Page 116 of Bound Lives
I shake.
His eyes are closed, his teeth clenched, and still he’s inside me, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…
For a long beat, we just breathe. His forehead drops to my shoulder. I slide my hands up his back.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want to think. My heart is still sprinting. My legs shake. My brain tries again to serve up things that could ruin this—his trauma, mine, medical school, the seminar—but I force myself to keep them at bay.
Eventually he lifts his head and looks at me. “Damn.”
I nod. “You said it.”
On the rug, Zach lifts his head, gives us a canine look that seems to say finally, and thumps his tail.
I laugh, and the sound comes out shaky and new.
We end up on the couch because the table seems like it needs a minute. Still naked, I tuck my feet under me and pull a blanket across my lap. He sits at the other end like he’s trying not to crowd me but then pulls me in anyway. I let him.
“Tabitha,” he says quietly. “There’s one thing I have to?—”
“Don’t ruin it,” I hear myself say.
He nods, swallows. “Okay.” He hugs me close.
For the first time in weeks, my head goes quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat without dread layering over it. The attack seems like a mountain I may actually be able to climb. The seminar stops looming like a cliff. The man Henry killed is still in the room—that will never change—but I think he believes he’ll be whole again.
“For the record,” he says in my ear, “if you ever tell me you want slow, I’m going to be very bad at pretending I don’t remember this.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I murmur into his shoulder. “I asked you not to hold back. You listened.”
“Only thing I’ve ever been good at listening to,” he says.
His mouth finds my hair. I close my eyes. Let my body settle.
Later—maybe in five minutes, maybe in an hour—I’ll pack up and get on the road.
Later.
Right now I want to see and enjoy the ache between my thighs.
“Mine,” he whispers against my temple. “Always were.”
The word lands in the place that’s been empty since the wedding and fills it like light.
It’s not a confession of love, but it’s enough.
For now.
Thirty-Four
Henry
Day four after Ralph. Or five. The calendar on the wall says one thing, but my head says another.
Time got bent where the bullet went through it.
Zach knows before I do. He paces the hall and then plants himself in the doorway like a bouncer, his eyes tracking my hands, my breath, the drift of me from room to room. He won’t let me shower without staring at the curtain. He won’t let me sleep without pressing his spine to mine.
Coffee goes cold. I reheat it. Forget I did. Drink it anyway. Grounds collect like grit at the bottom.
