Page 80
“I’m sorry, yes, they both wrote it to each other.”
I walk over to her, but she holds up a hand. “And the baby… was he happy about the baby?”
She’s killing me here. I rock my head back. I’m not sure I can even speak past the painful knot in my throat. My eyes and my chest burn with the truth.
Instead of confirming with words, I give her a single nod.
Her face crumples, and her head falls into her hands, crying. I break the distance between us, pulling her into my arms, knowing I can’t make this better for her, but wanting to anyway.
“Was it because of something I did? Because I couldn’t give him a child? Did he say why he was so unhappy with me?”
I rub her back as she cries into my chest, then kiss the top of her head. “I don’t think it’s anything you did or didn’t do. This is on him. If he was unhappy, he should have talked to you about it. Not started an affair.”
She pulls away from me, a fiery look on her face. “But did he say anything about me at all? Don’t lie to me, Ansel. I want to know it all. I lived in this delusional happy bubble that wasn’t real, and I want it popped and destroyed.”
I push a hand through my hair. I’m not sure whether it would be better or worse for Collins for him to have said something. “He didn’t say anything in those messages. They didn’t discuss you at all…”
Her face sinks. I’m sure that’s hurtful. She wasn’t even discussed as if she didn’t matter.
“Up until right before the end. He said he was going to talk to you about the baby soon.”
She throws her arms up at her sides. “What the hell?” Then she pushes her hands into her hair. “I feel like I’m being punked. I mean… what the hell, Ansel?” She laughs maniacally and shakes her head.
I draw her into my arms again. “It doesn’t make any sense, I know.”
“Thank you for doing that for me. I know it probably wasn’t easy for you.”
I cup her face. “Collins, I’m here for you. I will do whatever it takes to help you get past this.” I say it with my whole chest because I fucking mean it. This woman has somehow become the most important thing to me.
She pulls my face down for a kiss, licking the seam of my lips. I can’t resist, and I open to her. She tastes of the sweet hot chocolate as I let my hands roam down to her leggings-clad ass, pulling her in so she can feel exactly what she does to me.
Collins pulls away and looks up at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “I just want to feel good. Please make me feel good, Ansel. I’m begging you.”
Well, fuck. When she’s begging like this, how could I not?
THIRTY-SIX
Collins
This time, Ansel doesn’t deny me. Instead, he picks me up, and my legs swing around his waist. He walks me over to the couch. I assume he’s going to set me down on it, but he brings me to the back of it instead and sets me on my feet.
Before I can ask what he’s doing, he reaches for my waist and spins me around so I’m facing the back of the couch. Then he applies pressure to the middle of my back, and I bend forward.
“Ass out, baby.” His voice is deep and thick with lust, and I press my thighs together. Ansel wastes no time dragging my leggings to the floor and tossing them aside. “Nice surprise.” His chest covers my back, and his mouth is at my ear. “Do you always go commando with leggings?”
“It’s more comfortable.”
“Does that mean you weren’t wearing them when we did yoga?” He slips off me.
“Yeah.”
He groans and drops his forehead to my ass cheek.
I resist the urge to arch my back and beg him to taste me. I’m completely bared to him, yet I feel no self-consciousness as he lifts his forehead and spreads my ass cheeks, taking his fill. I can practically feel his gaze move over my wet flesh.
“I’m gonna make you feel so good, baby.”
That’s all the warning I get before he licks me from one end to the other. I moan, and my head falls forward. When he reaches my puckered hole, he laves it with attention. It’s a foreign feeling to me, but oh so good, and I whimper. My clit pulses with the need for attention, and I want so badly for him to fill me as he continues to work that place where no one has been before.
