I run my fingers through his dark hair. "We'll talk about it tomorrow when you're not hammered."
He's still holding me around the waist but he fists the T-shirt I'm wearing and pushes it up to bare my stomach. "I can just see you with a baby on the way."
Oh, God. Why does he have to say things like that right now? "You're drunk and you need to sleep it off."
He pokes me with his finger below my navel. "I want to marry the shit out of you and then I want to put a baby inside you as soon as you'll let me." He puts his finger under my piercing and flicks it up. "But I don't know what will happen to this little jewel when your belly grows."
I feel euphoric hearing him talk about marriage and babies, but then I remember why he's drunk and saying things like that. "Be a good boy for me and lie down on the couch."
"I don't want to sleep here. I want to be in our bed with you."
"No! I'm pissed off at you. You're not going to sleep next to me like nothing happened."
He pulls me closer and I stumble again. "Please, Laurelyn. Let me come to bed. I don't want to sleep apart from you."
"No."
He puts the side of his face against my stomach. "I'm begging you, baby. Don't make me sleep here without you."
Shit! I'm exhausted and don't have the strength to argue—or wrestle him—so I concede. "You can come to bed but don't you dare try to touch me."
"I won't," he promises. "I just want to sleep next to you."
He lets go of me and is unstable when he stands, so I reach out to steady him. "You okay?"
"Yep."
He's plastered and is going to feel like shit tomorrow. Serves him right.
"Come on." Our roles have reversed. I was the unstable one earlier in the night, but now I'm guiding his drunken ass down the hallway to our bedroom.
I pull the covers back on his side of the bed and order him to climb inside. He crawls in and his eyes are shut when he says, "I love you, Laurelyn."
I'm hurt by what he's done, and although I love him, I can't make myself say the words in return.
I climb in on my side and I already hear him snoring. It's incredible but after being apart for three months, I can't even hate that annoying sound.
When I wake again, I'm lying on my side and Jack Henry's arm is around my waist. He's pressed against me and I feel his breath on the back of my neck. "Please don't make me let you go yet. I just need to savor feeling you like this for a little longer."
Those are parting words. He anticipates me leaving him. And he has reason to.
I feel his head shift and now it's pressed against my back. "I didn't f**k her. I know you believe I did, but I swear I didn't. I wasn't lying to you when I told you I hadn't been inside another woman since you."
I've never known Jack Henry to lie to me. I think that's one reason the whole thing came as such a shock. That, and the fact that he knows how much I despise deceit.
I pull away and flip over so I can see his face. "You did something with her." And I know all the little naughty somethings he likes so much. "And whatever it was happened a week after I left. Seven damn days. Do you want to know what I was doing on day seven? I wasn't out screwing around with some guy. I was in my apartment all alone, crying day and night because I was grieving the loss of us."
"Dammit, Laurelyn. You walked out on me without so much as a goodbye. Don't think for one second that I wasn't grieving the loss of us too. I thought I was never going to see you again and I was a total mess after you were gone. I stayed drunk the first week after. I was so f**king miserable and I just wanted to find a way to get over you. You said you thought Charlie might help you forget me. Well, I thought I needed number fourteen to make me forget you, so I picked that woman up in a hotel bar. She agreed to my conditions and I took her upstairs to the room I'd rented. I planned on f**king her until you were out of my head."
I can't handle hearing this. It's too much. "Stop. I don't want to hear this. It will end me if I have to picture you with another woman." I put my hands over my ears.
He grabs my wrists to pull them down. "I had every intention of telling you about this woman, but the night you asked if there were others, I couldn't say the words. We had just found each other and I didn't want to ruin our reunion, so I planned on doing it later. But later never came."
"I don't want to know. I don't want to have the picture in my head."
"This will always come between us if I don't tell you everything. You'll always wonder what happened, so it's better to get it out of the way so it can't hurt us in the long run." He brings my hands to his mouth and kisses them. "And I plan on it being a really long run—like, forever."
I brace myself for the pain that's coming. It's like seeing a bat being swung at my face in slow motion. I know it's gonna hurt like hell and if it hits me hard enough, there's a good chance I might die.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The thought of never telling Laurelyn about the woman in the hotel—potential number fourteen—had crossed my mind. I seriously considered keeping that secret to myself but I always knew I couldn't deceive her that way. As time passed, the moment was never right—at least that's what I told myself.
I admit it. That was my excuse and it got me by for a while, but now it's all come tumbling down on my head. Even in this moment, I want to back out because I'm scared shitless, but I have no choice. What I'm about to do could cost me the first and only woman I've ever been in love with, but I don't think I could ever look straight at myself—or Laurelyn—if I don't tell her everything.
I clear my throat and the sound echoes off every wall in our bedroom. It calls attention to how quiet it is and to the fact that I'm about to tell her something that's going to cause her pain. "I was so hammered that I could barely walk. All I could think about was you and how you left me without a goodbye. I understand why you did it, but it still hurt me terribly. I wanted the pain to go away, even if it was only for a few minutes. I thought f**king another woman would take away the pain I felt from losing you. But I was wrong; her touch made me sick. I couldn't even let her kiss me when she tried."
"I don't want you to describe being with her from beginning to end. I'd be envisioning the whole encounter in my head, so I'm going to ask you the things I think are important for me to know."
That's probably better than getting my play-by-play. "Okay. I'll honestly answer any questions you have."
"Was she naked?"