“We paid the price.”
The truth stung.He’d been so consumed by rage and grief that he hadn’t seen the collateral damage until it was too late.
“Shit, you’re right.We’re in this together.I’m so sorry I went off like that that night.I didn’t think about us.I was just thinking about me.I’m trying to change that.Will you be patient with me?”The words felt raw in his mouth.He wasn’t used to asking for grace, but with her, he wanted to be better.
To his surprise, she smiled.
“Me?Patient?You are talking to the wrong lady,” she said with a loud giggle.
She grabbed the shower hose and began to spray it at his face.
“You little bugger!”he shouted and she cried out and laughed as he blindly tried to grab the showerhead from her.
Damn, she was so playful still, even after the shit he’d put her through.Her laughter cracked through the heaviness like sunlight.She was bright, playful, and so achingly familiar it made his throat tighten.He couldn’t believe she still had that spark.That after everything he’d put her through, she could still laugh with him like this.
He didn’t deserve such a beautiful woman.
But she wanted him.He had no idea why, but she still wanted him.
And he wanted her.Even in prison, even in the darkest moments, she’d been the one thing he couldn’t let go of.She was the one thing he’d never stopped wanting.Had always wanted her, even after telling her he didn’t in that letter.Even after telling her to go one with her life.Being with her now, warm, and alive and laughing, was good.So very good.
He had faith again and that made all the difference.
Nick couldn’t help but smile as he towel dried himself out in the hallway and listened to the two of them in the shower stall.
They were happy.The sound hit him right in the chest.Warm, intimate, a reminder that he loved them both in different ways, and that loving them meant stepping back sometimes.
It made him incredibly happy to see the two people he loved being so joyful after everything they’d gone through.
Being with Jenna, making love to her, with Axel doing the same, he felt as if he were living the dream he’d always fantasized about when Axel had told him stories about his fiancé.He’d wanted Jenna so badly it had literally hurt him.He’d carried the idea of her like a secret flame in the dark.Something beautiful, unreachable, and now suddenly real.
And now he’d had her and it hurt him to step out of the shower and not be a part of the horseplay between the two of them.Walking away felt like peeling off a piece of himself.But it was necessary, respectful, but painful all the same.
However, he was a gentleman, and gentlemen had to play their part.
He ventured into the guest bedroom and settled the towel over the back of the chair in there.This was the room Axel and himself had changed out of their clothing into their birthday suits after Axel had invited him to join him and Jenna in the shower.
He still couldn’t believe an invite had come so fast.Still couldn’t wrap his head around it.The way Axel had looked at him, steady and sure, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.And he’d only hesitated for a few seconds because his first concern had been for Jenna.
Was it too soon for her?His first instinct had been to shield her.Not from desire, but from pressure, from anything that might hurt her after everything she’d been through.
For him, no.But for her?She didn’t know him.And she was just reestablishing her relationship with Axel.
For a split second it hadn’t felt right, but then he’d vowed to ask her once he entered her space and hehadasked her and she’d said yes.
He didn’t know what part of her “mind if I join you?”the two times she’d said it in the kitchen he didn’t get.He’d eventually thought she was just playing.A joke, a flirt, nothing more.But the memory of her voice still sent a shiver down his spine.
After she’d headed to the bathroom to shower, he’d come to the conclusion that yes, she was just teasing.Axel had told him she liked to tease with a poker face, so yeah, he’d assumed it.
And when she’d said yes in the shower stall, everything had just gone so right.It felt right.
Everything.
His life felt right.For the first time in years, he felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be.Not drifting, not surviving, but living.After all the crap he’d been through as a kid, a teenager, and then prison.It had almost broken him.
But meeting Axel had saved him and now making love to Jenna had been the icing on top of the cake so to speak.
It just felt right being here.
