one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide
Adna is still not certain how or where she stands with Beth.
She has no idea what brims beneath the surface of him—has no idea what drives him or what he thinks or, heaven forbid, how he feels. He is like the ocean and the longer she stares, the more she realizes is just under the surface. The longer she looks, the more she sees endless black and the ripples of thrown stones.
It does nothing to deter her though, or stop that reckless pounding of her heart when she thinks of him. It does nothing to quiet the pounding of her pulse when she considers him—when she thinks of that serious gravity to his face, or the curve of his neck, or the way it feels when he finally lets her in.
Even if it’s just for a second.
Even if it’s just for a moment.
She does her best to keep such things tucked away, to pretend that they have no effect, and if she goes to sleep with a war-battered heart, then it is her mistake to make. Just as it is her mistake to make when she wakes up and feels the rhythm of life that begins to grip at her belly. If she feels any fear, it is drowned out by the instinct that takes over. She doesn’t cry out—can’t imagine asking for help—but neither does she hide. Instead, she finds a quiet spot, swallowing hard and then letting nature take its course.
When the minutes pass (and then the hours), she focuses on the task at hand.
The rest fades into the background until that tiny girl slips from her.
She feels relief and exhaustion and something completely foreign when her heart clenches in her chest. She reaches out for the tiny scaled girl, such a perfect miniature, and she feels tears on her cheeks, but they are not quite the sorrow she had felt when her first children had taken their first breath.
This is terrifying and electrifying and she lets it flood over her as she presses kisses to her daughter.
@[savage]