I tilt my head back, and a euphoric laugh rattles my chest. “Oh, you poor baby. Here, let me take care of you.” I climb over him, settling into bed, and he grabs my hips, tugging me against him. His hand comes up and cups my face.
“This is real?” he asks, brushing a thumb across my cheek. A look of uncertainty flashes in the recesses of Liam’s gaze as he searches my face, and my heart turns over at the vulnerability washed all over his features.
“This is real,” I whisper back before crashing into his lips and claiming them for my own as much as he’s ever claimed mine. Electricity arcs between us until we’re nothing but tangled breaths and sizzling body heat. And we stay like that for some time, savoring a lifetime of lost kisses and untold truths.
The problem with endometriosis, nay,oneof the problems with endometriosis, is that endometriosis doesn’t care about anything. It doesn’t care that it’s inconvenient. It doesn’t care that it’s causing you a significant amount of pain every hour of every day or that it’s brought you to your knees both mentally and physically. It doesn’t care who you are. What you do or need to do for a living. And it doesn’t care that you’re in the middle of one of the most spectacular moments in your life—or maybe it does care, and it’s just a bitch. Maybe it’s the Regina George of diseases, who knows? I’ve tried to converse with it on multiple occasions, and all I’ve ever heard back isstabby, stab, stab, stab.
What I do know is that no matter how many times I try to ignore the stabbing pain, the stabbing pain doesn’t seem inclined to ignore me back, and with every pass of Liam’s lips on mine, two facts are becoming more and more apparent.
First, Bridget Jones’s enormous white panties have nothing on me as I am still in the adult version of a diaper.
And second, being turned on freakin’ kills.
Liam rolled me on my back a little while ago, his hand now exploring my body (thankfully over my pants), and with every pass, want and need are punctuated with a pin prick in my vagina. A rash of cramps through my lower half follows—I know what comes next, but I’m desperate to keep this going, the craving to feel his hands on every inch of my body still too strong, no matter what’s going on down below.
Liam slides a hand up my sternum, traveling under my camisole for the first time. A shaky breath rattles my chest at the sensation of his calloused hands rubbing against my skin. “Is this okay?” he whispers. “We can slow down.”
“No, I want you too—” I trail a hand on his bicep, desperate for his lips.
He obliges, pressing his hot mouth against mine, and I’m flushed with need. His hand roams higher, grabbing my breast and running a finger over my nipple.
“God, you’re so perfect,” he says in hushed reverie.
I moan, arching against his touch. The intensity sets everything in my malfunctioning lower half on fire as every muscle I’m in firm possession of down-there spasms. An Excalibur-worthy stab underscores the situation, and I wince.
He freezes. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” I panic, not wanting to ruin this perfect moment.
“You winced.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Evie, I saw you wince.”
“Okay, but to be fair, I wince a lot. So please come back.” I pull him toward my lips, but another spasm grips me, and I tense slightly.
He presses his forehead to mine. His need flushes hard against my thigh. “Let’s take a break, Peaches.”
I nod reluctantly, the pain growing more persistent.
He rolls on his back, running a hand through his hair. “Where’s your heating pad?”
“Couch.”
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he gets up and stumbles out the door with a pained, encumbered gait. I swallow. I can’t pretend to understand what that feels like, but from all accounts I’ve heard, unreleased tension doesn’t feel great.
Yes, yes, in general, I have little sympathy for penis pain, but Liam’s—it’s growing on me, and I don’t like that I’m the one that caused him any kind of discomfort.
He smiles softly at me, re-entering the room, plugging in my heating pad and handing it to me before settling into bed and resting his arm behind his head. He leaves the side where I am open, and I curl up into him, pressing the pad against my abdomen.
“Thank you.” I sigh. My cheek falls against his bare chest, and I graze my fingers over the exposed skin on his stomach, dipping along with the peaks and valleys of his ridges.
“Of course.” He crunches, kissing my forehead. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
He assesses me skeptically, and I sigh in response. Liam being able to read me the way he does might be a problem. “I’ll be okay when the heat kicks in. But it’s not anything to worry about, it’s just my time of the month.”
