I lay awake, his heart beating a steady rhythm in my ear, but I was getting uncomfortable, plus I needed to use the bathroom. I hated to wake him, but I couldn’t hold off any longer.
“Hmm, where you going?” he mumbled. “Stay here.”
“I need to pee.”
“S’okay. Come back.”
“I will. I promise.”
I slipped out of his arms and went to the bathroom. I relieved myself, washed my hands, and went back to the kitchen. It was late, and we’d eaten nothing since lunch.
He’d be hungry when he woke, his appetite finally returning after a couple of days.
I smiled at the memory of our first meal together and set to preparing it, hoping it’d somehow heal the rift that had grown between us.
A rift that I hoped was slowly healing.
I kept the noise to a minimum, and by the time he woke half an hour later, dinner was already in the oven. He walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of red checked lounge trousers and nothing else. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He’d filled out, no longer thin as he’d been before.
“You said you were coming back to me,” he said and rubbed his eyes.
There was more than one meaning to that sentence.
“I put dinner in. I thought you’d be hungry.”
“Damn right I am. Smells good. What are we having?”
“Shepherd’s pie.”
He laughed for the first time since he’d arrived, a rich sound that did something to my insides I didn’t think either of us was ready for yet.
“Trying to recapture the past?” He sat at the table, and instantly, Jasper joined him.
“Maybe. It couldn’t hurt.”
He stroked the cat, his eyes red from the tears he’d cried. “What are we going to do? I’m not sure I could stand to lose you again.”
I knelt before him, my hands on his knees. Desperation laced my voice. “You won’t. I promise.”
“You promised last time.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t make a promise to you I didn’t know I could keep, but now, I know in my heart that I will keep that promise forever, if you’ll let me.”
His gaze never left mine, his eyes raking through the parts of my soul I’d hidden well.
“We take it slowly. Not like last time.”
“Agreed.” I couldn’t help but think I’d got off lightly, that his forgiveness had been easily won.
“But if you ever fuck me around, or I think you’re slipping back into old ways, I’ll call it off. I won’t be left broken like before.”
“God, Killian. I never intended to hurt you that way. I was selfish, only thinking of me and what I wanted, but in the heat of the moment, nothing else mattered.”
“I understand, I really do. But you fucking talk to me next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.” Except I couldn’t promise that. My mental health was and always would be a part of me. No amount of pills or therapy would cure it, but I’d make damn sure I didn’t fall so far again.
Ignoring the cat on his lap, he leant forward and pressed his lips to mine. “That’s my promise to you.”
