A Secret in Her Father's House, A Pregnancy Neither Can Hide novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Open Door

Henrik did not answer for a long moment.

Alana kept her thumb where it was, on the pulse in his wrist, and she felt it climb.

"I want you in my bed," he said. "Not the guest room, and not the boat. In the room with the quilt, with the door open, in daylight."

"That's a place."

"I want you to wake up there and not plan your way out of it." His voice dropped. "I want you to tell me you want it before I touch you, because you want it, and not because I asked."

She had run every number in her life.

She had never once made a choice that had no column for what it cost.

"I left the door open," Alana said.

"I know."

"No. Listen. I want to say it." She made herself hold his eyes. "You told me about the lock, and I said I wouldn't need one, and I lay in that bed listening for your footsteps in the hall. I wanted you to come. I wanted it so much that I couldn't stand to have wanted it."

"Alana."

"I put your house fourth on a list so I wouldn't have to see it was first. I kept the motel paper because I couldn't throw it away and I couldn't use it." She was shaking. "Every time you said I could leave, I felt it in my stomach. Every single time. I wanted you to make me stay, so it wouldn't be mine."

"And now?"

"Now it's mine," she said. "I chose you. I'm choosing you."

He let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost not.

He took her face between his hands.

They were rough and warm, and they were not steady, and she had never been so glad of anything.

"Say it again."

"I chose you."

"Again."

"I'm yours, Henrik, and nobody took me. I walked."

He kissed her.

It was not the kiss from the first night. It was slow, and deep, and it asked for nothing she had not already given.

She slid her hands under his shirt and felt the hard heat of his stomach, and the pale scar under his ribs.

She pressed her palm over it.

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