How the fuck did she not think of me as a helpless wreck?
“I want to help you. Please. Tell me how to make it better.”
Chapter thirty-five
Jack
If there was ever a moment I looked to the heavens and thanked whatever higher power reigned up there, it was this one. After what I would consider the most self-deserving panic attack in history brought Maggie to a state nearly as bad as mine, she was here withme, asking how tohelp me. I had never felt more thankful for every single event that led this unfathomable woman into my life. She was the sunshine to my every waking moment. The beauty that went along with this insane plan to fake a marriage, come with me to Wyoming, and have our baby. What kind of man could ever deserve her?
I sure as hell didn’t, but I would promise her over and over again to try my hardest to be the man that did. All I wanted was to make her feel as content and safe as she made me feel. Not once did I think I would ever want someone to makemefeel safe. Hell, I was supposed to be the man who protected her from anything that came our way. But Maggie had a way of digging deep beneath my layers and eliciting sensitivities I never knew about, and kept them in a safe little box that she opened any time I needed it.
She wasperfect.
“Tell me how to make it better,” she had said. I couldn’t think of a damn thing except for her sitting in my lap with her arms around me right now.
Except for one. I moved one hand from behind her back and softly brushed her bump. “Tell me our baby’s name.”
Her brows raised in surprise, as if this was the last thing she thought I would say. I gave a slight nod.
Eyes shifting left and right, she gave me a sympathetic look. “I thought you wanted to decide on one together. We still don’t know the gender.”
“I want what makes you happy. I don’t care about anything else. If it’s a girl, what is her name?”
She searched my eyes for any kind of hint of what I wanted. She wouldn’t find anything. “I was thinking…Anya.”
A beautiful word.
“Anya,” I repeated. I liked the way it rolled off the tongue. It was so natural. So fitting.
So perfect.
“If you don’t like it, I have a whole baby book with highlighted names. Anya was my top choice, but if you want, we can–”
I couldn’t help it. I needed her with me. Close to me. Breathing me in.
My lips descended onto hers with the need to show this woman exactly how much I loved her. It threw me back years, to when it was only us in the backseat of my truck, craving what we had both been tiptoeing around for so long. I distinctly remembered the first time touching my lips to hers, inhaling her warmth, tasting her. It was a kiss I would never be able to forget. The first moment I indulged in Maggie’s aura of perfection was the moment I knew in the back of my head that we would come back to each other.
Even if I had gone tonight. Even if that panic attack fucking killed me.
I would have come back to her. Because what else could I do?
The way she squeezed my heart and made me feel like a teenager in love and a little kid with big dreams. Fucking nothing could replace her.
Her arms tightened around my neck, fingers sliding into my hair, needing this moment as much as I did. When I panicked, my first go-to to calm myself was focusing on what was around me, what I could feel and touch. Tangibility was my rock, and Maggie was giving me exactly that.
I focused on the soft fingertips massaging my scalp, her warm body pressed against mine, her strong legs wrapping around my waist. She gasped when my hands gripped her hips and pushed them down, and I took the opportunity to slide my tongue against hers. God, she was so warm and inviting. I couldn’t keep myself together around this woman.
“Jack,” she whispered between whimpering breaths, “I just want you here with me.”
It was all I wanted, too.
“You’ve got me, baby. Body, mind, and soul. I’m helpless with you.”
She hummed and opened her mouth wider to take mine. Her hips rotated as she pressed down into me.
“You need me, baby?”
She answered with a moan that turned into a gasp when I took her bottom lip between my teeth. The rain pounded harder on the outside of the truck, giving us our own perfect moment of privacy in the hospital parking lot.
