My Husband's Affair My Anniversary Gift (Lily and David) novel Chapter 178

She felt the pressure of him, his chest rising and falling against ear. For a second the room felt too small, as if her breath belonged to him now. He rested his cheek on the crown of her head and whispered, almost to himself, “I’m sorry.” The words were low, slow an apology that came out of habit more than honesty.

He knew he’d gone too far tonight. When he lost control, his sharp edges showed, and he couldn’t think straight. She’d just come from the hospital; she shouldn’t have been forced into anything.

A hot sting of tears gathered at the corner of Lily’s eyes. She swallowed hard and blinked them back. She would not let them fall. Not here, not now. She’d learned to keep everything inside because outward weakness only fed the things she hated about herself and about him.

It was unbearably uncomfortable to sleep pressed against him. She shifted, trying to wriggle free, to turn so her back faced him.

Her shoulder bumped awkwardly against his arm. David growled softly and tightened his hold, then, in a huskier tone that rose just a little, told her, “Stop rolling around. Sleep.”

She felt the heat of his body, Sweat prickled along her skin.

“Stop holding me,” she muttered. “It’s uncomfortable.” Her voice came out small and shaky. She pushed at him with her leg without thinking.

Her knee brushed and hit something hard in the dark. She froze mid-motion. For a beat, all she felt was the echo of contact and a flash of bewilderment.

“You…?” she began, then cut herself off, cooling her voice on purpose. The word she meant to use, the insult that would wound him where he kept his pride hovered in her throat and didn’t fall out.

David’s answer was quiet and dangerously calm. “Mrs. Hardison,” he intoned softly, the title like a weight. “If you keep moving like that, I’ll take it as an invitation. If you’re fine with that… I’m ready to do it again.”

"Mrs. Hardison" this was the first time that he ever call her. And it's feels ridiculous.

Heat rose to the hollow of Lily’s cheeks, a flush that had nothing to do with modesty and everything to do with humiliation and fury. She didn’t know whether the color came from anger or from the insane embarrassment of the moment. She tried to breathe through the tightness in her chest.

“I dare you,” she whispered, voice flat and strained. It was a poor kind of brave the kind that huddles behind mockery when the heart wants to break.

David raised one eyebrow and leaned down, his face close enough that she could see the dark glint in his eyes. For a second she thought he might laugh or worse, mock her. Instead he kissed her. It wasn’t one of his demanding kisses from before; this one was softer, a brief press of lips that left her reeling. He pulled back almost immediately.

“All right,” he said, easing her again into his arms. “I won’t do anything. Just sleep.” His voice carried the faint edge of a smile the sort of smug, small pride that crawled under her skin and made her grind her teeth.

She felt the hard line of his mouth against her ear as he settled. Despite the way he’d acted, despite the way he still claimed her, she couldn’t help the small, spiteful satisfaction that flickered up inside her, the sight of his satisfied little grin, the depth of his relief at his own restraint. She hated that smile. She hated him for it. She hated how it stirred something in her she had sworn off.

Lily pressed her face into the crook of his neck and forced herself to stay still. Her muscles trembled with the effort. The quiet in the room throbbed like a held breath. Outside, the city moved along its indifferent hum, lights blinking as if nothing inside that small bedroom had shifted in two peoples’ lives.

“Maybe I didn’t,” he admitted at last. “But I’m here now.”

“Being here now doesn’t fix being gone then,” she said, voice steadying into something like resolve.

Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, then faded. Inside, his arm tightened around her involuntarily not possessive now but protective in a way that made her whole body tense with contradiction.

“Sleep,” he murmured again, this time with less command and more plea. “Tomorrow we deal with everything. For tonight, just sleep.”

She wanted to be furious. She wanted to shove him away and storm out, to prove she could do it, to show him that she could walk away and not look back. But her limbs were heavy, the hospital drugs an afterthought clouding the edges, and the weight of the day made rebellion feel like a child’s tantrum, loud for a moment, pointless in the long run.

Lily let her eyes drop closed. She counted the beats of his heartbeat under her ear. It was steady, stubborn, exactly like him impossible to ignore. It matched the rhythm of that other thing she refused to name.

She thought of the divorce papers in the drawer somewhere, the declaration of war she had folded and sent like armor. She pictured the months to come, the fights, the traces of tenderness, the ways they would hurt and mend and hurt again. She would fight it. She would leave.

For now, though, she let the room dim and the city’s noise blur. David’s hold loosened almost imperceptibly as sleep crept over him too. His breath evened out. In the hush between their breathing, for the first time in a long while, both of them rested broken, stubborn, and dangerously close.