boy. A whole man—a warm and clever and funny and generous and kind and brave and selfless man.
A man with such a big heart.
I want that heart to be mine.
Forever.
I want this marriage to be real.
I’m about to blurt it out—because that’s what I always do when the anxious swirling of my emotions finally rises too high to contain.
But in that moment, I remember that hayride when I blurted out the truth after so much anxious emotional swirling.
It was horrible.
It might have been the truth, but it didn’t fix anything. It made everything worse.
Because the truth of my heart doesn’t matter unless it matches the truth of his.
And I still don’t know his.
He’s never spoken it.
“Wh-what do you want?” I manage to choke out instead of the truth that really wants saying.
He blinks at me in the dark, his expression unreadable. “Tell me what you want, Ella.”
I try, but now I can’t say it. The storm of feeling inside me pushes me to something else.
I grab for his head. Draw it toward me until our mouths are a breath apart. Then I kiss him—hard and needy. Hot and hungry.
A physical expression of the truth I simply can’t speak.
He’s surprised at first, but it only lasts a few seconds. Then he groans into my mouth and kisses me back so urgently he pushes me over onto my back and moves on top of me.
I love it. Love the passionate working of his mouth, the weight of his warm body, the neediness radiating off him.
Like he’s sucking in air or assuaging deep thirst. Like I’m the only thing in the world that he truly yearns for.
We kiss like that for a long time, rocking together as our urgency grows. Then he finally breaks away from my mouth to drop kisses all over my face, murmuring, “Ella, baby, Ella” between each press of his lips.
I moan and arch with the pleasure of it—emotional even more than physical—and he kisses his way down my body to tease my breasts through the thin fabric of my camisole. And then kisses my belly and lower to my little white panties.
He breathes deeply, like he’s smelling me, and nuzzles me there. I gasp and squirm. Then I cry out as he parts my folds through the damp fabric and then darts his tongue out in hard jabs at my clit.
An orgasm breaks hard and unexpected. I shake through the pulses of pleasure. Then he draws my underwear off as I pull my camisole over my head. I work on his T-shirt, and he drags off his boxers.
Then he’s between my legs, edging his erection in at my entrance. Pushing all the way inside me as my inner walls soften and cling to the penetration.
“Ella, baby,” he breathes out as he slides all the way home.
I’ve bent my legs on either side of his hips, and I’m clutching at his back in my eagerness. “Wes, please.”
“This is what you want, baby?”
“Yes! Yes, I want it.”
He groans and starts to thrust. “Me too. Baby, me too.”
His body is hot and growing hotter, and every muscle I can feel is tense. But that’s how I feel too. My body is tightening, preparing, already rocking rhythmically against his thrusts, instinctively working up toward the release I desperately need.
Our lovemaking isn’t fun or creative or lingering the way it was on our honeymoon. It’s breathless and urgent and nakedly needy.
It’s us—stripped bare of everything that’s always been masking us, hiding us.
We move together with a rough sort of rhythm, accelerating until the entire bed is squeaking loud.
Then a climax breaks inside me. My spasming inner muscles squeeze around his erection as my body shudders with pleasure.
It’s too much for Wes. He lets out a loud, hoarse sound as he comes too, ejaculating inside me in hard spurts that match the jerks of his hips.
He collapses on top of me after he’s finished, and I wrap my arms and my legs around him.
I squeeze him. Don’t want to let him go.
“Baby,” he murmurs thickly, his face against the crook of my neck.
And it’s enough.
I’m with him again.
For real.
All the way.