The knock on my door came at sunset. I got up from my bed, putting my old copy of Too Big To Fail facedown on the mattress. Old habits and fears made me walk up to the hotel room door sideways, checking the peephole, half expecting to see Bates standing there.

But it was Abby.

I unlocked the door and yanked it open.

“Abby!” I cried, worried and happy all at once. “Is everything okay?”

She stepped in and shut the door behind us, and the hotel room seemed suddenly painfully shabby and way too small. She filled the room with a bright anger. The lamp I had on beside my bed created shadows in all the corners, and she stood in one.

From the front pocket of the baggy sweatshirt she wore she pulled out my manila envelope and put it down on the table. Pushing it with her pale fingers into the middle, like she was making a bet at a casino.

All in.

“I can’t stop you from leaving,” she said. “But I’m not taking your money so you can do it and feel better about going.”

“You need that money,” I said, and it must have been the wrong thing because she finally looked at me and she was pissed. Furious. Shaking with anger.

“Don’t fucking tell me what I need.”

I nodded and held up my hands. “I’m sorry.”

“I went to my sister for help that night, after what I—”

“I know what night.” I didn’t need her to say it out loud. We both needed to put that night behind us.

“And before I could say no, or figure something out for myself, Charlotte was selling her condo and moving into an airport hotel, and I was so used to her doing that. So used to her taking the lead in my life that I let her do it. I let her give me everything she had, because that is what she does.

“And I took half her money from the sale of her condo because that’s what I do. But I’ve spent none of it. Not a penny. Because I can’t keep doing that, you know? I can’t keep letting her bail me out.”

“This money, it’s not to bail you out.”

“I know. It’s to bail you out.”

I rocked back on my heels.

“I think you want me,” she said. “And I think you want this baby. And I think you’ve spent the last few months just like I have, despite everything that happened, despite being terrified and freaked out—imagining us as a family. And you want that. You really do. Which is why you won’t reach for it."

I blinked at her. Stunned at her bravery. Unable to look away from her fierceness.

“You’re like the reverse of that dog, you know? The one that hears the bell and drools?”

“Pavlov.” The word spilled from my numb lips.

“Right. You want something and you turn your back. And this money is going to make you feel better about turning your back. So,” she sighed. “I don’t want it.”

She stepped toward me and I, feeling like a cornered animal, stepped back. But it didn’t dissuade her. She kept coming toward me. So fierce I put my hand out as if to ward her off.

But she, always so foolish. So reckless. She stepped right into my hand, laying her cheek against my palm. Sending sparks up my arm into my blood.

“I want you,” she said. “I’m really fucking scared, but I want you.”

I wanted her too. I wanted her so badly I could taste it. Like her tear from earlier. Salty and sweet.

And I was scared, but my fear, it was so old. So ingrained.

Do not reach for what you want because the pain, when it comes… it will devastate you. And there is so little of you left. If she leaves. If something happens…

I shook my head. Denying her. Denying us.

“Jack,” she breathed and still, I didn’t reach for her. Yes, love and faith and belief were a yes and no question, but the living of that answer was complicated.

Dangerous.

She sobbed hard and turned away, shoving me as she went, reaching for the door.

She’s leaving. She’s leaving!

I put my hand around her waist, stopping her in her tracks. And the door she’d opened I slammed shut with my hand. She jerked against me at the sound and my entire body sighed with relief at the contact.

Her back was to my chest and I felt the shuddering nature of every breath she took, and I knew she felt the wild pounding of my heart against her spine.

“Jack…”

No talking. Talking would ruin everything because I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

I wanted to go back to the way we’d been in my house those three days. Our bodies could figure this out; they’d done it before.

I turned her into my arms, lifting her against me, feeling the swell of her breasts and her belly. I got one wild look at her triumphant eyes and I wanted to warn her. To stop her from feeling like we’d won, because this… us, we might not be winning.

But then it didn’t matter. I kissed her like she was everything in the world I needed and was terrified of.

And she kissed me back the same way. Like it was kiss or die.

I carried her, her feet dangling between my calves, to the bed where I tried to be gentle. I tried to careful and caring. I ran my hands over her back and her arms I stopped trying to devour her mouth with mine.

“Stop,” she said against my lips.

I jerked back. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re treating me like I’m going to break.”

“I’m—”

“Stop.”

“Abby—”

She kissed me, pulling my lower lip into her mouth and biting me.

Fuck, I jerked in her arms and she sucked that lip into her mouth, and I grabbed her. I grabbed her ass in my hand, pulling her so hard against me I felt the bump of her belly and the heat between her legs. Fine, I thought, letting out some of the demons of the last few months. Yes. Good.

Animals.

I pushed her backward onto the bed and followed her down, covering her body with mine, every inch of it. Every bit of her. She curled against me, pushed and pulled her nails against my neck. Her teeth against my tongue.

I yanked the sweatshirt over her head, throwing it over my shoulder. The loose cream tunic she wore beneath it followed.

She wore a blue bra, one of those running ones, and beneath the lower band of it was her tummy. The swell of it. Her creamy skin, pulled taut over her rounded abdomen.

“You’re pregnant.”

“You knew that,” she said.

“I know. I just didn’t know.”

“It surprises me sometimes too,” she said. Running her hand over the curve. The blue veins under her skin were fascinating. I could have studied them for hours. “You can touch it,” she said. “Touch me.”

My hand was shaking. Really shaking as I laid it against her skin. “It’s hard,” I said. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

I crawled off her body, kissing the tops of her breasts. She gasped. I licked her hard nipple through the thick cotton of the bra and she gasped again. So I sucked them through the fabric into my mouth and she arched up off the couch.

I pushed the thick edge of the bra up over her breasts. The red line imprinted on her skin made me ache for her. I kissed the rippled mark the bra left behind, licked the bottom curve of her breasts. The nipples.

She was groaning beneath me. Writhing.

So much more sensitive than she’d been before.

I felt something satisfied and primal uncurl in my chest. The pregnancy did this. I did this. Fuck. I was so hard.

Would she come like this? Could I make her come just like this?

I tongued her nipples until she was crying out.

“Stop,” she said, putting her hands over herself, between my mouth and her beautiful body. “Stop. It’s too much. Too sensitive.”

Conceding, I made my way down her body to the swell of her stomach. The rise of it. I worked off her leggings and underwear, pulled off her shoes until she was lying on that bed naked.

My hand eased between her legs and I found her wet and flush and ripe. My fingers instantly coated in her. Instantly enveloped in her heat.

She whimpered and stretched her arms over her head, her legs splitting open just enough, the slightest invitation, but it was enough and I took it. I was on the floor between her legs, her soft skin under my hands, against my shoulders. I wanted to tear off my clothes so I could feel her everywhere, but this wasn’t about me.

This was about her.

My hands slipped up the velvet of her inner thighs, the muscles and tendons there twitching against my touch, like I’d set off some kind of rebellion in her body. I glanced up at her, the swell of her stomach, her breasts, pink and bigger than before, her face, the sharp chin and perfect nose. Her eyes closed. Her mouth open.

I would remember her like this for the rest of my life.

My hands slid higher up her body, around her pregnant belly toward her breasts and she sighed and flinched as I touched her. As I stroked her nipples. Sighs turned to moans and her legs shifted open even further and I smiled.

Yes, my girl. My beautiful responsive girl.

Her pussy was wet and pink and perfect and I put my face against her, breathing her in.

She moaned, her hands touching my hair, my face. I licked her, the pink crease, with the flat of my tongue. Touching as much as I could. Tasting as much as I could. She hitched her hips up, her hands now in fists in my hair. I found the hard bead of her clitoris and she flinched away. I saw her eyes pop open and I stopped.

“That… hurts,” she said in a strange voice. Like the sensation was a surprise. But not a bad one.

I leaned back. I’d pull off my skin before I hurt her.

“No, it’s just… it’s so sensitive,” she said with a soft smile.

Her hand left my head to stroke the swell of her stomach, and I realized the pregnancy was changing her. And what a fucking righteous thing that was. What a beautiful force of nature.

“Shhhh.” I blew my breath against her like it might make whatever pain I caused feel better. Instead of the tip of my tongue I used the flat of my tongue over and over again, and her body slowly melted against me. I leaned back and ran my fingers through the slick heat between her legs, the touch of my finger against her clitoris made her flinch again but when I slipped a finger inside of her she nearly shot up off the couch.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, wide eyed looking at me.

“Too much?” I asked, every muscle still.

“So good. Oh my god.” She fell back against the bed and I could feel her, the rising tide of orgasm in the tension of her legs, the fluttering of the muscles inside her body.

I added another finger and she put a hand over her mouth, covering up her cries.

“Do you want more?” I asked.

“Yes, please, it feels so good. I can’t…” She looked up at me with wild eyes. “More. Please. I need you to fuck me.”

She was wild under my hands, thrumming against my fingers.

“Please, Jack.”

I was on some kind of autopilot, unable to resist when she asked like that. When she pleaded me with her eyes, I got up on my knees, pulling her hips closer to the edge of the bed. I unbuckled my belt and undid my pants, half my brain screaming at me to stop.

But I didn’t.

And when I slid into her it was the most beautiful feeling I’d ever had in my life.

She cried out, her back bowing. I reached over her to grab the edge of the mattress.

Her legs came up around my hips, holding me against her with surprising strength.

I put every effort into her, pulling myself so far inside my skin so I wouldn’t feel how good it was to fuck her.

Every time I sank into her as far as I could she nearly screamed with the pleasure, but when I fucked her fast she shook her head. So I stayed deep, gripping the bed, curling into her with slow, deep, hard thrusts, and she spun out beneath me.

She utterly collapsed.

Crying and twitching, her eyes open and staring unseeing into mine, and I held myself still in the place she seemed to like best, lodged so deep inside her I could feel her heartbeat. I won’t survive this, I thought, as she came and came and came. I just can’t.

And when it was over, when she lay beneath me replete and sweating, her skin pink with her pleasure—I still couldn’t move.

I remembered those days in my apartment, how it had felt dangerous at first to come. Like it would be committing to a road I’d never return from.

Fuck. Was I ever right.

“Jack,” she said, stroking my face. “It’s okay. Please. Come.”

She sat up to put her arms around me and the shifting of her body around mine was the end of me. I pushed her to the bed and crawled over her, finding the place I liked best, with her ass in my hands and her legs around my waist. I pushed and pulled her across my dick until everything, all of it, was inevitable.

I came in blinding spurts. Painful and ecstatic all at once.

“God, Abby,” I breathed, pulling out of her and collapsing at her side. “Are you—”

“Perfect,” she said. “I’m totally perfect.”

I lifted her onto the bed, pulling the sheets over her, curling my body into hers. And finally I did what I’d been wanting to do all day: I rubbed my hand down her back, digging my fingers into the knots I felt along her spine.

“Oh god,” she breathed. “Oh, thank you.”

She curled and shifted, sighing and wincing. And I rubbed accordingly. I could spend days like this.

“Jack,” she whispered after a long long time.

“Yeah.”

“The women in the container…”

I recoiled. Why was she bringing that here? To the bed? But she grabbed my hand, stopping me before I could leave.

“Have you talked to anyone?” she asked.

“I told you.”

“Barely,” she said. “You barely told me anything.”

“You don’t want to know that shit, Abby.”

“What about the police?”

“They were called that night. The women weren’t dropped in the ocean, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “But I’m also worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t be. You have enough going on.”

“What about what happened with Lazarus?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You killed a man, Jack. Have you… like, talked to a priest?”

“Abby, baby. Please.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. I just…” She shook her head, stopping herself from saying whatever she was going to say.

It took her a while, but she finally relaxed again and I went back to rubbing her spine. When one hand got tired, I moved behind her so I could get to her with my other hand.

After a while I realized she’d stopped moaning and shifting.

She was asleep. Asleep in my arms. In my bed.

I turned off the light and put my head beside hers on the mattress.

I fell asleep too, and dreamt terrible dreams of Abby being locked in a shipping container.