Page 88 of Sanctuary

I set down my hairbrush and crawl over to nestle at his side, pleased when he puts his arm around me and draws me even closer. “I know that feeling. It was pretty much the same with me, except it felt like a heavy weight rather than a tight knot.”

He kisses my hair a few times. “Even after we got together, that knot didn’t go away. I think that’s why I was so… desperate to keep you that I lied and tried to hide what I was doing.”

“I know. I get it. You don’t have to apologize for that again. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Yes. I know you did. And I’m not really apologizing. More reflecting. It didn’t hit me until this evening. And I realize that the knot is…” He shakes his head. “It’s gone. Not that I never feel it, but it’s not there all the time anymore.”

I turn my body and stretch up so I can kiss his mouth. “Good.”

He responds to my kiss, cupping one of my cheeks. “What about your weight?”

“It’s a lot lighter,” I tell him honestly. “Sometimes I feel it more than others. Whenever I think about Del and Cole’s baby…” My throat tightens as I think about Del, who is currently late in her pregnancy. She and Cole got married in the early spring in the dress I gave her—just in time because not long after her belly wouldn’t have fit in it. “Of course I’m happy for them. I can’t wait to meet our niece or nephew. But I feel that weight more when I think about it. Someone else to take care of. To keep alive. And someone so entirely vulnerable.”

“She’s been quite healthy so far,” Aidan murmurs. “There’s no reason to assume she won’t do fine during the birth and both her and the baby will be well.”

“I know. But it scares me anyway.” I smile and rub my face in his shirt. “Why can’t people stay in a nice safe bubble where I can make sure they’re always okay?”

Aidan chuckles. “That would be convenient, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Well, at least you no longer have to carry that weight alone.”

The words are fond and light, but the truth of them startles me. Touches me. My eyes burn slightly as I process them. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

He sees my emotional response. Raises my face so he can kiss me again. This time, the kiss deepens as we both let that wave of deep feeling draw us into physical arousal.

Soon, he eases me down onto my back and moves above me, kissing me hungrily as I wrap my arms and legs around him. Then we’re taking off each other’s clothes, and he’s kissing his way down my body.

When he hooks my legs over his shoulders and makes me come with his mouth, I’m so wrapped up in everything I’m feeling that I cry out uninhibitedly, much louder than I normally am.

We’re all alone, so it doesn’t matter, and Aidan enjoys my shamelessness.

When he’s satisfied that he’s pleased me enough, he finally straightens up. Wipes his face, which is wet from my fluids, and then moves back over me again. Together, we pull him into position so he can push his cock inside me.

He grunts as he takes me, occasionally gasping out how much he loves me and how nothing has ever felt better than letting himself go in me.

I don’t come again so I can fully focus on Aidan. His building tension, his naked devotion, the deep pleasure that rises and rises until it finally breaks. He’s even louder than I was as he comes, and he grinds his hips against mine as he works through the spasms.

He doesn’t pull out. In all this time, he never has. He doesn’t even pretend he should anymore.

I’m not going to get pregnant.

With all the enthusiastic sex we’ve had this year, if I was capable of getting pregnant, surely I would have by now.

That thought flutters briefly at the back of my mind as we kiss and hold each other afterwards. I try to brush it aside, but can’t, and eventually Aidan has recovered enough to notice.

“What’s the matter, love?”

“Nothing. Nothing that matters. That was so good.”

“It was incredible.” I’m sprawled out on top of him, and his hand is sliding up and down from my hair to my bottom. “But now you’re thinking about something that’s troubling you, and you don’t get to hide that from me.”

I kiss his shoulder. His chest. Breathe until I work up the courage. “Does it… does it bother you? That we probably won’t be able to have kids?”

His hand grows still on my back. He’s silent as he processes the question.

“No,” he says after a minute. “It honestly doesn’t.”

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