I heard a voice—warm, deep,his—and my eyes immediately moved toward him. I kept my eyes opened wide just in case this Neil was also a dream. I didn’t want to blink and have him disappear.
“Neil…” I said softly.
If I’d thought I was cried out, I was sorely mistaken. Just seeing him safe and sound was enough to churn up all the things I’d felt when Ryan shot him.
Neil could see it, the misery and the joy, and he just kept on stroking my hair.
His face was beautiful, even with the now-fading bruises and healing cuts all over it. He still had that shadowy aura that had drawn me in from the very first moment I met him. His plush mouth curved into a fond smile, and his bright eyes enveloped me.
He had a white bandage wrapped around his chest. There was an assortment of pillows behind him that allowed him to sit up comfortably, and a blanket lay over his hips.
“Come here,” Neil said, raising his left arm and inviting me to nestle underneath it.
“It was a really bad one. You were dead, and I was talking to you, but it wasn’t really you—I mean, it was you, but you were…” I muttered, sniffling as I clambered onto the bed next to him. I embraced him and rested my head on his chest, on the area that wasn’t wounded. The place where I could feel his heart beating, strong and sure.
“Relax, Babygirl.”
The surgery had been tricky, and the area was still painful, despite the doctor’s assurances that he would be able to remove the stitches soon. I grazed the warm, bare skin of his neck with my nose and breathed in his smell, clean and all-encompassing just like it always was. I didn’t stop crying, and Neil continued to hold me gently, like a baby.
HisBabygirl.
“I’m right here, and I’m still alive, Selene. Shake off the bad dreams; you know I hate to see you cry,” he chided me with just a hint of severity. His voice was like a pair of hands, stroking my most secret places, touching the depths of my soul. I reddened at my own thoughts: I wanted him. For better or worse, I wanted all of him: his strengths and his weaknesses, the finest parts of him, and the most awful.
I accepted him completely, and that, for me, was love.
“I know. But it was traumatic, going through all of that. Watching your eyes close and your breathing stop…”
Neil pressed his fingers to his lips to silence me. His skin was warm and soft. I pressed a chaste kiss to them, then another and another. I moved down his smooth palm worshipfully. I tried to imbue each kiss with all the love I had for him, because it was there and it was strong.
Even stronger than before.
“Let’s talk about something else. I was just thinking that this is one of the few times you’ve been in bed with me fully clothed, and that’s terrible.” He gave me a tiny smile that told me exactly what he was thinking about. Even after having gone through such a tragic situation, Neil could still find it in himself to be cheeky. I shook my head and gave him an amused look.
“Now is not the time to be thinking about…” He moved his hand over my breast with his usual proprietary ease and gave it a squeeze through my sweater. I gasped.
“Fucking?” he offered in a low whisper, and I couldn’t help but stare at his chest. My Disaster was half-naked, his torso almost completely on display and all the dizzying angles of his upper body exposed.
He didn’t even need to get undressed.
It was almost like we were already making love.
My body went heavy with longing because, in a very real way, Neil was already inside me. He stared into me as I stared into him. I was burning up not just with embarrassment at his total lack of shame but also from the lusty, carnal feelings coursing through me.
“I was going to say ‘that kind of thing.’ Now is not the time to be thinking about that kind of thing,” I said throatily. “But I’m glad to see your pervy instincts are also fully recovered; I was starting to worry,” I teased as I gently caressed his stomach. I loved to touch him, and I knew he loved my touch as well. I knew exactly what kind of attention Neil required.
And, indeed, his breathing became unsteady, and I could practically feel the sexual tension pulsing in his swollen veins.
“Move that hand a few inches lower, Tinkerbell, and we’ll be in business. There’s someone down there who could really use a little touch from you…” he murmured into my ear. His breath was warm against my cheek, and I shivered. Memories of our intimate times together stole the air from my lungs.
It had been more than seven months since we’d last been together. Long months in which I had no physical comfort or relief because I was too busy torturing myself over Neil. He, on the other hand, had spent that time sleeping with an unknown number of women, Megan included.
It still hurt whenever I thought about them together.
What hurt even more was the uncertainty: What was going to become of us? What paths would our lives follow?
Neil had been different when he came out of surgery.
He still had cheeky little comments for me, and he’d touch me like he owned me, but he never said a thing about us having any kind of relationship. He hadn’t even kissed me.
