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We stayed just like that afterward, bodies close, heartbeats thrumming. I never wanted to move. But my hips started to hurt enough for me to slide away and fall down beside Cain’s body.

He leaned over to press a soft kiss to my temple before climbing off the bed.

When he came back a couple minutes later, he was fully dressed, but he came back to lie with me, his forehead to mine, his arm draped around me.

Until the sounds in the common room grew louder.

“Sounds like you should head out,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed, but didn’t move, not yet. Not until he heard Fallon trying to be heard over the noise. “That’s my cue. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

With that, he made sure to toss the blankets over me so no one would accidentally see me when he opened the door and headed out.

Alone, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I didn’t realize until my cheeks hurt how wide I was smiling.

I couldn’t remember a time I’d been so happy.

In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so happy before.

It wasn’t even like much had changed in my circumstances. I was still struggling through divorce. I was still without a home that belonged to me. I was still financially struggling.

But I was no longer sweating those things.

I’d figure them out.

Everything would get resolved.

And I’d never get another chance to experience these first days with Cain. So I wasn’t going to let all that other stuff get the better of me. I was going to soak up every drop of pleasure and comfort and joy I could.

Lord knows I deserved it after everything I’d been through.

That thought alone was proof of how much I’d changed since I’d been with Perry.

He’d had me so beaten down that I distinctly remembered thinking that I didn’t deserve any of the things I desired in life. That I was such a disappointment to my husband that I was lucky he didn’t treat me more harshly than he already did.

But at the time, I had such limited exposure to other men and how they treated women that I simply had to believe all the ugly things Perry said to me.

Cain managed to change all of that in such a short amount of time. He was so effortlessly the exact opposite of everything I knew. He cared what I thought, liked, and felt. He wanted not only to protect me, but to take care of me. He took interest in my interests. He thought I was beautiful, and he told me every chance he got. He never made me feel weird about having a second helping at dinner or craving a sweet.

On top of how he cared for me, there were all the things that made him who he was. His maturity. His competence. His ability to work with his hands. He was calm, patient, kind, and observant.

I felt like I needed to pinch myself no fewer than ten times a day. Because it all just seemed too good to be true.

But it was.

And I found myself in private moments thinking about what a future with him could look like.

A cute little house that he’d renovated by hand. Full of warm colors and handmade pottery. A yard full of flowers. A baby or two. Maybe, someday, if I was lucky, my own pottery studio.

Yes, it had been hard to find the strength to leave my old life.

But it was worth everything to be able to dream again. To work toward a new life that would be so much more fulfilling.

I didn’t even bother to get dressed as I listened to the low hum of male voices in the common room, just climbed up to the pillows and waited for Cain to slide in with me after his meeting.

It felt like a lifetime before the door cracked open.

Then there he was.