Page 53 of Axe-identally Married
I found a few stones of my own and threw them into the water in rapid succession. It felt good, the movement, listening to the subsequentplunk. But not as good as standing out here with Willa.
She turned to me, her eyes shining. “So when life feels overwhelming, when it’s too much, I pick up a hunk of granite and throw it into the lake. Because regardless of the problem I’m facing, the world will keep spinning. The rocks will keep eroding as they become grains of sand.”
“Thank you,” I rasped, emotion stinging at my eyes. I wasn’t sure what else to say. This conversation was about a lot more than rocks. She was showing me parts of herself she didn’t normally share.
“Growing and changing is painful. You will look different, think different, be different.”
“Like the granite?” I held up another chunk, this one in shades of brown.
“Exactly. It’s taken many forms during its life. And the world has changed right along with it. Maybe we’re only part way through our journey. Maybe where we end up is miles away from where we started.”
I found myself closing the gap between us and pulling her close.
I was acting on pure instinct, but I had to touch her. To ground myself. To assure myself that this moment was real. Thinking that her explanation hit home for me too. That maybe I was actually ready for it.
She dropped the rock in her hand and looped her arms around my neck.
Nothing had ever felt so right. Holding her, touching her, was what I was made to do. Because she saw me, all my darkness and all my faults, and didn’t flinch. She didn’t push me away.Instead, she’d brought me out into the cold to throw rocks so I’d know I wasn’t alone.
“Cole,” she said softly, looking up at me.
Want and need and some deeper kind of pull were at play, arcing between us.
“I need to kiss you,” I said.
Before I could do it, though, she was pulling me down to meet her lips.
Chapter Eighteen
Willa
Danger.Danger.
Code Red.
Kissing.
Kissing Cole.
Kissing myhusband.
Why did it feel so good? The moment was dreamy. A thrill.
Damn, he was tall. I was on my tiptoes, and he had his massive hands on my hips, and yes.
So.
Much.
Yes.
But also no.
With a hand to his chest, I pushed back, almost gasping for breath. The kiss had shocked me. It was full of so much more passion and desire than the drunken kisses we’d shared in Vegas. And my body had responded on instinct, essentially mounting him on the lakeshore.
Pressing my fingers to my swollen lips, I tipped my head back and assessed him. Like this, in the moonlight, he was sohandsome, his wild hair escaping the hat that I now knew he’d knitted himself.
A slow grin spread across his face as he angled in and pulled me flush against his chest.
