Page 100 of Fearlessly Us

I love you, I say with every stroke of my hand over her hair and down her back.

You’re mine, I try to convey every time I tighten my arms around her, holding her to me in an unspoken promise never to let go.

You’re safe right here with me, I whisper with every press of my lips to her skin.

And when her tears slow, her body no longer shaking, she tips her head up, eyes puffy and cheeks flushed with the effort of her crying jag. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and the wave of possession and tenderness that sweeps through me is fierce as I cup her face in my hands, using my thumbs to wipe away the lingering tears, pressing my lips to her forehead one more time and breathing her in.

Mine.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, leaning her forehead against mine. “Crying after sex is really fucking weird.”

“No, baby,” I say, tipping her chin up with my thumbs so she’s looking at me. “Don’t apologize. Not to me and definitely not for this. You had an emotional day, and what just happened between us was intense. You put every feeling you have right here with me. Safe, remember?” I say quietly, pressing kisses to her cheeks, and this time, I say the words out loud. “You’re safe right here with me.”

Caitlin exhales a shuddery breath, and I can feel her muscles uncoil, the way she gives herself over to the comfort I’m desperate to provide. “It’s stupid,” she says with a shrug, relaxing into the circle of my arms. “The doctor didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Or, at least, anything I didn’t already suspect and what she had already all but confirmed. Endometriosis. Stage three. The details are less important right now, but basically, I had organs attached to each other where they definitely shouldn’t have been and scar tissue in places scar tissue absolutely shouldn’t be. The surgeon cleaned up as much of it as she should, but surgery isn’t a cure, and since no cure exists, it’s going to come back at some point, and I’ll have to do this all over again. Another surgery. Another recovery. And as a fun little bonus, an ultrasound confirmed I have something else called adenomyosis which is why I bleed so much, so frequently.”

Caitlin sits up, turning to face me, eyes desperately sad. “I thought it would be a relief to know for sure,” she says quietly. “I’ve had doctors dismissing my pain since I was a teenager, making me think I was the crazy one, like feeling this way is the cost of existing as a person with a uterus. They said I should have been able to handle it like everyone else does, and I believed them, even though I knew nothing about the way I felt was normal. And now I know. I know it wasn’t normal. I know I wasn’t making it up in my head. I know it was real. It was real,” she says forcefully, her fingers curling tightly around mine. “It is real. I have the pathology results to prove it, but nothing about it is a relief. A chronic disease, the doctor called it. Something I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life in one way or another. If I ever want to get pregnant one day, I’ll probably need expensive and painful fertility treatments to do it, and even then, there’s no guarantee it’ll work. A hysterectomy can take care of the bleeding, so, add that to the list of surgeries that may be in my future, but even that won’t fix the fact that my uterine tissue likes to grow in places it doesn’t belong. It’ll keep doing that for a long fucking time unless they also take my ovaries to stop my body from producing estrogen, which means I could be looking at hormone replacement therapy since then I’ll be in menopause and who wants to go through that at twenty-seven?”

Caitlin blows out a breath, wrapping the blanket tighter around her. “I’m not relieved. I’m just tired. I’m so fucking tired, and I have no idea what to do next. Maybe laying all this right at your feet is too much, but I sobbed all over you after the best sex ever, so I thought maybe you had a right to know where my head is.”

Reaching out, I tug Caitlin back between my legs and wrap my arms around her, soaking in the comfort of having her close. “Best sex ever, huh?” I ask, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She laughs, settling deeper into my hold. “You were there. You know what that was.”

I close my eyes, breathing her in again, unable to get enough. “I think that was you showing me your whole self, scars and all, asking me to see you. To take you as you are. To love you.”

Caitlin stills in my arms as she absorbs those last words, tipping her head up to look at me. “And…do you?” she asks, the undeniable hope in her voice cracking my chest wide open.

“I do.” I shift so she’s sitting on my lap, straddling me so we’re face to face, and I settle my hands on the sides of her neck. “I see you, Caitlin. I see your courage and your tenacity and your big, beautiful heart. The way you care so well for your family and your friends and everyone you love. The way you’ve brightened my world, bathed it in light when for years I’ve been existing in darkness. How you gave me a second chance when I didn’t deserve one, and every day since has been the best day of my life because I get to spend it with you. So, do I take you as you are? Yeah, baby. You are exactly, perfectly mine, just like this.”

Moving deliberately, I slide a hand from her neck to rest against her belly, right over her scars, with my eyes steady on hers. “Exactly as you are, the same way you take me. Scars and all.” My voice breaks a little on the last word, but I swallow down the emotion so I can say this next thing. The most important thing. “And do I love you?” I bring my hand back up to cup her cheek, stroking my thumb over her jaw. “More than life, Catie. I love you more than life. It’s wild and unhinged and soft and steady. It’s everything I didn’t think I would ever get to have and it’s also the most perfect thing in my life. It fills up every part of me and leaves me wondering how I lived without you for so long because I know without one single doubt that I never, ever want to live without you again. My girl,” I murmur, bringing my lips to hers, kissing her like she’s the air I need to breathe. Like no part of me exists without her.

“I love you too,” Caitlin says, her voice thick with unshed tears. “I love you so much, and I didn’t think I would ever get to feel like this either. I told you once before that I think I was waiting for you, and now I know it for sure. There is no one for me but you, Drew.” Caitlin bites her lip, hesitating, like there’s more she wants to say and I wait, my heart racing at her confession, and the joy that rushes through me the most potent magic I’ve ever felt.

“Tell me,” I say quietly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Whatever is in your head. I want all your thoughts.”

Caitlin takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I wasn’t exaggerating before, about the way endometriosis impacts fertility. I’ve never been sure I wanted kids of my own.” She shakes her head, laughing a little. “I don’t know why I qualify it like that. How I learned to do it. The patriarchy, probably, and the message that you’re somehow less of a woman if motherhood isn’t something you strive for. I shouldn’t qualify it though, because the way I feel isn’t qualified at all. I’ve never wanted kids of my own. I know that might sound weird considering the family I grew up in, but being a mom has never been something that particularly interested me, so for me, the complicated fertility aspects of all this are whatever. But if having a family is something you want, we should probably have that discussion.”

I shake my head, pressing my forehead to hers, love for her expanding in my chest—all my empty spaces filled with her. “I will have a family. I do have a family, because I have you.” Easing back, I lock eyes with her, hoping she sees the sincerity of my words. “You’re my family, Caitlin. You’re my home. We could live anywhere. Do anything. Fill whatever house we live in with a hundred kids or none at all. We can get a dog or a cat or an aquarium full of tropical fish or one of those pink salamander things with the funny, feathery gills and smirky smiles or two of them so they can have a friend. We can travel and see the world or stay right here in this city of ours and eat sourdough on the couch while we watch every spy movie ever made. The only thing that matters is that whatever we do, I get to do it with you. We get to do it with each other. Belong to each other.”

I take Caitlin’s hand and flatten it against my chest, laying my hand over hers and letting her feel the steady beat of my heart. “I belong to you, Catie. I’m yours. Body and heart and fucking soul. Anything you need, I’ll give it to you. Whatever you have to do to stay healthy and comfortable and as pain free as possible, I’ll be by your side every step of the way. We belong to each other now,” I repeat. “The rest is just details.”

Caitlin huffs out a laugh, a tear sliding down her cheek. I lean in and kiss it away. “They’re pretty important details.”

“They are,” I agree, smoothing her hair back behind her ears and adjusting the blanket around her so she stays warm. “But no matter what they are, we’re going to figure them out together.”

“Together,” Caitlin says slowly, like she’s trying on the word for size.

I nod. “Together.”

She smiles, fitting her body against mine again so we’re wrapped up in each other, sharing space and breath and the beat of our hearts, and says, quietly, “That sounds perfect.”

And with my favorite person in the world in my lap, my arms tight around her, it’s the most perfect moment there ever was.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CAITLIN

The whimper wakes me from the deepest sleep, yanking me back into consciousness so quickly I wonder if maybe it’s a dream. But a second later the covers shift, the same pained whimper that woke me falling from Drew’s lips. My eyes adjust to the darkness just enough to see his hands clenching into fists and then unclenching in rapid succession, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his head thrashing on the pillow like he’s looking for something without being able to see.