Page 133 of Offside Angel

“I don’t want another version of our relationship. I don’t wish we were different people who met in a different way. I don’t—” He twitches inside of me, and I hate myself a little bit for stopping us. “I want everything in our lives to matter. Because it does matter.”

His lips linger along my jaw. Goosebumps zip down my neck. “I know it does. But not right now.”

“Yes, right now. Always. It all matters. If everything had been perfect—my childhood, your past—we still could have found each other, but I think—” I adjust myself on the side of the pool, accidentally drawing him deeper inside of me. “It means so much more that we found each other despite everything.”

I grab his face, forcing his eyes to mine. “I want you to know right now that I don’t have any regrets, Zane. About anything. I’m glad we decided loving each other was more important than anything else. My one truth is that I’m so happy that we got married and are trying to make a baby and are building our life together, even while someone else is threatening to tear it down.”

His eyes are locked on mine, wide and clear, and finally, he knows exactly what I mean. I see it in the flare of his pupils, the slight curve of his lips.

He presses into me again, and I sink against him. It’s a slow push and pull. We’re moving so carefully that the surface of the water stays still. The night is quiet. It’s just our breathing and the press of our bodies and his eyes looking into mine, and it’s all so fucking perfect that I snap.

My orgasm builds and swells until I’m clinging to Zane with both arms.

Until I drop my head to his shoulder and take a bite out of his neck to keep from crying out.

Only when I’m trembling from the comedown does Zane pick up the pace. Finally, he lifts my legs higher around his hips and drives into me. We crash together under the water again and again until he suddenly spins us around and sits on the bench that runs around the edge of the pool so I’m straddling him.

I sink all the way against him, and Zane is gone.

He buries his face against my chest while he spills into me.

I curl my fingers through the damp hair at the back of his neck as we both sigh and settle down. “I hope this is it,” I murmur.

His eyes are glazed when he lifts his head. “What?”

“I hope we just made a baby.”

He’s still inside of me, and he rocks our bodies together. “Keep talking like that and I’ll make sure it happens tonight.”

“I don’t know what time it is, but I’m not tired at all,” I admit. “I want to enjoy every second of tonight with you.”

His thumb brushes along my jawline. “Every second of tonight and every other night, it matters. They all matter. You matter, Mira. Always.”

51

MIRA

When the door at the end of the hall squeaks open, I pause the TV.

Ten seconds later, there are shuffling steps behind me. I spin around to look over the back of the couch, but there’s no one there.

Still, I know exactly who it is.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I warn.

Finally, a little head pokes around the corner. When Aiden knows he’s caught, he slumps out from his hiding spot. His pajamas are covered in wooly mammoths and dodo birds and dinosaurs. The shirt says, “Going to bed extincts.”

Aiden hugs his stuffed Spiderman toy to his chest and juts his lower lip out. “But I want to see my daddy.”

My heart tugs even as I get up to lead him back down the hall to bed.

“I know, bud. And I promise you will… in the morning. Daddy is going to get home too late tonight.”

Honestly, it won’t be much longer now. Aiden has been getting out of bed every thirty minutes or so since I laid him down three hours ago.

“Where is he again?”

It’s been the same question every night for the last four nights. It’s the longest either of us have been without Zane, so I can’t even blame him.

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