Her sweet, minty breath fanned against my face as she exhaled a gust of air. “Really?”
“You were the first woman who made me feel anything after my wife died,” I confessed on a whisper, the pressure in my chest building and squeezing even tighter. “I didn’t want to want you, but I couldn’t help myself.”
The sadness she felt for me couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d taken a Sharpie and written the words out on her cheeks. She’d make a terrible poker player.
“What—I mean, are you—can I ask what happened to her? Your wife? I don’t know the story there, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I totally get it. You don’t have to. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you into—”
I silenced her rambling by placing a thumb over her lips as my brows pinched in confusion. “You don’t know? Frank never told you?”
She let out a frustrated huff and wrapped her fingers around my wrist, pulling my hand away so she could speak. “I think we both know what an asshole your brother is. I asked him once, and let’s just say, my curiosity about you didn’t sit well with him. I never asked again after that.” She said it in a way that made my skin prickle and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but I knew not to ask as I watched in fascination as those shutters I’d only seen when my brother was mentioned slammed down over her eyes.
This wasn’t a conversation I could have lying on top of her so I moved, propping myself up against the headboard as I blew out a breath and raked my hands through my hair.
Marin eyed me warily as she sat up, holding the sheet across her naked breasts. She didn’t scoot close, somehow sensing that I needed space to get out what I had to say.
“Constance was six weeks pregnant with Eli when we found out she had breast cancer.” Just saying those words made it feel like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “We’d been trying to conceive for a few years by that time, but weren’t having any luck doing it on our own, so we’d started seeing a fertility specialist. It was still early enough in the pregnancy that she could have terminated it and begun treatment, but she’d wanted a baby so badly. We both did. Eli was our little miracle, so it wasn’t even a decision for her. Ending it was absolutely out of the question.”
Her eyes had gone glassy with tears as she lifted a hand and pressed it against her mouth. “Oh God.”
“I fought with her at first. I told her we could try again once she was in remission, but she refused. It took me a while to see her point, but I’m glad I did, because I can’t imagine a world without my son in it.
“The cancer had progressed too far by the time she had Eli. There was nothing we could do about it by then. Eli was three months old when she passed away.” I looked over to see Marin had tears streaming down her cheeks. “She might have been sick, but those were still the best three months of her life, because she got to spend them with our son. I’m thankful every day for that.”
“Can I—” She swallowed down a croak. “Can I come to you?”
I answered by reaching out and grabbing her by the waist. I spread my legs and twisted her around so she was resting pressed up against me from shoulder to groin, her back pressed into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her tight, one along her collarbone, the other at her waist, and burrowed my face in her sweet-smelling hair.
Her hands came down on my arms, squeezing tight, trying to pour all her comfort into me. “Pierce, I’m so, so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
She twisted her head around and looked up at me. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.”
She was right. It still hurt every goddamn day, but it was much more manageable than it used to be.
“Thanks, baby.”
“Am I—am I the first woman? Since . . .”
“Yeah,” I answered in a gravelly voice.
She broke out of my hold then, turning around so she could straddle my thighs and take my face in the palms of her hands. “Then I want you to know how much that means to me, that I get to be that for you.”
For as long as this lasts, I thought, but for some reason, those words lodged themselves in my throat, and I couldn’t get them out.
For as long as this lasts was all she and I would ever have, all I’d be able to give her. But I couldn’t deny that there as a part of me that hoped it lasted for a good, long while. Even if this was all it would ever be.
22
Marin
I was doing my best to concentrate, but it was getting harder and harder to focus, because Pierce was doing his best to distract me.
He came up behind me, his hands landing on my hips as he used his chin to nudge my hair to the side and pressed his lips to my neck.
“Will you stop?” I giggled and squirmed, trying to get away from him.
“Can’t help it,” he grunted against my skin. “I can’t stop touching you.”
I wasn’t sure there was a woman alive who wouldn’t melt on the spot at hearing that. “I’m trying not to burn this, and you’re making it impossible.”
“Give it up, babe,” he said on a chuckle as the eggs in the frying pan began to put off a smell that couldn’t have possibly been right. “You and I aren’t built for the kitchen. Whatever you’re trying to make is going to come out ruined. It’s inevitable.”
“It’s eggs over easy, and you’re wrong. I can do this!” I declared, trying to will it to be true. Unfortunately, when I slid the spatula under the egg and flipped it, the underside was completely black. “This is your fault,” I accused, spinning around and stabbing my finger into his chest. “If you hadn’t been distracting me with your big hands and soft lips and good looks, I wouldn’t have messed that up.”
He grinned patronizingly. “Hate to break it to you, but I could smell that burning five minutes ago.”
I knew he was right, I’d smelled it too, but I wasn’t willing to let him off the hook that easily yet. “Yeah, well maybe if you weren’t making my head all fuzzy, I would have noticed before it was too late.”
The expression on his face screamed arrogant, satisfied male. “I make your head all fuzzy?”
I rolled my eyes, trying to play it off that I wasn’t freaking out that I’d possibly just given too much away. “Don’t pretend you didn’t already know that.”
Flipping the burner off, I carried the pan to the sink and dumped the ruined contents down the drain, flipping on the disposal. Steam rose up with a hiss as cold water slid across the scalding pan.
Grabbing the sponge, I squirted soap onto it and began scrubbing at the charred bits that had burnt on when Pierce came up behind me and pressed against my back. His hands slipped around the front of me. One traveled up, cupping my breast while the other slipped beneath the waistband of my shorts.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked, my question coming out breathy as arousal flooded my veins.
“Helping you learn to multi-task better,” he answered against my neck. “Maybe if I keep touching you, you’ll eventually get used to it and your head won’t get so fuzzy.”