Page 233 of Seizing Control: Part One

A new normal.

A better normal.

After letting go of my gun, I carefully edge my phone under my pillow. Zeke is exploring my bedroom, and it gives me the chance I need to steady my breath and feign sleep. I do my best to remain still when my first love starts undressing. With every sound, the zipper on his boots, the buckle of his belt, the hushed friction as he slides his clothes off.

I count in my head, keeping my breathing light and rhythmical when he climbs under the covers. It is next to impossible to stop from flinching as Zeke slides in behind me. Somehow I manage. He spoons me, his arm heavy on my waist. I fill my lungs with his familiar scent.

There is a moment where he stiffens.

My heart screams for him to speak.

Like he can read my mind, Zeke croons, “Jesus, sweet thing.” His voice is different, deeper and raspier, with a more deliberate cadence. “So ripe, Lily.” As my first love’s hands roam my belly, then my sensitive breasts, he presses his face into my hair. I keep my eyes shut and my body limp, despite the exhilaration I feel at having him hold me again. “A damn goddess.”

It is beyond a dream to hear the awe in his voice.

I whimper.

Zeke clutches me harder.

Treats me like I’m precious.

Holds me as if I’m his gravity.

When the urge to touch him becomes too much, I turn over in his arms and bury my face in the crook of his neck. Like a symphony, his hand grips my nape at the same time as I hook my leg over his hip. This is a dance we’ve done too many times before, a synchronised joining that is second nature.

Every inhale I make fills my lungs with his cologne.

A shudder runs through me.

“You smell like home,” I murmur.

Expecting Zeke to freeze, to freak out and try to leave because I spoke, I’m pleasantly surprised when he simply tightens his embrace, then palms my bare arse cheek with his free hand. I have taken to wearing skimpy nightdresses to bed. The need to pee two or three times a night was my excuse to go shopping with Nadia and Delia, but the real reason was a lot more selfish.

I wanted to look good when he returned.

My usual sleep shorts and tank are too constricting.

Slash’s t-shirts send the wrong message.

If one of the other’s caught me in one of Zeke’s old shirts, they’d look at me with pity.

Buying new sleepwear, satin nighties with lace accents, was a compromise.

“You are my home, metukà shelì.”

Hearing Zeke’s Hebrew term of endearment makes me cry. I haven’t heard it in so long that I can’t stop myself from reacting. Tears stream down my face, dampening his neck, as I blubber like a baby. My hands find their way into his hair, the shorter tresses a rude shock. I used to be able run my fingers through his longer locks, now he’s sporting short, back, and sides like the lawyers I work with.

Dragging my fingernails over his scalp, I fight the need to break his skin.

I want to keep him with me.

Make him bleed.

Peel his skin from his bones.

Force him into submission.

Anything to stop him from completely deserting me again.

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