Page 79 of Love Wells Kept

She vigorously fights my attempt. “No, Jackson. I can’t—if I look at you, I won’t be able to talk. I can’t tell you this while you’re there watching me.”

“Okay. Keep talking.” I nuzzle against her soft, thick hair.

“I miscarried,” she repeats, inflicting even more pain the second time. “It was after you woke up. I don’t…the doctor and Blair both said it had nothing to do with…but I know it was me. I should’ve—”

“No.” My voice is surprisingly firm. “Don’t you fucking dare blame yourself.”

“I was a wreck in that hospital. I didn’t sleep, barely ate…sometimes I wonder if somehow I did it on purpose because the thought of having a baby without you was too much to bear. Subconsciously sabotaged myself, or like…wished the baby away.” She’s sobbing again, and I can’t take another second of it.

Shaking away her hold on my hand, I lift up and prop myself above her on the bed. Kate rolls to her back, cheeks noticeably blotchy and puffy even in the dim light. My forearms sink into the pillows on either side of her face to cage her in, and I lean in so close our lips almost brush. My heart pounds against my ribs, threatening to seize with every shiny tear I watch roll down past her temples.

“Kate, you did nothing wrong.”

“You don’t—”

“Kate Renee Wells.”

Her hand creeps up between us to wipe the dampness around her nose. And when she doesn’t immediately move to clear the tears from her skin, I gently kiss the brackish rivers away from her temples, with my nose nuzzled deep in her hair. My lips wick away her sadness, working my way up to the outer corners of her big, beautiful eyes.

She quietly giggles in spite of herself when my lips press a barely-there kiss to her closed eyelid.

“There she is.” I blow out a laugh against her cheek. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there for you then.”

The thought of her losing a baby that was mine pinches something in my heart, and I’m sure I’d be as gutted as she is if I remembered those early days in her pregnancy. I can handle the blip of heartache when I consider that she should be pregnant right now, but the agony of knowing she was in pain all by herself is almost unbearable.

“You were…sort of. I woke up to so much blood….” She gulps. “And I knew. I could sense it. I visited you that day and…I don’t know. Knowing you were alive, even if you didn’t know me from one of the hot nurses on staff, kept me going.”

I definitely knew her from the nurses. I think if they woke me up from the coma, told me I had a wife, and asked me to pick her out of the lineup, I’d find Kate. Something about the steady gallop of my heart and the tingle under my skin when she’s near tells me that my body never forgot her, even though my brain did.

“I wish I could remember the before. I bet it was great,” I say.

A small smile curves her lips. “You were so happy. If I could bottle the joy we shared in secret for the one day we had it, I’d carry it with me forever.”

“We’ll have more days like that,” I quietly promise, brushing the backs of my knuckles across her flushed cheek.

“You think?”

I catch myself leaning into her, until her shallow breath fans across my face. I open my mouth to say something, but my bottom lip catches hers, and I forget everything but the way her kiss tasted in the kitchen that night.

Our mouths touch softly, lightly at first. Tasting, hesitating, slowly deepening. I’m kissing her not because I want to make her happy—or even slow her tears—but because a surge of emotions I don’t recognize are flooding my brain. It’s wanting her to feel safe, protected, cared for, loved. And I jump headfirst into the feeling.

The way my body’s hovering over hers, the weight of my pelvis on her, the feel of her pillowy lips pressed to mine, wakes every nerve ending. My hand weaves through her hair. I kiss her lips, her nose, her tears. Kiss her like she’s my sole source of oxygen.

When I can’t possibly remain in the plank position for another second without my muscles seizing from overexertion, I press my lips to her forehead and flop back onto the bed, satiated from the simple pleasure of kissing her.

Kate rolls to her side, backing her rounded ass up to me. My dick’s hard from kissing her, and only gets harder when I slip in behind, pulling her tight to me. My palm rubs up and down her thigh, and she lets out a contented exhale. I’ll spend the entire day being her big spoon, if that’s what she needs from me.

She murmurs, “It’s really hard to remind myself that touching you is off-limits when you kiss like that, then press your thick cock against my ass.”

“It’s really hard not to be…hard, when you kiss like that and your ass is rubbing all over me.” I brush dark tendrils of hair from the nape of her neck, and her skin there looks so delicious I can’t help but drag my bottom lip across it.

Her head tips, exposing even more of her neck to me, in a quiet act of persuasion. I’m but a man so, naturally, I give in and kiss her there. My hand slides to grip her waist. Her shirt shifted during our make-out session, and my callused palm on her bare skin sets a million butterflies free in my chest.

Honestly, thank God we’re spooning, because I can feel the heat in my cheeks, and I know Kate would have a lot to say about that. I’m a married man who’s painfully turned on and blushing like a teenager from touching his wife’s torso.

My pinky finds the seam of her underwear and runs along the top of it. We both know she’s on her period, so this is nothing more than a tender, caring touch. Her hips cant and, in a move we’re mutually responsible for, my fingers slip under the elastic. My heartbeat floods behind my ears.

I want this. Want her. And my hesitation before did nothing but hurt both of us. So what if…