Page 65 of Easy Reunion
Chapter 26
Kelsey
“Tell me about this.” Ry traces his fingers lightly across the daisies on my lower stomach, and I tense. “It means something more than just being your grandmother’s favorite flower.”
“It’s not an easy story,” I warn him. Because it won’t be for either of us. It’s going to bring up the heartbreak and heartache we’re trying to move past.
His fingers stop tracing the delicate petals covering the worst of the scar over my left hip where my incision didn’t heal correctly. “Is it going to take us back?” he asks quietly.
My head moves up and down against the pillows slowly. But before he can speak, I lay my hand on top of his. “We can’t pretend the past didn’t happen, though look at how well that turned out.”
A gorgeous smile curves his lips before he kisses me. “Well, it certainly ended up well,” he teases.
I can’t help but laugh because he’s right. Not once, but twice, we’ve ended up in bed over my need to forget the past never happened. Only this time, he refused to let me run away. I understand there’s no ignoring the past; there’s only fighting the right battles to secure my future. Whatever they may end up being.
“I had the surgery about ten years ago,” I begin.
Ry’s face pales. “I’ve heard about how serious of a procedure it is.” His hand presses hard against my lower abdominal wall. I feel the warmth around the areas where the scar tissue hasn’t deadened the area.
In the rest, I feel nothing. I thought my heart was like that too, until tonight.
I nod because it was. “You need to appreciate I chose to have the surgery, though it was deemed medically necessary by my insurance.”
He swallows hard. “Are you…can you still have children?”
Tilting my head to the side, I ask, “Would it matter to you if I couldn’t?”
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead before telling me truthfully, “Only if it hurt you. I don’t want anything to hurt you anymore.”
And my heart loses another shield of protection it’s been holding up against falling in love. “God, Ry.” I lift my arms around him and pull him close so the full weight of his body is on mine.
We lie together like this for a few moments before he rolls to the side. Cupping my face, he brushes his thumb over my cheek back and forth. “If it wasn’t that, what was it?”
Taking in a deep breath, I summon the courage of all the saints I’ve ever prayed for mercy on. “When I had the weight loss surgery…” My voice quivers. I don’t know why I’m afraid of his response. Maybe because I’m finally beginning to realize Ry cared about me before when I wasn’t as fit. He cared about what was under his hands that he’s currently cupping.
My heart.
Tears well and begin to overflow and trail down the sides of my face. “I was so close to…” My voice trails away.
“Close to?”
“Giving up,” I admit on a sigh. “I hated my body and the distorted image I had about myself more than I loved anything about my life. I was—no, I am obsessive about what I eat, working out, and making sure I don’t put on weight. I’m not dysmorphic, but I have huge levels of anxiety over my appearance—more importantly, how others perceive me.” Biting my lip, I wait for him to turn away in disgust.
Instead, I’m thrown off by what happens next.
Ry shoves the sheets off our cooling bodies and starts to slide away. “Ry?” I ask uncertainly.
“Shh,” he whispers. Brushing a kiss over my lips, he says, “Let me tell you what I see when I touch you.”
Trembling, I lie next to him while his fingers glide through my hair. “It’s like silk. It glides over your body as you move.” I can almost feel each strand as he sifts his fingers through. “When I play with it in the light, it catches fire—much like the woman inside.” His fingers glide over my brows and gently shut my eyes. “And here? Smoke and serenity. Your eyes are like an antique mirror, priceless in any setting.” His thumb dips down over my lips. I take a small nip; I can’t help myself. His answering grin tells me how much he likes it—me. “Daring, playful, and yet occasionally modest. The things that come out of this mouth are a constant temptation. But there are two places I’m fixated on.”
I expect his hands to slide to my breasts or maybe between my legs, to feel the dampness gathering there over the intensity of feeling he’s generating in me.
I’m partially right.
His hand slides between my breasts to land over my heart. The other braces above my head so he can leverage himself partially over me to lay his lips on my forehead. “It’s what’s in this incredible mind that captured my attention from the moment we first met years ago.” Sliding down, he trails soft kisses down the centerline of my body until he replaces his warm hand with soft lips over a heart that’s going wild. “And it’s what’s in here that’s making me understand why my own didn’t work right before.”
My whispered moan of his name is broken as he lays his head on my chest and breathes in the mingled sweat of our previous lovemaking. I’m already a mess of tears when he speaks again a few moments later. “So, to answer the question you didn’t quite ask, no. I don’t judge you for doing whatever you felt you needed to survive. I’m just grateful as fuck you came out of it healthy and with no long-term medical issues.” To add a nonverbal exclamation to his statement, Ry drops his head to the cluster of gerbera daisies covering the worst of my scar and kisses them soundly before sliding back up to take my shaking body in his arms.
“You’re going to make it very hard not to fall in love with you,” I tell him long moments later.
“God, I hope so” is his only response before he reaches over to turn out the lights. He pulls me close, and I lay my head on his chest.
Closing my eyes, in his arms, I finally feel like maybe I might have just found my home since I left Savannah all those years ago.
