Finally, he arches his back, pushing his chest against mine while his cock impales me again. This time, he stays deep within my body, pulsing inside. “God, Mona.”
He collapses on top of me, but shifts so his weight is more to the side than directly on me. Our breaths echo in the room, both of us winded. Eventually, we come down off the high of our lovemaking.
Danny pulls out and rolls us over so he’s beneath me. I lay my head on his chest. The strength of his heart thumps in my ear.
“It beats for you, you know.”
I lift my head.
His eyes meet mine, brows drawn together. “It’s true. I’ve loved you since you moved into our guest house, Mo.”
I sit up, nestling between his thighs. “You have not.”
He nods. “Have too. I was just too stupid to do what I had to do to make you mine.”
My chest tingles as I gasp for breath. I grab my dress from the pile of clothes on the floor, sliding it over my head.
I call him on his lie. “Then how could you be with all those other girls?”
He pulls his leg from behind me and stands. Swiping his jeans from the carpet, he puts them on, saying, “Because I’m a fucking idiot. And I thought I could never have you, so I had everyone else.”
My soul wants to believe, but my heart is shaking with the knowledge that doing so could lead to total destruction. I settle on allowing myself to accept that he believes what he’s saying. True or not, maybe he wants it to be.
I stand and move to the center of the room. Time for a change of subject. “So, how’s your Mom holding up? Is she mad at me?”
Danny follows me and loops his arms around me. “Mad at you for what?”
I shrug. “I dunno. Being there for him to video? For being me? I just can’t help but think maybe if I’d done something different—”
He brings my head to his shoulder, wrapping me tight within his hold. “No. Don’t. Don’t ever. This is not, in any way, your fault. This is that sick bastard’s doing. You have nothing to feel bad about or second guess. You hear me?”
I nod, warmth spreading from the center of my soul.
“I love you, babe.” He lays a kiss on my crown.
Danny drops to his knees, presses his ear to my belly, and whispers, “I love you too, baby.”
My hands go to the top of his head as he hugs me close, kissing my tummy all over. When he tilts his his face up, his eyes shine and he grins like he’s been given a gift. A smile creeps over my face unbidden, but tears sting the backs of my eyes.
If only I could trust that he’d always feel that way.
I twist out of his arms and run to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
I hit the lock just as he rattles the handle. “Mo? You okay? Are you sick again?”
Leaning against the counter, I put my hand on the door. “I just need a minute. Actually, I think I just need some time to think. I’m sorry, Danny, but I can’t do this right now. I’m just—”
“I get it. You haven’t decided yet.”
I cup my hand over the baby bump that hasn’t even happened. My lungs seize. Tears stream down my cheeks, though I try to stop them with trembling knuckles.
There are so many words I should say. But all I can do is hunch over the tiny heart beating inside my womb and hold myself together with my own arms.
His voice rasps through the crack between the door and the frame. “I—I just want you to know I’m here. For you and the baby. I’m not running off. I’m not leaving. I’m not going to abandon you. Ever. I want this baby, Mo.”
The silence seeps around the door for the longest time.
After several minutes, he adds, “And I want you. More than anything, I want you.”
I’m helpless. There’s not a thing I can do to make her see I love her. Or to make her trust me. She never answered what I said about leaving her. She didn’t say another word all night.
She stayed holed up as though she couldn’t stand to look at me. I waited outside the bathroom until Slade came home in the wee hours of the morning and asked me to leave.
My heart weighs three tons.
All I want is to take care of her.
Now I lean against a bank of windows.
The construction seems to never end at this airport. Bulldozers push dirt this way and that. Ten men in hard hats stand around in the summer sun, watching one man dig a hole.
Why do they never have ten guys digging the hole? Because a man can dig a hole he can’t get out of all by himself.
I sure as hell did.
All the snubbing my nose at my dad and his fucking rules—except the one rule I should have ignored from the start, no matter the cost. All the girls I paraded in front of Mo, trying to make myself feel better since I couldn’t have her. I used those girls to build walls between me and who I wanted most.