جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 9

I hold my luggage, swallowing deeply as my mother chats about something that I don't pay attention to. We're heading for my sister's Vegas wedding,I suddenly regret having her invite Paul few days ago.The next one week was going to be tougher than I thought, he hasn't been responding to my messages since our last encounter three days ago.He's been genuinely busy, the book finally launched and he was away for a premier of one of his books that got a movie adaptation. He took an actress as his date. I should be next to him, not her but I know better.I roll my eyes at the irony just as Zayne pats my back gently and leads me through the front desk to get my boarding pass and check in. My heart drops when the woman at the table says the words that throws my family in panic."I'm sorry but Ms. Samson, you can't get on the plane," She starts citing issues with the system verifying me, my guts twist as my dad comes to desk."What do you mean? We all got our tickets online?""Yes, I did and

The single, gritted-out word was a promise and a punctuation mark. Two. The sound of it, heavy with his satisfaction, seemed to hang in the air of the private cabin, thicker than the jet’s own hum.He didn’t pull out. He stayed buried inside me, a solid, unmoving anchor as the last tremors of my second climax finally subsided. My forehead rested on the cool leather of the seat, my entire body lax and humming, held up only by the cage of his arms and the relentless press of him within me. I was utterly spent, a vessel filled and overflowing. I thought, dimly, that we might be finished. That the storm had passed.I was wrong.With a low grunt, he withdrew. The sudden emptiness was a shock, a cold void where there had been heat and fullness. A weak sound of protest escaped my lips.A dark chuckle was his only reply. His hands, large and inescapable, gripped my hips, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh. He didn’t let me collapse. Instead, he lifted me.It was effortless. The sheer phys

"How could you do this, Penny?" My mother hisses through her sobs, the sound raw and broken, each gasp like a physical blow. Gayle stands beside her, aggressively wiping at her own face, her movements sharp with anger and disbelief. Carlos holds her from behind, his grip tight as if he’s the only thing keeping her upright. My father lies in a coma. Zayne’s legs are shattered. The doctors say it will take a miracle for him to ever walk again. All because of a crash on the way back from the airport, a stupid accident that shouldn’t have happened. I’ve never felt more horrible in my life, a hollow, nauseous pit where my heart should be.Paul is driving us to the hotel, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his face a mask of stern concentration as he talks low and fast into his phone. He’s arranging everything—doctors, private rooms for my mother and sister to stay overnight, specialists flying in. The efficiency of it should be comforting, but it just makes me feel worse. I am paral

I haven’t seen my husband in months.I shove things into the hospital bag—sweatpants, a clean t-shirt, his toothbrush—his text was specific. I kiss the kids goodbye in a rush, their little faces blurry in my hurry, and leave them with the sitter.Our sex life had turned into a desert. Dry, empty, a chore neither of us wanted to do. I’m the one who finally said the word: separation. Because sex does matter. Anyone who says it doesn’t is lying or lucky. Since our third baby, Anna, the passion didn’t just fade; it packed its bags and left without a forwarding address. It’s been three months of silence between us, broken only by him showing up to take the kids to the park so I could have a few hours to remember who I was. I was starting to accept the idea of a life without that kind of touch. I’d even joined a ‘holy and wholesome living’ group at church. I wasn’t going to masturbate. The thought felt sad and desperate, a poor imitation of the real thing. I’m not cheating. I know he isn’