Free Bittersweet Catastrophe (Second Chances #2.5) by Maureen Mayer Page B

breast, and the second it covered the site of her incision, Liberty hissed in a sharp breath.
    “Shit, are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
    “No. I-It’s fine. It’s just a bit more tender than I thought.” The corner of her mouth pulled up into what I could only describe as the saddest excuse for a smile that I’d ever seen. My poor girl. She wasn’t fooling me. I knew it had to hurt like hell, yet she continued to put on a brave face. So stubborn and yet so beautiful.
    “Are you sure, sweetheart? I don’t want to make it worse.” I cupped her jaw, brushing my thumb along her soft, pink lips until her mouth finally spread into a genuine smile.
    “Really, it’s fine. I’m supposed to ice it on and off tonight anyway.” She sucked in a deep breath and quickly forced it out before placing the bag of ice back in my hand. “Do your worst, Dr. Thompson ,” she whispered, giving me a sly grin.
    I leaned forward and chuckled against her lips, delicately placing the ice pack against her breast. She hissed again, eyes squeezed tight in pangs of discomfort, but this time around I was prepared, ready to swallow her cries and kiss away her pain.
    Once the initial shock wore off, she parted her lips and leaned into the kiss, demanding more. Always demanding more. Her tongue traced over my bottom lip, greedily begging me to let her in, and as wrong as it felt to be doing this while she was hurting, I couldn’t deny her request. She looked fucking breathtaking with her hair splayed over the pillow in long auburn waves, her delicious vanilla scent awakening my senses, her fingers digging into my shoulders and nails scraping down across my chest. I loved when she marked me like that, physically claiming me. Nothing got me harder than feeling the woman I love possess me with such ferocity, and I still had the scars on my back to prove it.
    It didn’t take long for the remaining ice to melt, and the bag slipped through my fingers as our kiss deepened, devouring one another. My hands slid down her ribs and ghosted over her stomach, feeling the barely-there bump that had begun to take shape over the last few weeks. It was amazing to finally see proof of the tiny lives we had created, not just on sonogram photos but beneath my very own hands. I still couldn’t believe that between the mere inches that separated us were our babies. Our babies . So fucking surreal…
    Holy shit, how had I forgotten about the babies?!
    I pulled back quickly, putting a stop to everything, and tried to catch my breath. My heart was racing a mile a minute, and Liberty lay beneath me, panting just as heavily with a look on her face that screamed she was going to murder me.
    She sat up on her elbows, wincing as she adjusted herself. “Seriously, Shayne?! You can’t get me all worked up like that and then shut me down. You think blue balls are bad? Trying being pregnant with raging hormones. I’m about ready to explode!”
    I sat back on my haunches and buried my hand in my hair. What the hell was I thinking? “I can’t…I can’t do this. Cancer…the babies… Jesus, Liberty, I didn’t even think about how it could affect the babies.”
    My fingers skimmed over her belly where our children lay safely inside of her, or so I had thought, and the murderous glare quickly fell from her face as she nodded in understanding. “There are risks, but the doctor said he would discuss it further when they got my results back. He didn’t want to worry me if it wasn’t absolutely necessary and stress me out more than I already am.”
    I nodded and answered weakly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
    She sat up and slipped her legs over my thigh and her arms around my neck, molding her body to me. All thoughts of being buried deep inside her had flown straight out the window, but I still needed to be as close to her as possible, to feel her pressed up against me, to know that she was still here and not a mere apparition of the beautiful woman I had fallen