TimeBound (Time Tells #1) (COMPLETED)

Chapter Thirty

Suddenly that becomes our code word. Or phrase.

Did you miss me?

Did you?

When I was writing the other day, stretched out along the sofa, my laptop on my lap, I lean my head back to look at my husband who had taken to working wherever I was and was currently sitting on a chair he had 'shadow-moved' into the living space.

"Miss me?" I ask him.

His gaze flashes to me and I've shut and placed my laptop on the floor even as I raise my arms to welcome him into them when he lifts from his seat and has one knee pressed to the sofa. I sigh into the kiss that's both parts frenzied and languid. I shift, sinking deeper into the cushions as I draw him closer with my arms around his neck and knees on either side of his hips.

Another time, he returned home from work and the moment he sees me as I return from the kitchen, he stops.
Seeing him freezing, I do too.

"Did you miss me?" He asks.

Heart kicking into gear, I whisper, "Did you?" As I take step onto the path and collide into him, meeting halfway. This time, his kiss is almost angry. But it melts into something that far far greater than just the two of us in this minute. As if it were made of many minutes like this. From long long before.

Another time, the man cooked for me. Laid a table for me and served me.

I don't think I even uttered a word. I just stared at him. I decided I should probably eat first and it was the hardest damn decision to make.

When I'm done, the dishes start doing themselves and I get up from my seat and corner my husband in his, standing between his legs and curling a palm around the nape of his neck.

He looked up at me, his head tilting back only a little as he locked one leg around the backs of mine and tugged me closer using the hold he had on me. I closed my eyes as I'm pressed further into him, my nose pressed against his cheek and my eyes shut. I let out a soft breath.

"I didn't know you cook."

"I leant how to."

I squeeze my eyes to keep them from tearing. I keep them that way when I speak.

"I don't...ever need you to do anything for me. I would have you as you are. But when you do..."

Something tightens my throat, "When you do, it's like I'm dreaming again."

I don't let him respond, I just climb over him, knowing he'd take care of me as I draw him into the softest kiss I know to give. My knees are cushioned by shadows because there was no where on the seat for me to possible keep them as I straddle him.

Something hits me deep inside, an awareness of something that I never knew I needed to acknowledge.

That I could rely on this man. That I could jump and he would be there to catch me.

My tears fall onto his cheeks and his hands tighten around my waist, as if to comfort me.

It was the best damn dinner of my life.

It's a day after that that I go shopping in the afternoon. I can't bake. I neither have the patience nor the talent, though I may grow both for him. I purchase some dark chocolate muffins with money I have no idea what to do with because my husband was generous to a fault. I was receiving money from the stock market, from shares, from places I didn't even know, where my husband had invested in my name; the losses—if any—directed to his accounts but all profits to mine.