Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
When I check our bedroom it’s empty. I know she’s in the nursery. My shoes have concrete soles when I take the few steps to the room at the end of the hall we’d used as a home office before we needed it for the baby. I’d suggested we store the nursery furniture until we figured out what to do with it. We need to repaint, move the desk and printer back. Wipe away all traces of what we hoped this room would be, but Yasmen would flip if I even suggested it. I stand in the door to the room, watching her, preternaturally still in the rocker, like she left her body behind and is elsewhere. A carousel lamp we bought after Deja’s first ultrasound sits on the table, slowly turning, spreading light and throwing shadows on the walls.
“Babe.” Fatigue makes the endearment gravelly on my lips. “It’s late. Come to bed.”
I honestly can’t blame her for choosing any place other than that cold stretch of mattress in our bedroom. In the king-sized bed our bodies don’t have to touch, don’t touch anymore, but it feels like it’s not big enough for the two of us and the ghosts who hog the covers.
She doesn’t turn her head to look at me, her gaze remaining fixed on the wall. My heart seizes in my chest every time I see the cursive writing—Yasmen’s handwriting—a cheerful baby blue against the dark gray paint we selected for Henry’s nursery.
I know the plans I have for you…to give you hope and a future.
Deja and Kassim each had a nursery rhyme for their wall, but Yasmen saw this verse on a greeting card somewhere, Jeremiah 29:11, and wanted to use it for Henry’s.
“Do you ever think about him?” Yasmen asks, still not looking at me, her voice frighteningly steady.
I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest, a flimsy guard for a broken heart I haven’t figured out how to articulate.
“Of course I do.”
“You never talk about him.” Accusation steels her soft words. “You’ve never cried for him.”
I have no defense for that because she’s right. As much as it hurt to lose Henry, as much as the pain sawed my insides, no tears ever fell. Not even at his funeral with a casket so tiny it broke me in half to think of him inside. No tears. No cracks. At first I convinced myself I was being strong for everyone else, but then I realized I couldn’t cry. As acutely as I hurt inside, my inability to express it made me feel like a robot. Like a monster.
And that’s how Yasmen looks at me now when she finally turns her head to meet my eyes. Like I’m some kind of android who couldn’t possibly empathize with her human pain.
She twists her fingers in the silky fabric of her nightgown. Not nightgown. Negligee. Something I haven’t seen in a long time. No, never. A negligee I’ve never seen. Is it new? Did she buy something new? A sexy, new thing? For her? For me? For us? Skimpy and barely covering her generous curves, the silk clings to the swell of her hips and strains at her breasts. She rises, abandoning the rocker and crossing the room to stand in front of me. I will myself to stay on the wall, not pounce on her the way my instincts demand. The carousel lamp casts soft lambent light across her body, touching the gentle slope of her shoulders beneath tiny straps, caressing the full roundness of her breasts and the nipples peaking beneath the silk.
I want to fuck her.
Fast. Right here. So hard and deep we’d dent the wall. I’d come quickly because it’s been too long. And then we’d stumble to the bed and do it again. Slow. Savoring each other because I almost forgot the taste and sound of her pleasure. It would take all night to remind me. It’s like she can read my thoughts. Promise shimmers like gold dust in her night-dark eyes. She steps so close I smell the scented oil she adds to her bath and runs through her hair. She pushes my arms down and stands flush against me, body to body. Her breasts pressed to my chest. She tips up on her toes, holds my stare, and angles her mouth to capture mine. First the top lip between hers, and then the bottom. Deliberately, she slips her tongue inside, wrenching a groan from me. This is our ritual, this kiss. A gentle sucking. A slow, licking hunger. I love kissing her. Always have. Not as a prelude to sex. Not with her. Just the act of tasting, touching her lips, loving her one stroke and one breath at a time.
“Fuck me, Si,” she gasps into my mouth, the words wreathed in mint and boldness.