And we were back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Chapter Twenty
Jackson
I fucking watched her sleep.
I lay there, hitched up on one elbow, watching her curled into her side, exhausted from having spent a weekend with my family. She was my epitome of beauty; lips pink and slightly open, dark mahogany hair curled around her face; long black eyelashes draped over pinked cheeks. She was moving in with me, and I didn't want to run away in fear or start to draft an agreement around property ownership or panic over a bottle of whiskey. Instead, I wanted to stand on the rooftops and make a declaration to the world that this woman saw enough of a man in me to want to be there every morning and evening, to let me inside her, to be the only one to make her come and to be the one she shared everything with. Or at least I hoped nearly everything. Somethings might be reserved for girlfriends only; but I could let that happen.
I pushed her hair back from her face, feeling silk across my fingers. My chest was full and I wanted to burst. My family had loved her, she seemed to have loved them, even made Dad, who was as much of an acquired taste as whiskey. We'd played cricket in the fields, rammed the pub, lazed in the gardens with gin and tonics, barbequed the local butcher's stock and then proceeded to drink into my parents' wine cellar. By the end of the evening, she knew most everything about Seph, none of which she had shared with me yet, and everything about Ava and Payton's sex life, none of which I wanted to know. She fit; with me, with my family, she just fit.
Vanessa's eyes flitted open, fixing on me. "How long was I asleep?"
"Since we got home," I said, not balking at the use of the word home, it was now, for both of us, even if it wouldn't be official until after the retirement ball.
"I'm sorry, you've carried all the luggage in yourself," she said, stretching. "I would've helped."
"I think I can manage to bring in a few bags," I said, moving out a hand to touch her. "I know you had work to do. Can it wait?"
She moved onto her back. "Not really. It's for a meeting tomorrow, so it's a choice of getting up early or doing it now. I'd rather do it now."
I was silent, my mind blurring with questions from the weekend, from the things we'd talked about in passing and the things we'd hinted at. "Let's start planning the office," I said. "If nothing else, we can make sure the desk's the perfect height for fucking."
She peeled with laughter. "Is that all you think about?"
I paused for a moment. "No. I've thought about a lot more than that, especially this weekend."
She sat up, the shirt she was wearing gaping enough to expose her bra. I looked, unable not to. I wanted to touch too, but managed to resist. Somehow.
"Like what?"
I remembered what Marie had said about honesty and what my dad had told me about when he and Marie had first met. From all of what I knew, they'd never had a disagreement they couldn't solve. They'd always been honest. Even when me or Max or Callum had done something to warrant us asking Marie not to tell Dad, she had done, but he'd been quiet enough about it so we hadn't known our confidence had been blown until it didn't matter. But then, it was clear that they had trusted each other in dealing with us. "Children."
This was the biggie, I knew. I hadn't thought about it much before, but I hadn't had a relationship where I'd asked someone to live with me. We were both of an age where children had to be a question, although there was still time for an answer.
"Okay," she said, thoughtful. "You said you wanted them. I think I do too."
I nodded, my hand in her hair, needing some connection. "I do. I hadn't thought about it much as it wasn't relevant, but I'd like to be a dad and that's not a dad like mine was, who didn't know what he was doing and needed Marie to teach him. We learned to be parents with Callum and then the twins and Ava, so I know something about babies..." I stop, not quite having realized how important this was to me until now and now wanting to burden her with my needs.
"Okay," she said, creating distance by sitting further up. "I didn't think I was bothered while I was with Richard. I thought I was all about my career and had no space for children. You seem to have kick-started a biological clock." She looked sleep-mussed and vulnerable. It itched to sit behind her and pull her into my chest and give her some form of physical reassurance.
"Maybe that's what's happened to me. I think about you being pregnant with my child and all I want to do is fuck you. That sounds so unromantic, I know. But the idea of it just makes me want to tie you to the bed and get you that way. I know every man is meant to be terrified of a girl telling him he's gotten her pregnant, but if it happened I think I'd be shouting from the rooftops. Maybe not quite so soon though." I said, hating how desperate I sounded.
She laughed, her hands making that connection between us and she pulled me into her. "I know. I've had the same picture. I think we're on the same page. But I'm aware of rushing things and also, if there's a reason we can't."
I did pull her into me, so I was spooning her, feeling her body heat against mine. "Then we'd be a very good aunt and uncle or look at other options if that wasn't what we wanted. Chemistry's complex because it's quite likely based on biology, but there has to be something more and I think we have that, else all we'd do would be fuck and never talk."
She laughed, moving my hand to her stomach. "You slept with your hand here the other night."
"Really?" I knew I had. I had woken up with my hands on her stomach, dreaming she was big with my baby. "Maybe I'm too possessive."
She laughed quietly. "Maybe. But I like it, so that's okay. Jackson, you've never told me what happened to your mum."
The room felt a little smaller and I tried to not move my hands. This was something none of us talked about, me, Max and Claire. It wasn't an issue for Callum, he'd had Marie, but the rest of us remembered. But if, and yes, it was still and if, I was going to have a future with this woman, she needed to know from me and sooner rather than later. "It's not pleasant," I said.
"Death never is," she responded. "My mum not being there was horrific; I was twelve, I needed her more than ever at that point."
