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“You want me to get out, Stella?” he asked softly.
My heart broke at his voice, the helplessness in it. Never had I heard Jay sound like that. I rolled over, putting my wine glass down, then I moved to straddle him, positioning him at my entrance. “No, Jay. I want you in.” As I guided him inside of me, we both inhaled sharply. My body was tender, delightfully so. I moved slowly. “I want inside you and your life.”
He lifted up so our torsos were pressed together, forcing him deeper. “You may come to regret that, pet.”
“No,” I murmured, kissing him. “Never. Till death, remember?”
We made love until the sun came up and the darkness stole away the last of our perfect honeymoon.
Perfection would be lost for us for a long time after.
Chapter 14
Three Weeks Later
I was an idiot.
Living in Jay’s dark and dangerous world, I’d thought I knew it all. Thought I understood the risks, the ugliness of it all. I’d seen enough of it, hadn’t I? Yes, I knew the reality. I knew that I lived in his world, that the shadows of it fell upon me every now and then. But I thought I was ... protected. Jay certainly didn’t need to protect me from himself, but he would’ve died before he let his world touch me. Let it mark me.
Maybe we had both been idiots.
Because there was no way for me to be married to one of the kings of the underworld without bearing some of the scars he did. This world was all sharp edges, so every single time I came in contact with it, it drew blood. Sometimes it scratched. Other times it scarred.
This was a time when it scarred. When it hit bone.
Wren and I were out shopping. Which had been the norm, even before all of this. All of this being both of us falling for very complicated, dangerous and powerful men. Before one of us got married to one while the other got impregnated by the other.
Which naturally was even more of a reason to shop.
We had bought a lot. Well, Wren had bought a lot. She was five months pregnant, although she barely looked it. She was wearing a skin-tight, grey tank dress, and there was only the slightest bump. If you didn’t know any better, you might’ve thought she’d just had a big lunch. She was glowing. Her feet hadn’t swelled. No morning sickness—except for a few short bouts at night. No hormonal acne. Nothing like all the books I’d read talked about. She hadn’t read the books. I had because I knew she wouldn’t. Because I wanted to support my friend. Because in my hopeful heart, I thought I might need to know some of this stuff soon.
Although I was happy with Jay, deliriously so, every time I got my period, my heart dropped. Disappointment was a stone in my stomach, getting heavier and heavier with each passing month.
I wanted to be a mother.
Desperately. More desperately than I’d thought I did, actually. Before I fell in love with Jay, I’d liked the idea of kids. Known I wanted one or two eventually. But there hadn’t been a burning need to find the father to my children. No ticking biological clock. None of that empty uterus feeling. I hadn’t even totally married the idea of procreating. Especially with my mother’s past and the possibility of either turning into her or passing the trait on to my child.
Being a mother had always been at the back of my mind, but I’d figured I’d put some serious thought in to it once I was in a relationship with a man I visualized a future with. But now it was something at the forefront of my mind, especially since I was allowed to visualize a future with Jay. Not just visualize but actively live out that future.
So now I was turning in to that woman I’d never ever thought I’d be. The slightly baby crazy, empty-wombed woman who had an entire saved—and secret—folder on her phone with nursey designs and baby clothes.
At least that secret folder had a use for Wren. She had started buying things the second she’d stopped freaking out about the pregnancy, shed away her fears and in true Wren style, had thrown herself right in to it. She hadn’t waited the obligatory three months to tell anyone because that was Wren. She was happy and didn’t see any reason to pause or wait. She was all in.
I liked seeing her like this. Glowing. In love. Without the complications of Karson’s lifestyle bouncing off her expensively moisturized and scar-free skin. I didn’t know how much Karson had told her. We didn’t speak in specifics about the nature of our men’s business—whether each of us didn’t want to endanger the other with information we weren’t supposed to have or because we didn’t want to taint our relationship with the darkness that we’d let into our hearts, I didn’t know.
