After the Climb (River Rain #1) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,91
to their room.
*****
Duncan didn’t know what woke him, especially after poker, a number of Scotches, a late night, and a slow fuck that ended fast and hard.
But he woke.
To an empty bed.
Not even thinking about it, he sat up, ready to toss the covers aside and look for her.
But he didn’t move when he saw her standing at the window, staring into the night.
Either she heard him move, or simply sensed he was awake, because she spoke.
“It snowed.”
He could tell by the brightness coming into the room that wasn’t just the usual from a moon that was not dimmed by the lights of humanity.
The theme of the planet: what they create doing everything from reducing to obliterating the beauty of nature.
“Come back to bed,” he called.
“I hate that you lived the marriage you had,” she told the window.
Shit.
Yeah, his comment about Harv being the best friend he’d had had gotten to her.
“Come back to bed, baby,” he repeated.
“I hate that we didn’t get the chance to make daughters. You’re great with my girls. I love to watch you with them. A natural.”
His voice was lower, rougher, when he reiterated, “Gen, please, come back to bed.”
“I need to do this,” she replied, also lower, throatier.
Hearing that, Duncan said nothing.
“Just this once,” she went on.
Duncan remained silent.
Genny spoke on.
“I get that it wouldn’t have worked. I get that it would have overwhelmed us. I get that, if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have had my kids, and yes, Tom, and you wouldn’t have had the boys, and the times that were good with Dora. I get all of that.”
She stopped.
He waited.
She started again.
“But my mother loved you. There were times I thought she was more hurt than I was at how we ended. And my father never had a son. You were that to him. And he tried to hide it, so he could look after me, but I knew he was devastated. So I also hate that they didn’t live to know what really happened, to see us together again, and to have you back in their lives.”
That cut to the bone.
Even so, Duncan didn’t move.
Nor speak.
“And I know it’s useless to think, if we’d managed it, if we’d overcome it, if we’d stayed together, then what other ifs would there be? I know you would never have endured what you did with Dora. I would never have had the man I loved and trusted above all others in the world betray me. We would have made babies.”
She stopped again.
Duncan held completely still, because he knew one move would drive him to her.
And he sensed she needed her space to get through this.
So he did what he was intent on doing for the rest of their lives.
He gave her what she needed.
“So just this once, between you and me, so it’s just ours, I’m going to allow myself a moment I never allow because I think it’s weak and meaningless.”
When she didn’t go on, he broke his silence to ask, “Allow yourself what, baby?”
“To hate,” she said. “To hate what Dora put you through. And to hate what Corey did to us. Not to hate them. But to hate what they did.”
“That’s not only allowed, but understandable,” he pointed out.
She turned to him at that. “I know. But you feel it and you let it go so it doesn’t consume you, Bowie. You know that. You did it with your dad. Who, by the way, is the only exemption to the rule. I just straight up hate him.”
That made Duncan chuckle.
He stopped when she declared, “Having you back is like having the breath reenter my lungs. And another thing I hate is that we have Corey to thank for that. So I’ll only do that just this once. He’ll only get that gratitude this once. Because in the end, it’s about you and me and who we are and that we’d never quit each other. Not totally.”
She had that right.
Before he could confirm, she kept speaking.
“Thank you for throwing that frog at me, Bowie. It’s been a rough climb, and there are parts of that trail I wish neither of us had been forced to travel, but it was worth it to be right here…with you.”
Right.
He’d given it to her.
Now he was done.
“Get back in this bed, Genny,” he growled.
She came back to bed.
He gathered her close and kissed her hard when she did.
When he was done, she tucked her face in his throat and burrowed closer.