He didn’t treat me like glass anymore. He used me, and fuck, I loved being used. I loved him finding his pleasure in me. Even when my scalp began to ache from his grip, and my breaths came out short and fast, I moaned along with him right up until his release. I felt him jerk inside of me before he buried his head into my chest.

I ran my fingers through his hair for a while. Sex wasn’t everything in a relationship, but this time it made me feel closer to Heath than ever. After a short while, he quickly pulled away and discarded the condom before slipping back into bed with me.

He was still breathing a little hard when he rested against my side, his hand drifting over my stomach. I felt used, in a good way. My skin was gleaming with sweat. My hair was tangled and all over the place. Instead of the scent of Cherry Blossom body spray, I was now covered in the raw masculine scent called Heath.

It was better than Cherry Blossom.

“Why won’t you let me see you?” he suddenly asked, his fingers skirting the edges of my night gown.

“I’ve changed,” I answered quietly, unable to look him in the eye. I stared at the ceiling instead. I was an idiot to think he wouldn’t notice my apprehension. He noticed everything. “My body’s… changed, Heath.”

“So?”

“So… I don’t look the same as I did before.”

“Of course you don’t look the same. You had a baby, Allie. People don’t look the way they did six weeks after they had a baby.”

“Yeah, but I’ll never look that way again.”

He took my face into his warm hand and turned it to him. His eyes stared deeply into my own, and I felt picked apart by them.

“You’re beautiful to me,” he whispered solemnly. “Nothing will change that for me.”

“I’m insecure,” I replied, swallowing the lump in my throat as I began to admit everything I never said out loud. “You don’t like insecure. You don’t like needy girls who need reassurance all the time. You can have anyone without having to deal with their bullshit self-esteem problems. But that’s me in a nutshell. I’ve had a beautiful baby but I feel ugly.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” he replied softly, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “With you, I like insecure. That gives me more reason to compliment you, and I like doing that. It’s a win/win on both sides.”

I sighed and resisted rolling my eyes. At this point in my life, he would probably have to compliment me for a hundred lifetimes. As if sensing my mood, he shifted even closer to me. His lips skirted along my face as he whispered, “I love every inch of you, no matter how different it looks. It’s mine, and anything that I deem is mine is going to be enough to keep me satisfied for the rest of my life.”

“Every inch?” I asked quietly.

“Every” – his hand slowly roamed my body – “Inch.”

I smiled out of reflex, but I was quivering on the inside. His words were always so soothing, but it was the way he said them, so filled with conviction, that made me want to cry. Maybe it wasn’t wrong to have self-esteem issues after all. Maybe it was normal, and all a woman really needed was a good guy like Heath to help make it better.

“Be proud of every change your body holds,” he continued. “You sacrificed it to have the most beautiful baby. You earned every one of those changes. It’s a matter of perspective, Allie. You can look at them and think they’re horrible. Or you can look at them and think, ‘wow, my body did the most incredible thing: it gave life.’”

Now my smile was genuine. My body slowly relaxed in the mattress. As usual, I wondered what I did to deserve him. Then again, maybe relationships were supposed to be this way. Without wanting to, my mind jumped straight to Ryker and how he treated me. Despite him chasing me in the beginning, I’d gone through so much indifference. He’d been distant for months before he’d even showed me another side to him. I’d always wanted to understand why. What made him want me to begin with? Why had he been insincere and distant at the start?

I bit down on my lip, not wanting to ask the dreaded question: are you going to see your brother again? I’d explained what Ryker had said to me the last time I was there. And the times after that, he refused to leave his cell to see me. I had been cut off, and I would be a liar if I said it didn’t hurt. It hurt because he had a son, and he’d made no effort to even want to know about him. No, instead, Heath had stepped up to the plate and blew me away. I still struggled with how fast things changed, but I didn’t want to dwell. I told myself to be adaptable. Whatever the future brought, I’d face it with my head held high.

But it would have been difficult on Heath too. He’d gone to see Ryker after I did, and when he came back, he said the meeting had gone nowhere. That Ryker had got up and left him when he asked to talk everything through. Since then, he didn’t want to talk about it. He was hurting. Ryker was his brother, after all.

“So tell me about the fight?” I said, breaking the silence between us.

“You’re half-asleep, Allie. I think the last thing you want to know about is my fight.”

“What does it matter if I’m half-asleep?”

He chuckled. “Because every time I talk about a fight, you get concerned and work yourself up about them. You dwell on every bruise I have and how many times I got hit. I’d rather not talk about it. You need to sleep. Not be concerned over something silly.”

“Silly?” I repeated, raising a brow in offense. “Is it wrong that I worry about the man I love?”

He looked at me then in the warmest way, like I’d just made his night by telling him he was the man I loved. That look – it tightened my heart and made me hot all over.

“Yeah,” he finally said, quietly, “it’s very wrong. I’m a big boy, beautiful. I don’t need your worry. It’s me that worries for you and Kayden.”

I smiled and kissed him softly, rubbing my nose tenderly against his. “We’re fine. We’ve got you and that’s all that matters.”

Again, that warm look. He stroked my cheek, whispering, “I won the lottery the second you asked me for help, Allie. You’ve changed me. Everything that’s happened between us has changed me.”

“I know,” I said with a slight frown. “I just wish you wouldn’t obsess about money so much. It’s hard seeing you fight and work over time so much. It’s not easy feeling like I can’t contribute just to ease your workload.”