IHAD INTENDED TOhelp Noah take the bedroom apart to search for Elijah’s item, but things got hectic in a hurry. A tropical storm off the coast had been upgraded to a hurricane and was heading toward the Carolinas. It had been expected to take a turn east and miss us, but it didn’t. They had given approximately forty-eight hours to prepare for landfall. I gave as much energy as I could to our neighbors and businesses, helping them board up their properties.
I wanted to take Noah, Madge, and Ozzy and get the fuck out of there, but Noah was convinced it would be nothing more than a severe storm by the time it hit us. He said something about a hurricane party and I started to worry that the bump to his head caused more damage than memory loss. Hurricanes were no joke, which is what I told him eight hours before the storm was due to hit shore.
“People are surfing the waves,” I complained to him as I shoved clothes into an overnight bag for us. “What kind of idiot surfs instead of heading out for safety?”
“Ones that have been through these storms almost every year of their life since birth.” Noah snatched every piece of clothing I put in the bag and walked it back to the dresser to put it up.
“The sky is fucking weird, Noah. It’s eerily calm. You know, the calm before the storm. I don’t like it. I nearly lost you once and I’m not willing to risk it. We’re going to evacuate this house and go inland to stay at a hotel.”
“Good luck with that,” Noah mumbled with a roll of his eyes.
“What do you mean by that?” Did he mean he wasn’t going with me?
“Every hotel will be booked from evacuees. There won’t be any place to go.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it wasn’t a big deal.
“I’ll sleep in a car as long as you’re safe.” I meant every word. I wouldn’t risk him again.
“Maverick, the storm is already slowing down. It was downgraded to a category one yesterday it’s not going to pick up speed. Babe, I’m telling you we’re going to be okay.” I looked into his pleading blue-green eyes and it was so hard to say no. He slid his hand up my chest and curled it around my neck and pulled my head down until our lips were just a hair breadth apart. “Mmmm, I can keep you busy during the storm.” The look in his eyes and his free hand sliding inside the back of my jeans to cup my ass told me exactly how he planned on entertaining me. My dumb dick was on board, even though I was worried.
A few hours later, the storm hit land and although the sound of the howling wind was scary as hell, the heat of Noah’s body and the way he clung to me as I pounded him as hard as the wind hit the house made it all better. The lights flickered and the wind roared, but all I could see and feel was Noah. The electricity from the storm sparked inside me, urged me to take him harder, longer, and not let up until he had nothing left to give me. I wanted to consume him until we were no longer two separate beings.
“Don’t stop, Mav.” Noah pleaded with his voice while his eyes begged me for more. I gave him everything I had and never let up until he was the approximate consistency of a wet noodle on the bed beneath me. Only then did I allow myself to release inside him. “So good,” he said once I collapsed on top of him.
“I think you killed me,” I said between gulps of air. “God, that was intense.”
Noah ran his fingers lovingly through my hair while I remained a heap of flesh and bone on top of him. “It was beautiful.”
I eventually pulled out of him and flopped to the bed beside him. We turned into each other and stayed looking into one another’s eyes. I didn’t think it was possible to love him anymore than I already did, but I was so wrong. I found new things about him each and every day. I discovered it was the little things that touched me the most. No matter how frustrated he’d become during his recovery, his loving personality remained. His jealous little green monster flared back to life too and I tried like hell not to laugh when it did.
The episode with Derrick was as funny as when he found my old clubbing jeans in the dresser drawer. The look on his face was hilarious, but there was nothing funny in the way he branded me as his with his touch. Physically and emotionally, we were back to where we were before the accident. For him, I wanted his memories to return so he could get back to work. He missed working and he needed it to feel complete.
“Doubtful we get much sleep tonight, so I have an idea,” Noah said, pulling my attention back to him. I waggled my eyebrows and he pinched my nipple. “We can start tearing the walls down in the master bedroom.”
I couldn’t hold back my groan. “Tonight?” I sounded as whiny as a three-year-old. I hadn’t slept but a handful of hours the past few days. I wanted to sleep! As if to prove Noah’s point, a gust of wind hit the house hard enough to make the shutters rattle. “Okay, but I need to get cleaned up and get a bite to eat.”
“Yessss!”
Afterwards, we stood in the middle of the room with hammers and crowbars. I declined to use the “electric thingy” that Noah recommended. “No ‘electric thingies’ or I could risk cutting through a phone line, plumbing, or the electric wiring. I prefer not to get electrocuted, Doc.”
“Very good point,” he said while he looked around the room. “Okay, Elijah, help a great-great nephew out. Where, oh where is the item you’re protecting?”
Unfortunately, we got no guidance from Elijah whatsoever. I demonstrated for Noah the easiest way to take down the wall - well, not the easiest way, which would’ve been a sledgehammer. I sent him to one wall and I started on another. We didn’t get very far before the electricity went out due to the storm. I had brought up propane lanterns just in case we needed them.
I could see fatigue all over Noah’s features in the glow on the lantern light. He tried to chalk it up to shadows playing tricks on me, but I knew better. I put my foot down and led him to our temporary bedroom and removed both our clothes before I blew out the lantern.
Noah curled into me and laid his head on my shoulder. “I love you, Maverick.” His words were so faint I could barely hear them over the howling wind, but my heart heard them anyway.
“I love you, Noah.” I would never tire of hearing or saying those words to him. I laid awake for quite some time after he drifted asleep, content to run my fingers up and down his spine and feel his breath against my skin.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep, but I woke to moaning and whimpering sounds. At first, I thought it was still the storm, but then I realized they were the sounds humans made when they were in great distress. I jerked myself out of my sleepy fog and reached for Noah, but he wasn’t in bed with me.
“Noah!” I shouted for him, but he didn’t respond. I ran out of the bedroom and the distressed sounds were louder. I followed the sounds across the hall to our master bedroom. “Noah!”
“Maverick.” The fear I heard in his voice scared the fuck out of me. I saw dim light shining beneath the door.
I threw open the bathroom door and found him sitting between the bathtub and the toilet. The lantern gave off an eerie yellow glow as I took in the sight of him. His head was laying on top of his arms that were folded over the edge of the tub. The lower half of his body was angled toward the toilet, as if he thought he might be sick and would need to reach the toilet quickly.
“Babe, what’s wrong?” I knelt beside him and reached for him. Noah launched himself in my arms and I held him tight. I had never seen Noah broken this way, and that was the only way I could describe his appearance. His tear-streaked face and swollen, red eyes told me he’d been here awhile. “What’s wrong and why didn’t you wake me? Is it a really bad headache? Do I need to get your pain meds?” I started to stand up to retrieve them, but he held me tighter.
