Page 100 of Things We Burn

I didn’t take many things with me when I left New York. Yes, I left in a panic, but even if I hadn’t, I didn’t form attachments to material things. I took as many clothes as I needed for the immediate future, keeping in mind my body was going to change, and I’d have to purchase more anyway. I brought basic toiletries and my chef’s knives.

And Kane’s shirts.

He didn’t have a drawer in my apartment, but he’d had things there. He liked me wearing his shirts when I wasn’t naked, so he left worn ones. And I kept every single one of them. I hadn’t washed them. Slept in them every night until they only vaguely smelled of him. I thought that’s all I had left of him, tees with fading scents and painful memories.

Now he was here, and I didn’t want to be caught in one of his shirts. Didn’t want to show my longing for him when I couldn’t be sure he felt the same for me.

But I didn’t have anything else, unless I wanted to wear sweats—which I now owned copious amounts of. The other option was underwear. I’d been naked around Kane many times, but the thought of sharing a bed with him in my underwear, especially while exposing this new body … I couldn’t stomach that.

His shirt it was.

I’d dive into bed, yank the covers up and hope that he only wanted to share a bed because of practicality’s sake, and he hadn’t slept on a decent mattress in months.

The thought stabbed me.

In the midst of this, it was somehow easy to forget that Kane had been locked away. Sleeping in a cage. Controlled. In an environment that I couldn’t imagine.

Though I’d just told Kane my nausea had subsided, my stomach lurched, and I barely made it to the toilet before I emptied my stomach.

I brushed my teeth a second time then climbed into bed just as I heard Kane ascending the stairs.

The covers were shoved up under my armpits. Aside from lightning sporadically brightening the room, the only lights were the ones filtering in from the hall and the one I’d left on in the bathroom so he didn’t bang into anything. Usually, I read, with the television on because I couldn’t stand the stifling silence in the house. But I couldn’t have both my bedside lamp and the TV on—too much light.

I was just frozen in my spot in bed, far too wired to sleep, too eager to know what this dynamic looked like beyond him being mad at me. Or maybe that’s all this ever would be.

His footfalls were heavy on my hardwood floor as he rounded the bed to place a mug and a glass of water on the cluttered bedside table.

I did not do clutter before. Before, I had a scant amount of possessions, and everything had its place. Since moving to Jupiter, I was constantly buying books, baby things, trying to fill up the house, trying to fill up my mind.

I blinked as Kane leaned forward and somehow found the switch on the lamp on the first go, light flooding through the space.

He was there, right there beside me, face close to mine. His expression was still hard, guarded, but it wasn’t entirely hostile. He held my gaze for ten seconds—I counted—before his eyes went downward to where I was still clutching the covers.

His head tilted, eyes softening.

His fingers clasped mine, gently taking the covers from my death grip. I released because he wasn’t yelling at me, wasn’t staring at me like he hated me, and he was touching me.

The gentle brush of our fingers was the first time he’d touched me since that kiss in the courtroom. My entire body responded. My entire body awakened. Like it had been wilting, hibernating all this time, and it needed him to bloom.

The cool air in the room kissed my skin as he took the covers completely off, exposing me in his tee, my large belly making it so it barely covered my panties, let alone any part of my upper thighs.

I was rigid underneath his gaze, my bones seeming to fill with lead.

He still held his shoulders tight, his entire form tense, but something in him relaxed. Defrosted. The turn of his mouth no longer formed a grimace, the crease between his brows smoothed as he ran his eyes along his shirt, gluing on to my belly a moment before trailing down my legs.

My heart slammed against my rib cage as his hand moved to the hem of my shirt—his shirt—pausing to glance up at me as if he were asking for permission.

I barely moved my head in a nodding gesture, pulse thrashing in my ears.

Kane’s fingers grasped the hem then pulled it up, exposing the tight skin of my stomach.

I was religious about lathering it in oil and moisturizer morning and night. I hadn’t thought I was vain enough to worry about whether or not I got stretch marks, but it was a humbling and terrifying experience to watch my body change without my control, so I was holding on to the small amount of control I could clutch with bleeding fingertips.

Though technically, stretch marks were largely dependent on genetics, not products. Whether it was my genes or the oils, the skin was taut, smooth, my belly button a definite outie now.

Kane let out a hiss of breath as his palms covered the swell of my stomach. He was staring at it in shock, in wonder. He kept the fabric of the tee underneath my breasts, not exposing them.

This touch wasn’t sexual, not exactly. Though there was an undertone there. But that might’ve just been me and my crazy hormones.

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