Page 101 of Things We Burn

Kane tore his eyes from my stomach, peering back up to me. They were watering.

I had to sink my teeth into my lip so I didn’t start sobbing at that expression.

He didn’t say anything, not one word, he just slowly, purposefully moved his face down then laid a gentle kiss on the skin of my stomach.

Then he placed his cheek there, barely putting any weight against me.

“This is your dad,” he whispered to my stomach in a tone I didn’t recognize. Soft. Full of tenderness. Love. “I know I haven’t been around, but I promise, I’m not going anywhere again. Ever.”

It was an oath.

Not just to the baby in my womb but to me. It didn’t feel like forgiveness, though. Not a threat either, but maybe a challenge. I couldn’t be sure. I was overwhelmed by the emotions of the evening. From the emotions of the past nine months. Since I’d met Kane, if I wanted to get technical. Then there was the third trimester exhaustion that was nothing like being in a kitchen for twelve hours.

It was worse.

Luckily, Kane didn’t have anything more to say. He just stayed there with his cheek on my stomach.

Not knowing what came over me—beyond the overwhelming need to make sure he was real—I risked lifting my hand and running it through his hair. The stakes were high, as were thechances of rejection. The way he was touching me right now was not about me, not about my body; it was about the baby inside of me. Our baby inside of me.

Instead of stiffening at my touch, Kane relaxed entirely. I continued running my hands through the strands, letting my heart rate even, letting myself lapse into a tense version of peace.

I couldn’t be sure how long we stayed like that, but I would’ve been content to do it forever. Kane eventually lifted his head, looking toward me. Still, there was a shuttering in his eyes.

“I’m gonna go take a shower, then I’ll be back.” He was rubbing my stomach absently. “Don’t go to sleep.”

The order was spoken in a rasp.

Though there were many things different, unrecognizable about Kane, that tone was not. It sent me hurtling back in time, to my apartment, my bedroom, my sofa, my kitchen counter, dive bar bathrooms.

My libido, a thing that I thought was long dead, awoke with a vengeance.

“Heard, Chef?” he asked.

I sucked in an unsteady breath at the title.

“Heard,” I replied, voice quivering.

He lingered there for a moment, looking at his hand on my belly, then pushed off the bed, walking to the bathroom.

I lay there, trying to calm my galloping heart as I heard the shower run, as he moved about in the room right next to me. He was preparing to come into bed with me.

I tried to catalog the evening so far, tried to process his anger, his hurt, his detachment. Betrayal. That was the biggest one. Not from Brax. Sure, that might’ve hit him, but Kane was smart enough to keep Brax at arm’s length.

Me, though... me, he’d let in. He’d given me all of him, and I’d let someone else take it away and reduce it to nothing.

Then he’d sat in a prison cell for months.

It took significant effort for me not to get up and run to the bathroom down the hall to throw up again. Somehow, I managed.

By the time the bathroom door opened and Kane turned off the light, I had sipped at my tea enough to calm myself down and was not in danger of throwing up again.

Kane didn’t speak when he walked out, but from a glimpse I stole, I saw he was in nothing but his underwear. He’d been muscular before but leaner. In the months he’d been gone—inprison, I corrected—he had packed on weight in pure muscle. He looked more menacing now. More dangerous. My tattoo was still on his left pec. He hadn’t covered it up. My brand. My name. Seeing it burned my throat.

When the bed depressed, I leaned over in order to turn off my lamp. No way could I continue to look at him, feel the ache from all the changes.

A hand at my hip stopped me, a palm moving over my stomach.

“No,” he ordered. “I want to see you.”

---