Sufficiently chastised, Sierra didn’t remove anything else. She sat and watched him work, his big hands so competent, his blond hair glinting gold in the flames, his faded blue jeans stretching taut over strong thighs, his boots poking out from underneath them.
She inhaled the crisp night air, now threaded with the faint tang of campfire smoke. Benji washed his hands using the huge five-gallon water container he’d brought, and by the time he made his way back to her, his eyes dark with his own excitement, Sierra was already hot and wet with need.
He lifted his long-sleeved shirt over his head, revealing a tanned chest and torso honed to definition by hours of routine physical labour. Sierra’s hands itched to touch, to chase that familiar hot blood as it flowed beneath his skin.
Benji threw his shirt onto the sleeping bag and knelt beside her. He reached for the hem of her hoodie, lifted it off slowly as if it were the sexiest dress in the world. Sierra helped him, raising her arms and squirming out of the sweatshirt, and once it was off, she fought against the urge to cover her battle-tried body as she so desperately wanted to.
‘Christ, you’re so beautiful.’ Benji’s rough palm ran reverently down her side to grip her waistband. He tugged the sweats down, over her butt and hips and, again, she helped him, this time lying back and lifting her hips.
She kicked her feet out of the pants, but stayed on her back as he tossed them into their little clothes pile. She felt self-conscious and restless, dressed in nothing but the black, lacy lingerie. She even had an odd urge to explain, to tell him that even though her body had bounced back after pregnancy, it was still different. Altered.
Sierra opened her mouth, and then promptly snapped it shut when he leaned over her and pressed a single, lingering kiss to her gently rounded stomach.
Everything stopped.
The cold night settled around them, sealing them alone in the moment even as the flames from the fire illuminated them imperfectly, half in the light, half in the shadow.
And over the sensation of her own breaking heart, she felt the exact moment his first tear fell on her skin.
Sierra didn’t say anything. And neither did Benji. But she reached down and ran her hands through his hair, soothing, comforting in the only way she knew how when no words would suffice.
Benji wasn’t embarrassed by his tears. But he was angry with himself. He had wanted this moment to be perfect. He had wanted to hold her and love her and remind her why they were destined, not make her feel everything all over again by losing his own control.
And, still, he couldn’t quite bank his grief. Sierra Hunt was lying on his old sleeping bag, waiting for him to touch her. But in seeing her, in reminding himself why he had to be gentle, he had accidentally opened that box he’d sealed so tightly shut for so long.
When Sierra’s hands rose and ran through his hair, the grief only intensified, and when she whispered. ‘It’s okay, Benj. You don’t have to be strong for me all the time,’ he simply rested his forehead on her stomach, defeated.
Chapter 16
He stayed like that for minutes, his head bowed against her empty womb, his eyes closed, but Sierra never pushed him away. She didn’t even speak, only ran her hands through his hair gently.
After a long moment, he sighed, and looked up at her, his green eyes as heavy as her soul often felt. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just …’
‘Overwhelmed,’ she supplied. Because she felt that same dragging weight pressing down on her heart. ‘Overwhelmed by the immensity of this.’ She waved one hand between them. ‘Us.’
‘Yeah. Exactly.’ He gently nudged her legs wider and lay between them, his torso covering her and keeping her warm as he supported the brunt of his weight on his elbows. ‘I’ve waited for so long,’ he whispered, ‘and now I’m equally as excited as I am afraid.’ His forearms bracketed her sides. His thumbs moved in whispering strokes beneath her breasts.
‘I think the one thing we are allowed to be is afraid,’ she replied. ‘I mean, how do we ever move on?’
‘We don’t,’ he said. ‘We learn to live with it, we learn how to welcome grief when it rises because weshouldgrieve for Her. But we also have to choose to be happy when we can. Life’s too short. And it’s passing by whether we want it to or not.’
Sierra thought about that. Although the past year had been exceptionally rough, there had been small glimpses of joy, little moments – Mav finding Nina and, now, their baby on the way, Poppy’s last birthday, meeting Markus – that had been really good. Great, even. But the problem with grief was that it stole all those little moments from you too. In fact, if you let it, grief quietly took everything, including your hope for the future.
‘I made an appointment to see a fertility specialist a few months ago,’ Sierra said quietly. Benji’s head snapped up, but he didn’t say anything. ‘I was sitting on the sofa with Poppy, and she dozed off. And I looked at her, and I just had this really intense feeling that time was passing too quickly. And that if I was ever going to take that chance, I should start moving forward.’
Even though he must have had a ton to say about that, he didn’t, only asked, ‘How did the appointment go?’
‘I never went.’ Unable to look at him, Sierra stared up at the star-studded sky. She smiled grimly. ‘I was too scared of …everything: That the pregnancy wouldn’t take, that itwouldtake …’That it would take and then it would happen again.
Slowly, his thumbs resumed their whispering strokes. ‘Were you going to get a sperm donor?’ He asked the question cautiously, as if he were afraid of what she might say. Or, maybe, afraid that she might get angry and snap at him.
‘I didn’t think it through that far.’ It was a lie, and even though they could both hear it in her tone, Benji couldn’t have known the truth either: She would never have done it without him. She had never just wanted kids, or not any kids. She had wantedhis kids. The difference between the two was momentous to Sierra even though she couldn’t say that to him. It wouldn’t have been fair.
Benji would read more into it than she was ready to give. As if to prove her point, he said, ‘Will you promise that if you ever decide to do it, you’ll use my sperm?’ Before she could reply, he added, ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but I can be a good dad even if you decide that this isn’t going to work anymore. And you shouldn’t go through all that without someone – withoutme.’
Sierra didn’t clam up or get mad. She didn’t point out that sharing a kid would complicate things immensely for them if they decided not to stay together. Her heart swelled, and she said, ‘I promise.’ Because it was futile to pretend that she’d go down that path again without him. If anything, she would be too afraid to go down that path again at all.
‘Thank you.’ Leaning down again, Benji pressed a kiss to her sternum.
