Forever Your Rogue

by Erin Langston

The sort of man who could calm small but very real fears with nothing more than the space between his arms.

Gently, he pressed his whole hand against her stomach, his thumb secure against the taut plane of her breastbone, his pinky finding the yielding expanse below her navel, where her skin was loose and pliant. In these intimate moments, Nate could fully appreciate that Cora was a mother, that the hollow of her hips had been a chrysalis for her children. Her body told the story of them—a thin web of white marks stretching along her flank; one areola darker than the other. He had missed it—he had missed her becoming, he had missed the children becoming—the moment their slick heads separated from her, the moment their woolly eyes blinked into the light. Did they cry? Did she? How had Cora looked, the moment she first held her babies in her arms? The thought made him horribly lonely.

I’m DECEASED. This is so beautiful and so beautifully written and I’m not over it