Pleasure reverberated inside her with each thrust, each word, each melding kiss, like the rushing and receding of a tide gone mad. It all gathered, towered, held at its zenith like a tidal wave before the devastating crash. Then the blows of release hit like those of a giant hammer, striking her core again and again, expanding shock waves that razed her, wrung her around his girth in contractions so violent they fractured breath and heartbeats. She clung to him in the frenzy, inside and out as if she’d assimilate him, dissolve around him. Then she felt him roar his release as he jammed his erection to her womb, jetting his pleasure to fill it, causing another wave to crash over her, shattering her with the power of the sensations, of wishing that they’d make a baby this way in the future. When they didn’t have one…
She came back to awareness to find him beneath her on the bed, still hard and pulsating inside her, setting off mini quakes that kept her in a state of continuous orgasm.
A question wavered from her in a scratchy rasp. “So was that goodbye sex?”
He jerked beneath her. “You go out of your way to pick the exact words that will cut me deepest, don’t you?”
And she wailed, “What else could it be?”
“It was you-turn-me-into-a-raging-beast-in-perpetual-mating-frenzy sex. It was I-can’t-have-enough-of-your-pleasure-and-your-intimacy lovemaking.” Every word flowed over her like a balm on a wound, drowning the doubt demons who whispered he was just over-endowed and would enjoy any sexually voracious female. “Not that that excuses what I did. I didn’t come here intending to take you like that. I was resolved not to confuse issues. But I saw you about to sign those papers and almost burst an artery.”
Her lips twitched in spite of her confusion. “Glad the pressure found another outlet.” She relived the moments when it had, splashing against her inner walls, filling her with his scalding essence, mixing with her pleasure…But…wait a sec! “But you want me to sign the papers.”
He rose onto his elbow, looked at her with the last trace of heavy-lidded male possession vanishing, that bleakness taking over his eyes. “I want a bullet between the eyes more.” She gasped, the thought of anything happening to him paralyzing her with terror. “But since I can’t prove that to you by words or lovemaking, and you have every right not to accept either as proof, after all the lies that almost cost you your mind and your very life, I’m down to action. And the proof of time.”
He extricated himself from her, rose off the bed, walked to gather the papers and came back to lay them beside her.
Before she could say she didn’t want any proof, just wanted to be his, if he really wanted her, he turned and gathered his clothes.
She sat up shakily as he started dressing, his movements stiff, his face clenched with that intensity she now believed betrayed his turmoil. And finally, she understood. Just as she’d given him the freedom to divorce her, the divorce papers were his proof that she was equally free. Even if he’d rather end his life than lose her, he was letting her go, if it meant her peace of mind. Oh, God…
She’d caused him so much pain, even if inadvertently. Then, when he’d told her how long and how much he’d been hurting, she’d added indelible insult to injury when she’d imposed her distrust of those who’d blighted her life with letdowns, who'd made her doubt that she was deserving of love, as pretext to condemn his motivations.
But a man who wanted only his child wouldn’t have done one thousandth of the things he’d done for her. He would never have said he loved her, would rather die than lose her. And even if any other man might have lied to that extent to achieve what he considered a highest cause, the stability of his child’s family life, Rodrigo wouldn’t. He was too honorable.
Even when he’d kept the truth about their baby’s paternity from her, he’d done it only to protect her, had been willing to never proclaim his baby as his own flesh and blood, to preserve the illusion he’d thought essential to her well-being.
She made a grab for the papers, sprang off the bed and ran to him, grabbed one of his hands as he started buttoning up his shirt, tears of humility and contrition and heart-piercing adoration pouring from her very soul to scorch down her cheeks. “Those papers are your I’m-free-to-come-back-to-you-of-my-own-free-will gesture, right?”
He seemed to struggle to stop himself. He lost the fight, reached out with his other hand, wiped away her tears, cupped her cheek, his face the embodiment of tenderness. “They’re not a gesture. You are free. And you must not consider me in your decision. You’re not responsible for how I feel.” Exactly the opposite of what Mel and her family had done to her. They’d made her feel responsible for their feelings toward her, guilty of inciting Mel’s pathological possessiveness or their equally unnatural negligence. “In time, if you become satisfied that I am what you need, what will make you happy, come back to me. If you don’t, then sign those papers and send them back to me instead. The other documents should prove you are in no way pressured to make the best of it for anybody else’s sake but yours.”
And she revealed her last and biggest fear. “W-what if in time you decide I’m not what you need?”
He huffed a harsh laugh, as if she were asking if he might one day fly under his own power. Certainty solidified in her every cell as she grinned up at him with sudden unbridled ecstasy. Then the rest of his words registered. “The other documents…”
She looked through the papers, found those with the heading that had triggered her crazy doubt that he’d take the baby.
Custody papers. Giving away his parental rights. To her. Unconditionally. She’d choose if he was part of his baby’s life.
She stared at the words, their meaning too huge to take in.
Her eyes flew dazedly up to his solemn ones. “Why?”
“Because without you, nothing is worth having, not even my child. Because I trust you not to deprive him of my love even if you decide to end our marriage. Because I want you to be totally free to make that decision if you need to, without fearing you’ll lose your baby, or become embroiled in a custody case. Because I need to know that if you come back to me, you do it not out of need or gratitude or for our baby’s best interests, but because it’s in your best interests. Because you want me.”
Then he turned away, looking like a man who had nothing to look forward to but waiting for an uncertain verdict.