“Actually, I think today I’m heading into the fertile window,” I tell him, prepared for some disappointment. “I’m supposed to ovulate in like five or six days.”
“Do you want to try?” he asks, a sweet hopeful tone to his voice, a tone I don’t hear too often.
I stare at him. “Try what?”
His eyes grow serious, water droplets sticking to his dark lashes. “To have a baby.”
My brain does a double-take.
The baby thing is something we’ve touched on only briefly this last while. We talked about how seeing ghosts, doing the documentary, just living the lives that we do shouldn’t have any bad effect on us having a child. That I shouldn’t lose my mind and get almost possessed each time I deal with the supernatural. We talked about what Lana had said, that this time it was brought on by that deep, scary need inside me, and since I didn’t deal with it properly, it allowed Samantha to use that energy to manifest herself.
But we didn’t discuss it beyond that. I still want a baby, a child, a family with Dex. I’ve just been learning to deal with the feelings properly, to try appreciate the cards I’ve been given, the wonderful life I have in front of me. This wonderful man who would do anything for me, who has done everything.
To be honest, I didn’t think this was something we’d discuss so soon.
“Are you sure?” I whisper, afraid to get my hopes up, my hands tightening around the back of his neck.
He nods, swallowing. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve never been more sure.”
“Dex,” I say, my heart swelling in size, pressing against my chest, all this hope growing and growing. “Please don’t…please don’t tell me these things and change your mind again. Promise me.”
“I won’t promise you that,” he says gravely. “I can’t. Because if something comes up again, I will always choose you first. You’re my wife, Perry. You’re my life. My everything. There will never be a point where you’re not what matters most.” He licks his lips, eyes flashing in intensity. “So no, I can’t promise you that. But I can promise that I want this. And I never ever stopped wanting it.”
I press my hands on both sides of his gorgeous face, brushing a lock of wet hair off his forehead, my legs holding him tighter and tighter around the waist. “Okay,” I tell him, almost laughing at the joy that wants to escape from the very heart of me. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
My god. I’m so happy I’m almost crying.
This, this, this.
I really have everything.
I have him.
His hand goes between our stomachs, sliding down beneath my bathing suit bottoms.
“What are you doing?” I say with a gasp, feeling scandalized as I look around the water and the beach to see if anyone is noticing that he’s fingering me in public.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks, kissing my neck, his lips moving against my skin as he talks. “We’re trying to make a baby.”
I laugh, pulling back to kiss him happily. “We can go back to the room, you know.”
“And pass up a chance to do it right here?” he says, taking his cock out of his shorts, rubbing up against me in the water. “This is bucket list, kiddo.”
I laugh harder now, overjoyed. The damn bucket list.
I kiss him again.
And again.
And again.
Then I throw my neck back to the blue sky and the hot sunshine
and let him in.
THE END
but not really…because Dex and Perry’s story continues in IN THE FADE.
Preorder now: Click Here
Coming March 2nd 2021
Ada and Max and Jay’s story continues in SONG FOR THE DEAD
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Coming January 26th 2021
AND in the meantime, you can keep up with news and inside looks at the series and what’s coming by:
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Acknowledgments
Where do I even begin?
First of all, I’m going to make this easier on myself and on you guys by just saying this: If you read this book, then this book is for you! Yes YOU! And I owe you a lot of thanks for your love and devotion of Derry.
A lot of people ask me why I decided to write this after saying I was done for the last six years.
Well, I was done. I told the story that I had for Dex and Perry that ended in Dust to Dust. I always had ideas for continuing the series, maybe by a spinoff, but I knew that it would be something I would do only if I felt really passionate about it and if the muse called me.
The muse for this world only popped up once in the last six years and that was to write Veiled.
Otherwise, I’ve been very happy writing my contemporary romances. See, romance was the point and the heart of EIT to begin with, horror was just the plot, the fancy dressing. But Derry’s romance was what kept me going, so there’s no wonder why I continued with contemporary romance after that (and why I’ll still continue to write it). Give me complex characters and romance and heartache and sex and love and that’s all I need.
Also, EIT was born in 2009, years before I met my husband, back when I was in a bad place. It saved me (and I know it’s saved many of you). Finding my own love and happiness, well it made me want to step away from the horror and concentrate on happy sweet things.
AND THEN…2020 showed her ass.
And suddenly…we were ALL in the bad place.
Ironically, it was Dex and Perry’s romance that drew me back in this time, not the horror (probably because 2020 is the horror show). I wanted to explore what their marriage would be like, something I rarely do in my books (Love in Spanish is the only example, oh and the Sins Duet).
I started off by doing a short story, Ghosted, for my All the Love in the World Anthology collection. But it was while writing that short story that I realized
A) I missed Dex and this needs to be a novella
B) this also needs to be a book, I have way too much for a novella
C) I need Dex and Perry and their world in my life.
Everything is so upside down right now, that being with them in their apartment with Fat Rabbit, hanging out with Rebecca and Ada, and Maximus (I missed that guy!), and being immersed in their marriage felt like a balm on the wound, like being with my best friends.
I needed this book to take me to a good place, where even though parts of this book were very hard to write emotionally (OH and just wait until In the Fade…oh boy…), it was a world that I knew and felt like home to me.
It was…safe. And loved. And we all need to feel safe and loved right now.
Anyway, I’m yammering now. All I’ll end with is, at least this shitty year brought Derry back into my life and reignited my love for writing again.
I hope you’ll stick with me for the ride.
PS my biggest acknowledgement is for Scott, as always. I love you. I would definitely let you possess me more than you already do <3
About the Author
Karina Halle, a former screenwriter, travel writer and music journalist, is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of The Pact, A Nordic King, and Sins & Needles, as well as over fifty other wild and romantic reads. She, her husband, and their adopted pit bull live in a rain forest on an island off British Columbia, where they operate a B&B that’s perfect for writers’ retreats. In the winter, you can often find them in California or on their beloved island of Kauai, soaking up as much sun (and getting as much inspiration) as possible. For more information, visit
www.authorkarinahalle.com
Also by Karina Halle
Contemporary Romances
Love, in English
Love, in Spanish
Where Sea Meets Sky (from Atria Books)
&nb
sp; Racing the Sun (from Atria Books)
The Pact
The Offer
The Play
Winter Wishes
The Lie
The Debt
Smut
Heat Wave
Before I Ever Met You
After All
Rocked Up
Wild Card (North Ridge #1)
Maverick (North Ridge #2)
Hot Shot (North Ridge #3)
Bad at Love
The Swedish Prince
The Wild Heir
A Nordic King
Nothing Personal
My Life in Shambles
Discretion
Disarm
Disavow
The Royal Rogue
The Forbidden Man
Lovewrecked
One Hot Italian Summer
The One That Got Away
All the Love in the World (Anthology)
Romantic Suspense Novels by Karina Halle
Sins and Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)
On Every Street (An Artists Trilogy Novella #0.5)
Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy #2)
Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3)
Dirty Angels (Dirty Angels #1)
Dirty Deeds (Dirty Angels #2)
Dirty Promises (Dirty Angels #3)
Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)
Dirty Souls (Sins Duet #2)
Horror Romance
Darkhouse (EIT #1)
Red Fox (EIT #2)
The Benson (EIT #2.5)
Dead Sky Morning (EIT #3)
Lying Season (EIT #4)
On Demon Wings (EIT #5)
Old Blood (EIT #5.5)
The Dex-Files (EIT #5.7)
Into the Hollow (EIT #6)
And With Madness Comes the Light (EIT #6.5)
Come Alive (EIT #7)
Ashes to Ashes (EIT #8)
Dust to Dust (EIT #9)
Ghosted (EIT #9.5)
Came Back Haunted (EIT #10)
In the Fade (EIT #11)
The Devil’s Duology
Donners of the Dead
Veiled (Ada Palomino #1)
Song For the Dead (Ada Palomino #2)
Came Back Haunted: An Experiment in Terror Novel #10 Page 31