She grinned up at me as she traced her nipples. "Everywhere."
I notched myself at her entrance, my cockhead throbbing against the wet of her. "Like this? Right here?"
Her gaze traveled from my eyes down the center of my chest to where I pressed inside her. I ran a knuckle over her clit, circling it in slow, rough passes until a breathy moan sounded and her back arched. "Right there," she said, her eyes closed and lips parted.
I pulled her knee to my hip and pushed inside her, devouring every little tremor of her inner muscles I felt around my cock. She shifted, the knee on my hip forcing me closer,deeperas she rolled her hips.
Some instinctual, animal part of my brain wanted to let go and rut into her but everything else ordered me to settle into each second and savor it. I dropped to an elbow and found her lips. "I love you," I said between kisses.
"Love you too," she said, her voice as soft as a dream.
I hooked an arm under her waist and held her tight, never once breaking away from her lips. I didn't think much about coming. I knew we would, one way or another, and I knew this wouldn't be the last time. And that changed everything.
chapter fifty-seven
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: quarry
I waited as longas possible to pack for the trip back to Michigan. Ridiculous as it was, I held a sliver of hope that my attorney would call, saying Maddie dropped the petition or the court refused to hear the case on the grounds of total absurdity. Or that for once in my whole fucking life, the universe would give me a pass and let me skip the most complicated, convoluted path. But that didn't happen.
It wasn't until reading Percy a bedtime story the night before our eight a.m. flight that I finally took stock of the home he'd made for himself in Audrey's spare bedroom and realized it was time to take it all apart.
Once he was asleep, I gathered an armful of stuffed friends—the ones he wouldn't miss if another nightmare woke him up—and tucked them into the suitcase alongside his boxer shorts and t-shirts. It felt final in a way I didn't want to look in the eye, as if we weren't just leaving but dismantling everything we'd found here.
I knew this wasn't the end. I knew there'd be another step, another chapter for us—for me and Percy and Audrey—but only if it didn't undo the fragile peace we'd brokered here. Whatever came next, it had to be better than the mess behind us. Anything was better than nothing, right?
But there were limits to thatanything. I lived in Virginia. This custody situation could land me in Michigan. And Audrey—and the world she'd created for herself—were in neither of those places. I couldn't ask her to leave any of this and I didn't want her to give up this place and these people for me.
She'd already given up enough for me.
I found her in the living room with her own armful of Percy's toys and books. "Quite the blast zone this kid leaves behind him," I said.
"It's not that bad." She pulled a book from between the sofa cushions. "He's comfortable here. I like that," she added softly.
I went to her, plucking the toys from her hold. "I like it too."
She stepped away, her lips rolled tight together as she nodded to herself. She reached into Bagel's crate and pulled out another book. "He'll want this in his backpack," she said, waving a graphic novel. "I noticed he rereads it a lot."
I took the book and pressed a kiss to her temple. She leaned into me and I hated that we had to leave, that we couldn't hide from the real world long enough to knit ourselves together tight enough that we could stand up to every cannonball that came our way.
"Thank you," I said to her skin. "And thank you for putting up with us. I know you didn't ask for this and?—"
Her hand landed on my chest. "Don't thank me," she said. "Just—come back. To me. When you can. That's all I need."
I dropped another kiss on her forehead, held her as close as the stuffed animals would allow. "You won't be able to keep me away."
I returned to the spare room to pack while Audrey resumed the hunt for Percy's stray goods. She peeked in when I was almost finished, holding his discharge papers from the hospital and antibiotic ointment. "Could you put that in my backpack?" I whispered, pointing to the forms. "And the antibiotic with my toiletries?"
With a brief nod, she crossed the hall into the room I thought of asours. It wouldn't be ours tomorrow; it would be hers once again. I didn't care to think about her alone in that bed, in this house. Didn't wish to think about her life without us. Didn't want to start another argument with myself about asking her to come to Michigan for the hearing. She had to get her classroom ready for students and had school meetings coming up later in the week, and the last place she wanted to be was Arenac County Family Court.
Once I had Percy's things packed away and his clothes out for the morning, I left his door slightly ajar and stepped into our room. Experience had taught me how to pack for myself in five minutes flat but that didn't make?—
"What's this?"
Audrey stood on the other side of the room, my clothes folded in neat piles on the bed and my bags open around her. She pinched a small silver ring between two fingers and stared at me like she'd discovered proof that I was a serial killer.
A startled laugh rumbled out of me because if that ring proved anything, it was that she was the real killer.
