Her body tightens around me and gets slicker and hotter and I slow my pace, teasing myself. Trying to make it last but it doesn’t. I come a mere moment after her, collapsing on her and burying my face in her hair on the pillow.
We stay like that for a long time, almost drifting off, but finally, I roll over as the dull ache in my leg pushes through the euphoric afterglow. "Do you have any Advil or Celebrex by any chance?"
“I think there’s Tylenol in the bathroom.”
“It’ll do.” I start to push back the covers but she stops me and climbs out of bed.
“I’ll get it. You were limping pretty hard when you broke in.”
“Maybe because I was being assaulted with pillows and almost tased by a flashlight?” I say and she laughs breathlessly. “Seriously, how do you own a flashlight that can taser people?”
“I have never actually used it on anyone,” Tenley explains as she throws on my dress shirt and wanders out the open bedroom door and down the short hallway to the bathroom. “I bought it at my favorite spy store in the valley.”
“Who has a favorite spy store?” I mutter.
“A person with a minor in criminology and a cousin who was mugged just a few months ago,” Tenley says, and I remember the story of what I heard happened to Liv.
Tenley walks back into the tiny bedroom with a couple of Tylenol tablets and a small glass of tap water. I sit up in bed and take them from her, downing them and sipping the water as she crawls back in. I put the glass down and raise a hand to her as if to stop her. “This is a clothes-free zone. Gonna have to get naked again.”
Tenley smiles. “It’s my bed. I make the rules.”
“I’m a guest in your home.”
“You’re lucky I’m feeling hospitable,” she quips and unbuttons the three buttons on my shirt she bothered to do up. Once it hangs open she reaches out and takes my hand.
I watch wordlessly as she lifts it and presses my palm against her pert, round breast. My blood heats and my heart gallops. She feels decadent against my palm and I clench my jaw to keep from squeezing her. Instead, I ever-so-gently brush my thumb across her nipple. She shivers, makes a little sound, and then softly pushes my hand away. She leans in and kisses me. "It's not you, it's me."
“I know,” I whisper back. “I don’t take it personally.”
I kiss her again and push my shirt off her shoulders, pulling her into me. She slips under the duvet and curls up against me, her head on my shoulder, her left leg over my thighs. We stay like that in silence for so long I think she might have fallen asleep, but then she whispers, “It’s not going to be cancer.”
“I agree.”
“But if it is, I’m not going anywhere.”
I brush my lips across her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I don’t know if that’s a promise or a threat.”
She giggles against my chest. “Probably both.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I murmur.
Chapter 27
Nash
I wake up to her sobbing. Like shaking the bed the whole bed level of sobbing. I sit up. The room is much lighter. It's morning. Late morning, I'd guess. She's slouched forward, in a bathrobe with wet hair, sitting on the edge of the bed. I lean toward her. "Ten, what's wrong."
“Nothing,” she confesses. “It’s good news. The best news.”
She picks up her phone, which I didn’t realize was in her lap, and hands it to me with a shaky hand. I hesitate, but take it and look at the screen. It’s a group WhatsApp chat.
UNCLE D: Family Zoom availability? We have news.
CONNER: Just say it. Now. Dad, please.
MOM: Callie, are you okay?
MAYHEM: I told you this would make everything worse Dad!
