Give Me War - Kate McCarthy Page 0,51
The laughter dies and she returns my kiss. And when I thrust my tongue inside her mouth, she tangles it with her own.
It burns me like a fever and makes me so damn grateful I have her back with me. I deepen the kiss, knowing how impossible it would be for me to let her go.
Evie twines her arms around my neck, and I wrap my own around her upper body, her breasts mashing up against my chest. We can’t get any closer, and I make a small, frustrated grunt as my lips move over hers because it’s not close enough.
Eventually we break apart because I need to let her breathe, and I press my forehead to hers.
“Jared,” she gasps.
“Evie,” I counter.
“Please let me speak.”
An impending sense of doom overtakes me, like the final scene in that movie, Deep Impact, where they’re standing on the beach watching an apocalyptic tsunami come tearing towards them. That’s me right now. I stiffen, every muscle rigid as I prepare myself for the worst. “Okay. Speak.”
EVIE
Now that I have his undivided attention, I don’t know where to start, so I do the only thing I can do, and go back to the beginning. “Remember when we first met?”
His expression softens, but all I remember at the time was sheer terror.
“I didn’t want any part of you.” His eyes crinkle in a slight wince but I forge ahead. “I’d been hurt before and I told myself I wouldn’t go through that again, but there you were when I opened the door, and suddenly I started wanting everything. It didn’t take long for me to realise you didn’t have the potential to hurt me. Not you. You had the potential to annihilate me.” My voice lowers to a rough whisper because it’s hard to admit you’re a coward. “I was scared. But you weren’t. You waged a war on the walls I built around myself, and when they came down, you walked right in and stole my heart as if it were yours to take.”
Jared looks devastated. “Evie—”
“Don’t.” I press a finger to his lips. “I let you. I let you because I trusted you. I wanted you to have it.” My finger falls away and I kiss him. “Because I loved you. But I expected love to be easy when it’s anything but. It’s overwhelming and stupid, and a lot of work. We fight, and hurt each other, and say the wrong things. And I’ve focused for far too long on having a baby instead of our marriage.” My eyes burn and a tear slips free. Jared makes a sound and wipes it away. “I’m sorry,” I croak. “I lost sight of the most important thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That we’re a team. And love might be all those things, but every minute of every hour, of every day, it’s worth it because we’re in this together.”
Jared exhales a rough breath, visibly fighting back his emotions. He tugs me closer, his arms a steel band that locks me tight against him. He buries his head in the crook of my neck and inhales deeply. When he speaks, his voice is low and scratchy, and muffled against my skin. “I’m sorry too. I felt like I’d failed you, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I didn’t, and look what happened.” He tips his head back, resting his chin on my shoulder as he holds me tight. “You’re right, my beautiful wife. We’re a team. And our journey isn’t perfect, but it’s ours.” Jared loosens his hold, pulling back to press a kiss to my forehead. “I’m with you ‘til the end.”
“You better be,” I tease. “You put a ring on it, after all.”
“And it’s never coming off,” he declares with a fierce glare, pulling back so he can look me in the eye. I sigh internally. Today, my husband went to war for me, he killed the man who took me, and then he put me in a bath and kissed my forehead like I was his most prized possession. Of course the ring is never coming off. “Now is there something else you were wanting to tell me?”
“Yes.” My insides melt like ice cream in the sun. Even though Jared already knows our happy news, he’s giving me this. “We’re having another baby.” I (wisely) decide to leave out the fact we’ve already named her Moses. That’s a battle for another day. And it is going to be a her I’ve decided. I’ve seen