“So considerate.”
She grinned. “I aim to please.” Backing toward the bathroom, she promised, “I’ll just shower, and then I’ll cook us a simple meal. Jess says hi, by the way. Veggie puff pastry pizzas sound okay?”
“More than okay.”
“Great.” Blowing me a kiss, she dashed into the bathroom. I waited until the sound of the shower splashing overshadowed Nirvana’s constant roar before opening my laptop again.
Jethro had replied, but I clicked on Q’s email first and prepared to respond.
From [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Bonjour
We are getting married in a few weeks.
I will send you the evidence you require.
Until then, stay the fuck away from me and my islands.
Sinclair
Cricking my neck and doing my best to eradicate the strain of dealing with a wannabe hero, I opened Jethro’s email.
From [email protected]
Subject: Re: A favour
Hello, old friend.
Consider the ring done.
I will personally oversee the creation and priority mail it as soon as it is finished.
In answer to your question, yes, my lovely wife is doing well. If you could bottle what she gives me, Sullivan, you would have yet another ground-breaking cure on your hands.
I’ve never been so fulfilled or so...calm inside.
As for your own affliction, welcome to the club. The club where you thought you were all-powerful, all-important, and all-invincible and figure out that you’re none of those things.
She is.
You are nothing without her and will spend the rest of your life happily accepting just how second-rate you are compared to her perfection.
Don’t worry, though...it’s natural to feel like a bastard who doesn’t deserve her. You might never stop feeling that way, but if she loves you, then you did something right.
And yes, a catch-up is definitely in order.
Jet
The shower turned off.
Eleanor appeared naked and dripping, wrapping a towel around her gorgeous figure.
Closing the laptop, I followed her with my eyes as she gave me a sexy smile and disappeared into my walk-in wardrobe.
Our walk-in wardrobe.
Our lives had begun blending together.
Her clothes hanging with mine.
Her toothbrush next to mine.
Her side of the bed reserved only for her.
We were entwining ourselves, carving out domestication and togetherness. Me and her against the world.
No vigilante Frenchman could stop that.
No demented brother could hurt us.
And who knew, perhaps, when I could walk again and she wore my ring, I would take her to England to meet a friend of mine. I would proudly introduce her to my singledom life and reintroduce us as a couple.
Because one thing was for sure, there was no me without her now.
Nowhere I would travel without her.
No bed I would sleep in without her by my side.
We were joined...for always.
Chapter Forty
A MONTH SINCE MY world changed all over again.
Thirty days where each morning Sully opened his eyes, grew stronger, and wrapped me in his arms at night.
It both flew by and crawled by.
Flew because Sully used every waking hour to regain his strength and mobility and crawled because every touch between us was a live wire set at a voltage determined to annihilate us.
Sleeping beside him.
Touching him.
Kissing him.
All incredible and needed after almost losing him, but I couldn’t deny that refusing sex was the hardest thing in the world.
Watching him dry off after a shower.
Seeing him grow hard just watching me.
Both of us flinching when we touched because our connection caused physical pain.
My body ached for his.
His temper spoke of his need for me.
Our self-controls were fraying.
I wanted him.
So damn much.
But I’d meant what I said a few weeks ago. I loved him too much to lose him, and I was petrified of sleeping with him because last time...
That won’t happen again.
I nodded, following my logic that the likelihood of Sully having another cardiac arrest after an orgasm were slim. Previously, he’d pushed his body to the brink and injected his veins full of poison. He’d detoxed and healed since then, yet...every time I inched toward him or buckled beneath the urge to open my legs and beg, a small panicked voice would shout in my ear.
What if?
What if he needed more time to be strong?
What if I was pushing him too much?
He already pushed for more than Louise liked. His physiotherapy usually ended with them yelling at each other.
The first day he’d stood without support, he refused to sit back down again until his legs buckled from the strain.
The first afternoon he took a step—assisted by Joe and Campbell—he refused to stop until he tripped and fell to his knees, possibly setting back his healing bones by weeks.
In the end, Louise gave up on controlling the timeline and permitted Sully to train himself. To use the weights for his arms, and the Pilate bands for his abs and quads at his discretion.
Each day, Sully broke barriers and rebuilt the muscle he’d lost.
He was so full of life now.
He smiled more than I’d ever seen.
He laughed at my stupid jokes.
His eyes glowed with less torment.
His thirty-three years had been erased and he’d transformed into a younger, less brooding man. They did say that life was put on hold while a patient lay in a coma. That no aging process occurred.
Well, Sully’s six-week sleep seemed to have stopped all clocks and reversed the strain of his prior years. I’d like to take some credit for that—for teasing his heart open to trust and filling it with affection. For showing him he didn’t need to hate himself or his kind. That it was okay to be happy when so many other creatures were not.
Talking of creatures.
Today, I had a plan and I wasn’t entirely sure how Sully would take it.
“So...I can kidnap him for the afternoon?” I asked Louise as she packed her suitcase and oversaw Joe and Steph as they dismantled the monitors and sensors, slowly restoring Sully’s villa into a home instead of a hospital ward.
“Yes. He can stand and walk a few steps—if someone is there to help bear his weight. Make him use the cane at all times, seeing as he refuses crutches. If he wants to stand for longer than a minute, position him somewhere he can either fall safely or hold on to something. Don’t stay in the sun for too long and no drinking alcohol, even though he’s no longer on antibiotics or painkillers. His system is still fragile and should be—”
“Who the fuck are you calling fragile?” Sully growled as he appeared on the threshold of the living room. One hand rested against the door jamb and the other fisted a bamboo cane with a sweeping handle in the shape of vines and palm trees. The tropical design continued halfway down the shaft, whittled with birds and flowers.
Jess and I had sketched it out a couple of weeks ago and asked one of the carpenters who was working on Euphoria’s reinvention to carve it.