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I angle her face back just a little more and press my lips to hers. She doesn’t fight the kiss, and I count it as a small victory when her fingers tangle in my shirt as she pulls me closer.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve had my mouth on this woman but I know it’s a few billion too few. Given the opportunity, I’ll press my lips to hers every chance she’ll allow it.
When I pull back, I swipe at her wet lips with my thumb.
“I can prove it to you if only you give me the chance,” I vow. “But I need you to work through those doubts right here at the clubhouse. I don’t care if it takes years and years and years for you to realize that you’re the only woman I’ll ever need. Take your time, sweetheart. Just do it in my arms.”
She swallows before she speaks, and I wait for the rejection. It’s dangerous, and although I’m aware of the injuries to her body, I don’t know what the last twelve hours have done to her psyche.
She shakes her head, her mouth closing with no words coming out.
I pull her against my chest, holding her like the precious gift that she is.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my throat.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. We’re whole, sweetheart. We’re whole.”
“We were supposed to be divorced by now,” she says, pushing against my chest and inching back some.
Pain lances through me. “Is that what you want?”
I’ll follow through with nearly anything, so long as she doesn’t leave. Signing a document that legally separates us isn’t going to put an ounce of distance between us.
She bites the corner of her lower lip as she shakes her head.
If she didn’t have a bruise on her stomach, that Slick discovered, and wounds to her face, I’d squeal like a schoolgirl, pick her up, and swing her around in celebration.
“I don’t care how we got started, Beth. Just know that I don’t want it to end. I haven’t wanted it for a second since we got back to Farmington.”
“You might want to work on your sharing skills a little better.”
“I’ll never fucking share—”
She chuckles, and it comes with a wince when she presses her hand to my lips to silence me.
“Your emotion sharing skills you psycho.”
I smile against the press of her finger on my lips.
“Tell me that you’re staying,” I beg, my words a little muffled still. “We’re meant to be together. It’s destiny.”
“Destiny is a lie,” she says, giving me a small, sad smile. “A fabrication in our thoughts.”
I shift my head to the side, making her drop her finger from my mouth.
“Give me a chance to prove that theory wrong?” I ask, kissing her before she can argue her point further.
She doesn’t mention going home again.
There would be no point in it. She’s already there.
Chapter 40
Beth
People prove who they are every day.
They tell of their character in the way they approach other people, and how they act after that person walks away.
It’s almost unheard of for someone to be able to keep up an act, never faltering, day in and day out.
Derrick said he’d prove his love to me, and as skeptical as I was at first, I haven’t once caught him making a face behind my back. I haven’t walked into a room only for conversation to halt because I was the subject they were discussing. There hasn’t been a single slip, not one stutter.
He wakes me every morning with his lips and hands on my body, although it took some time for him to accept that physically I was okay and that he could take me the way I liked.
It’s been weeks, and he hasn’t gone back out into the field yet, despite his team having completed two different missions already without him.
I’ve met Dr. Alverez, the woman he mentioned when I first told him about my diagnosis. She’s nice. Her approach is very similar to Dr. Miller’s, so it's been a smoother transition than I expected it to be. It’s comforting to know that Derrick is also going through some required appointments with the good doctor because, as Kincaid put it, what happened to me also happened to him because of our connection.
I never had someone care enough about me that they might’ve had some trauma just from their connection to me. I mean I’m sure Kalen Alexander back in Lindell has a little trauma from that bridal registry mishap, but I'm not counting that.
The fact of the matter is that life has been good, mostly.
Brielle is here at the clubhouse. She came back with Newton the same night Slick brought me here. I haven't seen her. I'm told she comes out of the room they've put her in once in a while, but it's always at night and only when Newton is around. I don't know what she's going to do when Newton gets the all-clear from the doctor when his wrist heals.
