CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jasmeen
I knew I should have stopped him.
Demand he look at this logically, think about the bigger picture. But I didn’t do any of those things. How could I, when he looked like he had hope for the first time in months?
“Let’s sleep.” I pushed his wheelchair into the living room and let him use his own strength to get onto the couch. I curled up on his right side just in case, pulled the blanket over us both, and then we fell asleep as the snow fell from the sky, and the moon shone on us both.
When we woke, I lay there. Both of his arms were around me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” his deep voice spoke up.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my cheek against his chest. “Tell you what?
“That I was the only one who survived.”
“You didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know.”
“My nightmare was different today.”
“How?”
“You pulled me from under the propeller. The chopper blew up and took us both down, but at least I got out from under the propeller.”
“Small things,” I whispered sadly, pressing a kiss to his pec.
“Small things,” he agreed. “I gotta piss. No,” he snapped, when I got up to help him. “I’ll do it on my own from now on. If I need your help, I’ll ask. I can’t keep being a burden.”
My heart fell. “You’re not a burden.”
He didn’t answer. He took the pain with a grit of his teeth and dark, haunted eyes, and settled into his wheelchair. He used one hand to push himself out of the room, and then used the brick wall to help him the rest of the way.
I did my best to let him. He was trying to fly on his own again. It was sick, how fearful that made me. Disgusted with myself, I set to cleaning up dinner and making breakfast. If Gavin didn’t need me anymore, how long until he remembered that if he could survive four years without me, maybe he could survive four more?
That was the moment I realized how truly addicted I was to Gavin Cobalt, and his intense, consuming high.
They didn’t make rehab for men. And even if they did, I wouldn’t go. The high was too good, and without it, there was so much missing. With Gavin, even broken and haunted, I could barely remember what it felt like to be empty.
My addiction kept me alive.
Who was I to rip the love from my veins, when it continuously pumped me with life?
Gavin was green when he joined me for breakfast. I had his pills waiting on the kitchen table; he took two instantly, his hand shaking around his pain.
“Maybe—”
“No,” he growled, picking up his fork.
I knew better than to pick at Superman’s cape. He shoveled eggs into his mouth with a numb resolve. It hurt everything inside of me to watch him suffer. But it also warmed my heart to watch him fight. He dealt with the pain. Every day, he tried to get up, until the day came where he could stand on his own. He lasted a second before he collapsed into his chair, sweating, but a pained sense of triumph burned in his brown and amber eyes. Flames of strength sizzled in their depths.
The first time he brushed his teeth with his left hand, he dropped his toothbrush. It happened five more times before he managed to hold on. Soon, he could walk a few feet, could hold his coffee for a minute. Instead of two pills, he took one. He seemed determined, and though it should have been obvious what his goal was, I didn’t think it was.
He had a glaring look of determination burning in his eyes. He wanted something. I just didn’t know what it was.
One month after cutting off his cast, the world started to forget about Gavin Cobalt just in time for him to take his first step with crutches. He walked from the living room to the kitchen before I ran over with the wheelchair and helped him sink down.
I took his crutches and stooped down. I flung my arms around his neck, so proud I could feel the emotion warming me from the inside out.
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered, kissing along the pounding line of vein in his throat. I settled on his lap and held his face between my hands. “Can I show you how much?”
Both of his hands settled on my waist. He inched my sweater up my body and wrangled it over my head. My hair fell from my bun and cascaded around my shoulders. I wasn’t wearing a bra. His mouth immediately came down on my breasts. He pulled one plump nipple between his lips, and sucked, catapulting me into a state of hunger.
I arched in his arms, biting down on my bottom lip so hard I felt the soft flesh tear. I pulled at his hair, tugging on his scalp as I forced his head closer. I could barely breathe around my hunger for him. Every day I fell deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of addiction.
I was so high on Gavin, I could almost forget what it was like without him. Having him all to myself had made me greedy and insatiable. I pulled his hair back and brought my lips down on his for a deep kiss full of his silky, hot tongue and his little groans he emitted every time I ground myself against his erection.
Unable to stand it a moment longer, I rose on wobbly legs to pull my leggings off. He freed himself from his shorts. He fisted his cock and stroked himself, the amber in his eyes taking over.
“Wait,” he said, when I started to lower myself back down on his lap in his wheelchair. “Let’s go to my bed.”
I didn’t have the patience to wonder why. I wheeled him into his bedroom, and he got up and walked the rest of the way to his bed himself. His dark room felt like falling into night. I crawled onto his made bed, and sprawled on his soft midnight sheets, my pale skin in stark contrast to the dim comforter. The curtains over the long train of windows were still drawn, and in the dark, it was a lot easier to give in to my intense hunger.
“Open your legs.” He stood at the foot of his bed, left knee on the edge, naked body open to my ogling.
I let my thighs fawn open. The moment his pupils dilated when they landed on my pussy, I knew what he’d been waiting for.
He crawled onto the bed.
I opened my arms and he fell into them, his full weight crushing me for the first time in a painfully long time. I imagined him working himself to the bone, just so he could make love to me. In moments like that, it was hard to believe we’d let so much get in the way.
It was so easy to believe in second chances.
I wrapped my arms around him just as he found my lips. For a few moments, we made love that way. With our lips. We kissed so deep, so hard, I nearly came. My inner muscles clenched, and my nipples brushed against his chest every time he shifted, sending bolts of electricity throughout my entire body.
I was starving for love. Gavin was using his tongue to spoon feed it to me.
My fingers trailed down his back, digging into the hard muscles embedded in his lower back. He started to work his cock between my lips, getting his shaft slick with my desire. He teased my clit with the tip of his cock, and I bit down on his lip, turning the love in our kiss into a line of cocaine.
I inhaled the drugs and felt the rush of love in my veins.
He reached between us and lined his crown up with my entrance. And then he sunk into me achingly slow. He watched my face as he took me, not letting out his breath until he was fully inside of me. He was much bigger this way. On top, I could take him my way. This way, he was stretching me to maximum capacity. Almost like he wanted to fill me. Each inch he stretched me, a shudder of longing clawed at me.
He held my face between his hands. His fingertips softly rubbed my temples. But there was nothing soft in his eyes. A full forest fire raged in his irises. He looked devastatingly handsome on top of me. All my heart could think was: he’s back.
I had my Gavin back.
My heart soared at the same time he pulled out and thrusted back deeply into me.
I cried out, sure that in my eyes there was no fire burning. There was a winter storm in mine. Ice and wind. The fire in his eyes clashed with my ice, and we created a burning tempest.
He picked up speed, sending his hips into me with rough, back arching intensity. I was an addict in her daydream, in bed with my drug of choice. Sweat smeared on our bodies as our hips met, our pleasure crashing into us. The depth of what he was feeling shone in his eyes.
He was drunk too.
Drunk on me.
I was high on him.
We were stuck in this agonizingly beautiful, soul crushing fortress. Butterfly wings brushed over my heart. Aster flowers grew from our fingertips. Blood and tears became our sweat. Our hearts beat so hard, I thought they’d tear from our chests.
Intoxication roared in our veins.
But we were perfectly sober.
Fitting together.
Moving together.
Finally, back together.
His head buried in my neck. His hand found my throat. He rocked his hips into me harder. The tip of his cock kissed the most aching spot inside of me. Every time he slid into me, he made me hungrier. Feeding the same ache that he created. It was a sick, incredible cycle. The harder he filled me, the harder he chocked me.
My eyes closed when I felt my blood alcohol reaching dangerous levels.
“I love you,” I gasped.
He fucked me harder.
“I love you,” I gasped.
He choked me harder.
“I’ll always love you!” I exhaled.
He fucked me into the most intense, reparative orgasm of my entire life.
I felt everything he wasn’t saying. Every apology, every frustration, and everything he wanted.
He put me back together.
Now it was his turn.
I shoved at his shoulders until he rose to look at me. He looked drunk, eyes low and wild. I put my hand flat on his chest and then pushed until he’d fallen on his back. I straddled him, working his cock back into me. Threads of my orgasm clung to his sex, sending me into another one as I worked him in so deep, my clit kissed his pubic hair.
I threaded our fingers together, and then clasped his hands above his head, keeping them there, palm to palm, as I rode him.
His mouth was open in a groan. I clenched the deepest muscles in my pussy around his cock, working every ridge and flesh on his body. He hissed sharply when I sank back onto him. I found the most perfect rhythm, circling his hips after I’d sink completely onto him; every time my sensitive clit brushed against his rough pubic hair, I lost myself to him.
“I love you,” he groaned.
I rode him faster.
“I love you,” he groaned.
I fucked him harder.
“I’ll always love you!”
He came inside of me so hard, he lifted off the bed and buried his face between my tits. But I wanted more. I worked him until my cervix was full of his warm seed, and his heart was full of me. He fell to his back, his chest moving up and down rapidly.
I fell onto him. My cheek pressed to his chest as I tried to catch my breath. His heartbeat raced. It sounded so alive. Pumping life into him, and life into me. There was a tether between us, an invisible system of wires and pullies; they played with our hearts.
“Marry me again,” he exhaled, both hands rubbing my back.
I took a much-needed breath. It was time to jump. To never make the same mistake again. “On one condition.”
“Anything, Jas. Any-fucking-thing.”
“No matter what, we have to fight. No matter how hard it is, we work it out. We never give up again. You want to dream, I dream with you. I want to fly, you fly with me. We are our own team, and we can’t lose this game again.”
He clutched my face between his hands. I bathed in his flames. “No matter what.”
I held his gaze boldly. The tether strengthened. “I want a wedding this time. Last time we were so eager. So young. Trying to fix us by signing over forever.”
“White dress, suit, anything. Say yes.”
Last time I said yes to save us.
That time I said yes to keep us.
“Yes.”
His eyes closed. A severe flood of relief overtook his face and body. When he opened his eyes, the haunted look was gone.
In its place was hope.
Hope that no matter what meant forever this time.