Chapter Forty-Eight
She wasn’t in the lab.
Claire’s first reaction when she bolted awake to find herself in a soft, warm bed was anger. How dare they take her away from the only chance Jean-Luc had! She had to finish Akeso and test it on cells and she was running out of time and—
Someone was coming into the room.
She leaped to her feet, intent on ripping into Marcus or whoever—and stopped cold when she saw Jean-Luc carrying a tray of breakfast food.
Wait.
What?
She looked around the room, expecting to see it shimmer and shift to somewhere else like places always did in dreams. Because she had to be dreaming. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t grinning at her with that adorable mischievous gleam in his eyes.
She pinched her arm, and his smile faded as he set down the tray. “Don’t do that, cher. You’re not dreaming.”
“Wha…? How…?” She pressed a shaking hand to her temple and sank down on the edge of the bed. Her legs had gone to water underneath her, and it was either sit down or collapse. “I-I don’t understand what’s happening. Have I gone crazy?”
“No, I’m really here. You’re not dreaming and you’re not crazy.” He laughed in a low rumble of sound that washed over her like a balm. He walked over to a small desk and picked up a file. “Figured you wouldn’t believe it until you saw the science.” He sat down beside her and offered the folder. “My medical records.”
He felt real enough. The weight of him on the bed beside her caused her to slide toward him. The clean soap smell of his hair, still damp from a recent shower, filled her nose. The feel of his skin as their hands brushed when she took the folder seemed real enough.
She opened the folder, read through. He had been re-infected, but his most recent blood tests were clean. Virus free. Except…he now had the antibodies. “How is this possible?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“You think Akeso still…” Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly a couple times as she tried to think it through. She shook her head. “I-I don’t know. I’d have to run tests and—” Abruptly, she remembered their conversation in his hospital room and shut the file. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not a science experiment.”
He took the folder from her hands and set it aside on the nightstand. “I was angry and scared. You can run whatever tests you need to, especially if what you learn from me will help people like Dayo’s family. But not today.”
“No,” she breathed and threw her arms around him. “Not today.”
He murmured to her in Cajun and stroked a hand over her hair as she let all the emotion she’d kept bottled up bubble over and spill out. It came out in gasping, wrenching sobs, and he held her through it.
It was him. It was him. It really was him.
“I was so afraid I’d lose you.”
“Not gonna lie,” he whispered against her temple. “I thought you’d lose me too, but I’m not going anywhere.” He caught her tears on his finger and whisked them away. “You’re stuck with me now.”
She sucked in a shaky breath and lifted her lips to his. “Good, because I love you, Cajun. You’re stuck with me, too.”
He laughed and kissed her back. It started out gentle and sweet, but like all things with him, it soon turned to heat.
She broke away and studied his face. “Are you well enough to make love?”
His grin all but sparkled. “If you’re on top, I think I can manage.”
They moved slowly, taking care not to hurt his damaged ribs as they undressed. He lay back on the bed as she rolled the condom on and told her all the deliciously wicked and dirty things he would do to her body once he was healed. His words sent pleasure spiraling through her even before she took him inside her body, and when she did…
Moaning, she rolled her hips, slow and easy, caught between wanting to pleasure him and fear of hurting him.
His fingers dug into her hips. “Ride me harder, cher.” His voice was gravel. “You won’t break me. Use me like your own personal fuck toy.”
She gasped as he bucked his hips, surging up just as she came down on him. Her entire body clenched and spasmed with the orgasm and she let out a long, low moan as the pleasure swamped her.
He continued undulating under her. “I love it when you do that, when you lock up around me and try to suck me dry. You’re gorgeous.” He reached between their bodies and found her clit. “Do it again for me.”
He knew exactly how to touch her to send her flying again. Almost immediately, she shuddered, crying out his name so loud everyone had to have heard it. The sound must have sent him over the edge because he roared out his own release, seemingly straining to bury himself even deeper in her body.
Fine by her.
When they were both spent, she collapsed to the mattress beside him, mindful of his abused ribs, and sighed.
He grinned over at her and lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Je t’aime de tout mon coeur.”
I love you with all my heart.
It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to her.
“I love you, too.” She snuggled in beside him and just held on, still half afraid she was dreaming. She thought she wouldn’t be able to let go of him for a good long time, but as the postcoital glow faded, she noticed his wince of pain.
Alarmed, she sat up. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Worth it.” He stiffly climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom to clean up. He returned a few minutes later and slid back into bed, holding out an arm in an invitation to cuddle. She settled in beside him, taking care around his ribs when she draped an arm over his chest. Maybe he thought sex was worth the pain, but she didn’t like seeing him hurting.
“Do you have pain medication?”
“Yes, doctor,” he said with an exasperated eye roll. “I’ll take some in a minute. Just let me hold you right now.”
Not really satisfied by that answer—she suspected she’d have to force-feed him the pills—she rested her head over his heart. She had to hear it, make sure it beat strongly. She was still too shaken up, too raw from the fear of losing him.
His chest rumbled under her ear as he hummed a few bars of “The Piña Colada Song.” She smiled against his skin. She was starting to think of the song as theirs.
She joined in, then laughed when he stopped humming to scowl at her. “I’m not off-key.”
“You absolutely are.” How could such a smart man be so totally clueless to his own tone-deafness?
He bristled. “I’ll have you know—”
She propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over to kiss him. “Your mamere thought the world of you. She wasn’t going to tell you that you can’t carry a tune.”
Grumbling, he settled back into the pillow and frowned up at the ceiling. “You could at least humor me.”
So he wasn’t unaware of his tone-deafness. He just didn’t care. She admired that about him. She wished she was bold enough to unabashedly sing whenever the urge struck.
She straddled him, and smiled sweetly down at him as she slid her hands gently across his poor, battered chest. “You’re the best singer in the world and I fell in love with you that night in Martinique because of your rendition of ‘The Piña Colada Song.’”
“Smart ass.” He pinched her rear, then soothed a hand over the sting.
She should tell him she wasn’t fibbing, but she kissed him instead. She absolutely had started falling for him at that poolside bar in—
Martinique.
She broke the kiss and sat upright with a gasp.
Martinique. This all started at the Infectious Diseases Summit in Martinique.
“Claire?” Concern lining his brow, Jean-Luc sat up fast. He winced at the movement and put a hand over his ribs. “What is it, ma belle?”
She pushed away from him. “Ostermann is still a threat. He’s still planning his attack. He’d rather see the world burn than live with it as is.”
Jean-Luc ran a hand over her hair. “It’s nothing you need to worry about anymore. You’re safe now and—”
“No.” She waved away the soothing caress of his hand. “It’s not that. He told me he had his first attack planned in three weeks. Less than two weeks now. And this all started in Martinique…”
“So…?” Jean-Luc said, dragging the word out. “I’m not following.”
“I know where he’s going to start.”