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Kenna is dozing cuddled up under my arm before all the characters are introduced. I could wake her up, but I’m watching her, the way she’s snoring lightly, her full mouth parted. Her eyelashes fan out over her cheekbones, her eyelids fluttering like she’s dreaming.
My chest feels tight.
I’ve got to end this. I’ve got to get back to what’s important: Maggie and Eli. I can’t lose my heart again. I can tell myself that it’s because of the kids all I want. I can tell myself that I don’t want Kenna to leave and abandon the kids but what I’mreallyafraid of is that I’ll let myself fall and she’ll leaveme.Abandonme.
I can’t handle that again.
So, I let myself watch Kenna sleep, because this is the last few hours we have to pretend.
22
KENNA
I’m sure that Derek has no idea what this means to me. I don’t even know what it means to him. It could mean nothing. It could mean that he’s just giving in for the fun of it, just because he wants my body, not my heart.
I know that I want more. I’ve told him as much, in my own words, but it just now occurs to me that he hasn’t wanted to talk about it.
When I wake up, I’ve shifted to have my head in his lap on the couch and I turn over, smiling, but my smile fades quickly because there’s something different in his face. He doesn’t look carefree like he’s looked all weekend. He doesn’t look...happy. He looks concerned, his expression blank but his brows slightly furrowed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and Derek offers me that charming half smile.
“Nothing at all,” he soothes, smoothing down my hair, leaning down to kiss my forehead. It’s all very sweet and just like he’s been acting all weekend, but something’s changed.
I don’t want it to change. I don’t want anything to change. I sit up, trying not to frown.
What happens now? Is this when we get together? I don’t know how to talk to him about it. I’ve never been in this situation before. I’ve never met a man like him before. I’ve never had to talk about arelationshipand what that means for me or for him.
I feel small and desperate and stupid, but I also feel my heart swell every time he looks at me. I don’t know where to go from here. I open my mouth to ask him – ask him....what?
Before I can ask or stumble over my words or shut my mouth again, whatever I’m about to do, he kisses me, and I forget what I was going to say. I forget everything the second his tongue touches mine, just like always.
Before I know what’s happening, he has me on my back, my ankles at his shoulders, and he’s pressing into me and leaning down to kiss me over and over. And this isn’t different. This part is the same, the way he looks into my eyes. It’s like we’re the only people in the world. Sex can’t always be like this, right? This intense? This...good?
I’ve heard my friends talk about it and it didn’t seem like this.
“Derek,” I gasp out. “Derek, I—”
“Hmm?” he murmurs, looking down at where he’s pumping in and out of me.
I bite my tongue to not tell him that I love him, just sighing out a moan and coming hard around him when he keeps thrusting into me.
“You slept through my favorite movie,” he says after he’s spilled inside of me and we’re lying on the couch, him spooning me, his arms around my waist.
I tuck the back of my head against his shoulder. “Sorry,” I murmur.
The truth is, I’ve been exhausted over the last few weeks. I think it was all the stress from the court and our back and forth. I’m not quite recovered yet. But I don’t want Derek to know that. I don’t want to bother him with it, more like it. I feel like I’m on this precipice with Derek, like if I take a wrong turn, he might run.
It’s strange to think of a strong alpha male like Derek as skittish, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I feel like he is. After all, I have to think about what my aunt did to him. I have to think about how that must have broken him in ways I can’t understand.
“Do you have regrets?” I ask, and I guess I mean, does he regret marrying Aunt Suzanna, but that’s not how he answers.
“Everyone has regrets.”
“You know what I mean,” I hedge.
“Don’t know if I do.” His voice is low and smooth, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I wonder if I’m overthinking this.
