I glanced over at the nightstand clock. Three thirty-four.
By now, she should be off work and home. Immediately, I was assaulted with all kinds of visions of that girl laid out across her bed. Where I’d ravaged and explored and fucked. Where I’d tasted and experienced, and got caught up in a storm that I now knew would never free me from its grip.
Unable to resist, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. A smile tugged at one side of my mouth as I typed out a message. What are you doing right now?
I got why she sent me home, demanding some time to think. Our bodies were like tinder. A brush of our skin the match. We would have let the physical devour and distort, silencing words that still needed to be said.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going mad over missing her. Every inch of my body was still drumming with her touches and her kisses and her words.
I lay my phone on my chest, tapping my fingers to the beat of a tune that’d been worming its way into my consciousness.
A few moments passed before my phone vibrated with a call. I lifted it up, and a black background with the message FaceTime Call from Shea Bentley lit up the screen.
The grin that had been pulling at my face spread, and I pushed up to sitting, making myself comfortable against the massive leather headboard, all too eager to get a look at my girl.
It was weird feeling…happy. Expectant. Like I was sitting right at the edge of something amazing getting ready to happen. And now it was finally within my reach.
Told her I didn’t know what it was like to miss someone until I was missing her. It was true. Different than the consuming pain with missing Julian. With missing Mark. Missing them was resigned because there was nothing I could do to get them back, even though I’d give up my life to do it.
But missing Shea?
Missing Shea was a protest. A riot that just wouldn’t sit still.
There was not enough willpower in the world to keep me from coming back to her.
My pulse pounded all around me as I accepted the call.
The image that popped up was a little grainy, the room dusky and illuminated by only a tiny bedside lamp. But the faces? They were unmistakable.
A shock of warm laughter escaped me.
Shea was in Kallie’s twin-sized bed, propped up against her headboard with Kallie pulled close to her chest, the camera held out so I could see them both. Kallie was hugging the giant stuffed butterfly we’d picked up at that arts and craft festival the same way her mom was holding her, squeezing tight with that tiny smile that could conquer kingdoms, all her little white teeth exposed with the force of it. The child’s hair was an utter disaster, chaotic and twisted curls so fucking cute my heart did a complete flip right in the center of my chest.
Shea was smiling, too. But hers was content and tired around the edges, those compassionate eyes soft, soft, soft, like seeing me soothed her in the same way seeing her soothed me.
God, I was in so deep.
Overpowered and overwhelmed.
Suffocating.
And I didn’t ever wanna come up for air.
“Hi, Baz,” Kallie said, precious voice filled with sleep.
I rubbed my palm over my eyes, down my face, trying to clear up and sort out what I was feeling. Then I smiled at these girls who were gazing back at me. “Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing up so late?”
Her little shoulders rose to her ears, like she was both embarrassed and excited. “Momma came in my room and woked me up.”
Shea smiled, snuggling closer to her little girl, their cheeks pressed together, all that blonde becoming one.