There’s a grogginess in my head far beyond sleepiness. My thoughts feel slow, tortoises plodding along with no chance of winning the race. When I command my body to stand, only half the muscles obey me. Maddox jumps to his feet, ready when my knees refuse to lock in place, helping me to step out of the tub, hooking the plug to let the sudsy water drain away.
He envelopes me in a large towel, somehow helping keep my balance while he also rubs me dry, making me laugh as he tickles me, cocooning me in its folds, trapping me while he lays a trail of kisses along the edge of my jaw.
“Where are my clothes?”
“I ordered you some new ones,” he says, swinging me into his arms rather than letting me walk the few steps into his room. “And an outfit for tomorrow while we’re getting Ant sorted at the clinic.”
“Is that… It’s still happening?”
Even through the fog, I remember cheating, remember him chastising me over his poor alcohol-sodden plant. It should have been a deal breaker.
“Of course, it is.”
He deposits me on the edge of the bed, and I fling my arms around him before he can escape, the gratitude overwhelming. “Thank you.”
There are other words I should say, something to mark the momentous occasion but my lagging brain can’t think of them. “Thank you,” I repeat as he eases away from my arms, picking up a range of bags and placing them near my feet.
“When did you go shopping?”
He sits next to me, arm behind me as support. “Oh, you know. I got bored and went online. It’s a vicious cycle.”
I laugh at the ridiculousness. The light in the room tells me it’s only afternoon. Five or six hours since I drank the concoctionhe gave me, but he got whatever he wanted done and bought me a wardrobe worth of clothes, besides.
There’s a pull in my lower belly—why couldn’t he touch me while I’m awake?—then I push it away, trying to enjoy the moment.
He strips off my bath-damp underwear and helps me into a bra with far too many crisscrossing straps for me to handle alone. There’s matching underwear and a garter belt. When he helps me pull up the stockings, securing them with the clips, my skin shivers under his touch.
“Any more of that and it’ll be back into the bath with you,” he murmurs, kissing me behind the ear, sparks rippling across my scalp.
The dress he helps me into is silk, hand painted with large pastel flowers. A light cardigan that’s more like sunscreen than a garment comes next, then he pulls out a pair of strappy sandals, with a low heel.
He kneels in front of me, taking my foot in his hand, and my midriff tenses, a pulse beating between my legs. When he glances up at me, a cozy cloud of warmth drifts across my abdomen. Without breaking eye contact, he lifts my leg until it’s high enough to press a kiss on the inside of my knee. The faint scratch of his afternoon stubble through the stockings, grazing the sensitive skin, makes my muscles clench and my core ache.
And tears come out of nowhere, pouring down my face with no regard for what I want, a steady stream completely outside my control.
The shoe never makes it onto my foot. Maddox pulls me into his arms, cuddling me against his strong chest and manoeuvring us both onto the bed, resting against the headboard until they gradually dry on their own.
He leaves me alone, but only to fetch a meal that he feeds me, bite by bite, choosing the potato salad I love, tenderbites of chicken, fresh cherry tomatoes. To finish, he places tiny spoonfuls of pavlova and cream and strawberries into my mouth, the crunch of the meringue and the sharp rush of sugar offset with the bright taste of the fruit and the velvety richness of whipped cream.
Most of all, he holds me, not worried when I cry or when I doze or when I laugh at a corny joke on an old sitcom he finds from the streaming options on offer. He strokes my hair as I phone Ant, listening to the rundown of his day, smiling to hear the optimism back in his voice.
The grogginess eases into the cleaner tug of sleepiness and once more he holds me against him throughout the night.
Each time I wake, he’s there, soft hands and hard muscles soothing me back to whatever dreams lurk for me in the dark.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MADDOX
The moment Eviesteps onto the charter plane, her face fills with delight. She explores the entire cabin, crowing over each new extravagance she finds, bringing life to everything I would take for granted.
Even Ant brightens, his eyes so similar to Evie’s that I can’t look him fully in the face. His shuffle is devoid of her energy, but each glance catalogues the scene, like a treat he’s storing for later.
“Can we make it go faster than commercial airlines?” she asks, floating briefly back within touching distance, then scampering away to examine the front cabin when the pilot offers, struggling as she asks a million questions a second.
“Time to prepare for take-off,” the man finally tells her, shooing her back into the body of the plane.
I capture her wrist and spin her onto my lap, then into the seat next to me. “Anyone would think you’d never been on a plane.”
