Page 78 of Honeymoon Phase
She pulls back, her chin trembling wildly as her face fills with urgency. “Luke, when Steve died... you called me and said a lot of stuff about everything and I’m not proud, but it triggered me, and I shut down on you. I was suddenly twelve years old again and watching my dad bury my brother. I don’t know when funerals will ever feel okay for me again. But I hate that I wasn’t there for you. You have to know I was thinking of you constantly on that day and many days after. I still think of you constantly. You’re on my mind like... all the time. When I can’t sleep at night, I’m thinking about you as well.” Her face flushes red as she shudders out a garbled breath and wipes aggressively at the tears on her face.
“I’m on your mind all the time?” My brain swims with confusion, wondering what I care more about. Her words or my dad’s. Honestly, they’re both giving me more than my heart can handle.
“Yes. Jesus,” she croaks and sniffs loudly. “This is embarrassing. I don’t know why I’m saying any of this.”
“Hey, Roe. It’s okay.” I tip my hand under her chin, so she looks up at me.
“No, it’s not,” she snaps, pulling away. “I’m being weird. You just shared so much with me and I’m turning this into a me thing and it’s not.” She inhales deeply through her nose, her chin trembling slightly.
“Hey, Roe?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re on my mind all the time too.” My voice is deep and steady as I stare into the depths of her eyes, seeing glimmers of hope that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.
“I am?” She licks her lips and stares back at me with so much emotion, I want to kiss her pain away. She looks like she wants me to kiss the pain away.
I swallow the knot in my throat. “I like thinking about my wife.”
She inhales a shaky breath and closes her eyes. “Is that fact or fiction?”
My lips thin as I gaze back at her. The woman who I would forgive for much worse because I guess that’s what love is. Loving someone through their imperfect moments. “Fact.”
But as she looks up at me all open and vulnerable and admitting how much I’m on her mind, I stop myself from kissing her. Because the next time I kiss her, I need it to be for forever. No more games. No more bullshit. I won’t kiss Addison Monroe until I know she loves me back, because if she doesn’t, there’s no amount of CPR that will be able to heal my broken heart.
Chapter 25
Fact or Fiction?
Blue is my favorite color.
Addison
The sound of Rufus crowing causes me to stir and, as I come to, I frown when I look down to see that I am not in my bed. I am still out in the living room, on the couch... with Luke.
And I’m not just on the couch with Luke.
I’m lying on the couch with Luke and he’s... spooning me.
He’s wrapped up around me, his warm heavy breath in my hair as his hand drapes over my belly like this is the most normal way to sleep. I glance at the clock, wondering when the hell I actually fell asleep. I remember laying my head on Luke’s lap after our emotional confessions. One minute we were talking and the next thing I know, I’m waking up in his arms, feeling more rested than I’ve felt in ages.
For once I didn’t watch every hour on the clock tick by and stress about how few hours I’m going to sleep. I just... slept. I slept with my best friend holding me. And Luke feels... incredible.
I guess a human heated blanket is all I needed to shut my brain off for a while. Or maybe it was me finally playing that voicemail. It was giving me anxiety knowing I had those words from Luke’s dad and not passing them on to him, because he deserved to hear that. He deserved to hear the happiness in that man’s voice, even while dealing with his sons giving him hell. And watching Luke break down while listening to it is something I will never forget. His dad was one of the good ones.
Mine is too for the most part. He made some mistakes to be sure, but he loves me, and he tries to do what’s best for me, which is all I can ask of a man who was suddenly a single dad to a teenage daughter. He stuck around at least, which is more than I can say for my mom.
Luke makes a noise from behind me and my eyes fly wide when he shifts and wiggles into me closer.
Is that...
He moves again behind me, and I audibly gasp when I feel the very obvious, very recognizable, verythicksensation of his erection poking into my ass.
His hand that’s draped over my waist moves downward and I chomp down on my lower lip when his fingers touch the waistband of my shorts, toying with the edge of them.
My knee-jerk reaction should be to push him off me. To grab his wrist and toss it back onto himself. But my body has other ideas. I find my hips tilting upward, ever so slightly, my body quaking with need that only gets worse when his rough hand brushes along my belly.
His hips pulse into my backside again and I slam my eyes shut when a spike of arousal lights off inside of me, sizzling from my core to my limbs, and electrifying me into a delirious, sleepy sort of dreamlike state.
