More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(88)

Of course.

Do you want to come over?

Because he was scrolling through the pictures, the message appeared at the top of the screen in banner form. He blinked at it, then clicked on it. But in his haste, he missed the banner and enlarged the clip instead. Fumbling with his phone and swearing under his breath, he finally managed to get back into his messages.

I’ll be right there.

Tina was waiting for him just inside her front door, barefoot and wearing her fuzzy pajamas. Harris was also barefoot, and dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and his boxer briefs. She turned away silently when he entered the house, and he closed and locked the front door before trailing wordlessly behind her as she padded back to her room.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she said when she reached her room. “I thought we could look at the pictures together and I could tell you about them?”

“I’d like that.” His voice was husky with gratitude, and she nodded before getting into bed and scooting to the wall. She held the covers up invitingly, and he climbed in next to her.

They took a few moments to get comfortable. Harris was on his back, and she had her head on his chest, while his right arm curled around her shoulders and his hand found its favorite resting place in her hair. She had a hand palm down on his chest. In his left hand, he held his phone, and he brought up the pictures again.

“They’re in chronological order,” she said. “He was only a few hours old in this one.”

“Tiny,” Harris observed, his voice rough with emotion as he gazed at the sleeping infant, so fragile and helpless in a terrifying-looking incubator.

“He was. He slept so much. All of that saved energy going into growing bigger and stronger every day. This was the first time they allowed me to hold him . . .”

She detailed every moment, trying her best to describe sounds, smells, movements; for nearly forty minutes she talked, and her voice grew hoarse and her words started slurring. She fell asleep in midsentence, about halfway through Fletcher’s sixth week. She went boneless, her head heavy on his shoulder. He placed his phone on the bedside table and turned slowly until he had her completely cradled in his arms. She sighed contentedly in her sleep, nuzzling against his chest. Her arm crept around his waist, and one of her legs happily snuck between his.

Harris sighed, too, breathing in her apple-scented hair, with one of his hands still entangled in her hair while the other was tucked around her waist.

His last thought, before he finally succumbed to sleep, was that this was exactly how he wished he could spend every night of the rest of his life.

Warm.

That’s how Tina felt. Warm and comfortable and contented. She opened her eyes. It was still dark. Just before dawn, as far as she could tell. Pretty much the time she usually got up. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever been this well rested.

Harris was in bed with her. She was pressed up against his chest and surrounded by his wonderful scent. Memories of the night before—highs, lows, darkness, and light—gently ebbed and flowed through her mind. She inspected each memory carefully, turning it all around in her brain, testing her reaction to each one.

Nothing. No panic, no regret, just serene acceptance of last night’s every word, every action, and every emotion. Who knew what she would say, do, or feel today? There were so many capricious external factors that it was hard to predict. All she knew was that her world—for once—felt completely right.

Her hand crept beneath Harris’s shirt, stroking his firm, hot flesh, rediscovering the angles and planes of his chest. He awoke almost immediately, and his breath hitched before speeding up. The boxer briefs he wore did nothing to disguise the growing erection against her thigh, and she undulated lazily against him, wanting him to know that she felt it and she wanted it. Her hand continued to languidly explore, finding a hard little masculine nipple, and he groaned. He pressed his own hand—through the thin fabric of his shirt—against her busy one, flattening it against his pec in an attempt to still the movement.

“I should leave,” he said, his voice having that attractive morning huskiness to it.

“Why?” she asked, lifting her head to meet his eyes, and she sucked in a sharp breath. There they were: her missing panic and regret, swimming around in his liquid gaze.

“It’s a lot, Tina,” he said.

“I know,” she responded tightly, dragging her hand away. His abdominal muscles jumped beneath her fingertips as she pulled her hand out from beneath his shirt. “I know it’s a lot. And sometimes it feels like too much. But you’d be surprised by how very much you can bear.”

“I also have to bear the additional burden of having to live with the knowledge that I was a callow, irresponsible idiot who didn’t deserve a single moment of your time ten years ago. You should have met someone worthy of you. Instead you had an encounter with me. The fucker who ruined your life. I don’t know how to begin making amends for that.”

“You don’t have to make amends,” she said, and he shook his head in vehement denial of her words before sitting up and putting some space between their bodies.

“I fucking do. But I can’t—everything I did was unforgivable. How can I expect you to forgive me, like me . . . love me, when I can’t fucking stand to be in my own skin?”

Love him? Why would he mention love? It had no bearing on their situation. Never had and never would. He got out of bed, still magnificently aroused, his shorts merely serving to accentuate his impressive hard-on. Tina tried not to be distracted by the eye-level erection and kept her gaze on his face. He looked torn and tormented.