Hell yeah.
I wasn’t coy about watching him strip, either. His body was solid, muscular, beautiful. I sighed with just a little too much longing when he finally pulled off his jeans and boxers.
“You’re quite enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” he said as he placed his clothes on a nearby chair.
“It’s an amazing view. And I’m not talking about the Eiffel Tower all lit up outside my window.”
He came over to the tub and I reached up and lightly stroked his washboard abs. I’d missed that hard, flat stomach. He stepped over the side of the tub and sank down opposite me. I grabbed some more bubble bath, dumped it into the water between us and said, “You need some more bubbles to truly enjoy the bubble bath experience.” I opened the faucet, letting more hot water into the tub.
I had to bend over him to reach it, but I made sure to keep my towel pinned securely to me. Adam’s dark eyes followed me and I leaned over him until the tub had refilled adequately, then turned off the water. Before I could lean back, he caught my arm and pulled me toward him and my mouth landed on his.
I moaned as he plunged his tongue into my mouth. I fell against his chest, returning the kiss with about twice the passion he put into his—which was saying something because his kiss was far from chaste. But I was starved for him and I wasn’t going to let him out of the tub without letting him know that.
He reached up and put one hand on my back, the other against the towel I held to my chest. When we finally came up for air, he looked up at me and swallowed hard. “This isn’t easy,” he murmured.
I shook my head. “Nope. It’s not.”
The hand on my chest moved slightly to the side, as if he wanted to slide it under the towel, I pulled it tighter to me. Our eyes were locked and I could tell he wanted it as badly as I did.
“I want to touch you. I want to see you,” he said.
I hesitated, freezing in sudden terror. I couldn’t let him see me. I was ugly, scarred. It would disgust him. He’d never want me. I swallowed the fear but it rose up again immediately. Finally, I gently shook my head.
He looked away for a stretch of minutes and sighed heavily. “Okay. I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to do. But eventually…”
I sat back, putting a little distance between us. “Eventually I’ll get some reconstruction…”
His eyes flew back to mine. “So I don’t get to see you until after that?”
I didn’t answer. I had no answer. It wasn’t fair of me. I did want him to touch my breasts. But the fear was too strong.
“What are you scared of, Emilia?”
I took a shaky breath. “You have no idea what it’s like to go out in public at your side. You are perfect. Everyone looks at you and they wonder what the hell you’re doing with me.”
He frowned. “You think that if I see you, I won’t want you.”
I nodded. “Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”
“Yesterday at the park you said you don’t trust what you think anymore because you question your judgment. That’s about right because with this, you’re absolutely wrong. If I just loved the outside of you, you’re right, I probably still wouldn’t be here. I’d see only that your beautiful hair was gone or that you were sick all the time.”
I lowered my gaze to the surface of the bubbles, his words stinging me. They were honest but they hurt.
“But I don’t just love your hair or your beautiful skin, your breasts or your eyes, your body. Those are the bonuses and they will come back. I love
you
, Emilia. I love your heart, which is worried about me even when
you
are the one hurting. I love your brain—that we can have long conversations about things and you
get
it. You get
me.
I love your soul, which feels, sometimes, like it’s mine, only in your body.”
It hurt to breathe as I sat there absorbing his words, the simple beauty of them stunning me to silence. For a moment, my mouth worked and then I began sobbing on the spot. His words were so honest, so unexpected. He moved forward and pulled me into his arms. I wept against his hard, naked chest, his warm skin against my cheek.
But I still held that damn towel to me as tight as ever. I wasn’t brave enough yet. It was too scary. His arms tightened around me. He said he loved my soul but he had no idea of the darkness lurking down in the depths. The wretched, horrid thoughts I forced down on a daily basis. The self-loathing.
Yes, I was alive. But at what cost? Had it been worth it? I swallowed the sting of that hurt yet again and I turned and kissed his neck, his shoulder, his chest. I showered him with my love. The kisses weren’t meant to seduce or arouse, but to show him without words that I loved him too.
“I love you—so, so much,” I said. It wasn’t nearly as poetic or romantic as what he had said to me but it was all I could choke out between whimpers and sobs. He held me to him until I stopped crying and for a long time after, the only sound the crackling of the bubbles and the movement of the water around us, echoing in the white marbled bathroom.
I pressed my teary cheek to the damp skin of his shoulder and I felt calm, peaceful. When I spoke, it was with a quiet voice. “I’m scared to go home.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been so magical here. Like a fantasy. Here, I have you all to myself. I don’t have to share you. I’m selfish but I’ve loved every minute of it.”
“You have all of me, all of the time.”
No, that wasn’t true and he knew it. There I competed with the job, the friends, all the perfect-looking women around him, co-workers, acquaintances. There, I had the constant fear that I would lose him.
“You have me, too,” I said. “Always. Forever.” For as long as that happened to last.
He kissed my neck and breathed against my cheek. “I need to tell you that I’m scared, too,” he said suddenly.
I swallowed. “About the scan?”
“Yes.”
“I guess it’s easy for me to say ‘forever’ when that might not mean a very long time.”
He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “None of us know when forever will end. It’s not just you. We never know. What makes forever worth it is each day we live and enjoy being with each other. Each day we make each other’s lives better.”
My eyes dropped and he trailed the tears on my cheeks with his thumb, outlined my lips. I kissed his fingers as he moved them over my mouth.
“So you know that my love is not about your looks…any more than yours is for me…right? Or do you love me just for how I look?”
I smiled, almost wishing I could make a joke, but I didn’t want to spoil the moment. “Hmm. I love the man who makes breakfast for me even when he can’t make toast without burning it.” He laughed, continued to trace his fingers over my mouth, my jaw. I closed my eyes, relishing the feel.
“I love the man who signs his notes to me with a lopsided heart. I love the man who…listens to songs only old people and hipsters know.” He barked out another laugh. I smiled. “I love the man who was there for me…all the time, even when I wasn’t there.”
Silence again and the bubbles fizzed around us.
Minutes later, muttering that I was turning into a prune, I carefully got out of the tub. He lay back and watched me cinch a fluffy terry robe around me before finally dropping the now-soaked towel. I snagged the other bathrobe and laid it near, where he could grab it when he got out.
“Hey, farm girl, what about me? Do I get my back washed?”
I sent him a lopsided grin and ducked my head. “As you wish.”
But it was hard—damn hard, rubbing the soapy washcloth over his muscular back, down his trapezius muscles and then down to his lower back along his latissimus dorsi, then to his narrow waist. Oh God, he was just too sexy for his own good. And touching him had riled me up again. It wasn’t fair. I was healthy enough to have an over-the-top sex drive but apparently not healthy enough for him until that clean scan came back. I sat back with a sigh of sexual frustration.
“There. And now, I’ll be in my bunk,” I said.
Adam laughed.
Firefly
was one of his favorite shows.
I got up and went into the bedroom where I sat in the dark and listened to him in the bathtub. The real reason I’d gotten out of the tub was that it hurt too much to keep hiding myself from him. I knew he’d wanted me to drop the towel and stop covering myself. I
was
hiding from him, in so many ways. Hiding from myself too.
I lay down on the bed and relived those beautiful moments with him where we sat together, where he told me
I want to see you. I want to touch you.
My daydreaming self was much braver than my real self and so in my fantasy, I dropped the towel and he looked at me. And instead of the disgust I feared in his eyes, I only saw desire. Hot desire. When Adam was turned on, his dark eyes glowed with it. They were luminous, beautiful. Like smoldering coals.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly tight, my heart racing with my own desire. I pictured Adam’s hands sliding up my waist, moving over my breasts. I remembered how it had felt the other night, his thumbs rubbing over my nipples repeatedly. Lust arced through me and despite the irony of joking that I’d be in my bunk, my hand went between my legs because the tension that had been building in me since arrival was now full to bursting and I couldn’t take it anymore. He wasn’t going to touch me until we knew for sure I was better. But I couldn’t wait any longer.
I let out a little moan. It was my hand but I imagined it was his and in the middle of my fantasy, I felt a weight sag the bed. I stopped, opening my eyes and looked up. Adam sat on the bed beside me, watching me. He’d never caught me in the act before and in my daze I realized I should probably be embarrassed but I was just too turned on to be. And the fact that he was sitting there, watching me, turned me on even more.
He bent down and kissed me, took my hand and put it back where it had been, rubbing against my clitoris. His hand settled on top of mine, pressing it down. And he was penetrating me, his tongue in my mouth and his fingers inside me. I cried out but it was muffled by his mouth.
When he pulled his mouth away, he was whispering things that made the nerve endings dance all over the surface of my skin. “You are so sexy, Emilia. My sexy, naughty girl. I want to watch you come. I want to hear you.”
I gasped again. “I’m imagining you on top of me. Inside me.”
He groaned and kissed me again, my mouth, my neck, my ears. He lay down beside me, his robe falling open and I could see the corded muscles of his chest, the edge of his tattoo peeking out from under the snowy white. “I wish you could fuck me, Adam. I want you so much.”
“I want you too. I want to pleasure you. I want to make you feel good. Do you feel good?”
“Yes, yes, I feel good.”
He moved again, pushing my legs open, he placed himself between them. My thighs pressed against his sturdy shoulders and he was licking me. I yelped and grabbed the headboard behind me, my eyes rolling back. It felt—So. Damn. Good. Every part of me was on fire and I was breathing so fast I couldn’t catch my breath. All I could feel was that point of my body where Adam’s mouth connected to me, his tongue penetrating, his mouth sucking. My back arched and I was coming so violently that my hips bucked off the bed and collided with his head. He jerked back and held me down, then put his mouth against me again, refusing to let up until the powerful convulsions had stopped and I was whimpering, begging for him to take his mouth away because the feelings were so intense they now hurt…
My body was plunged into lassitude, every bit of tension rung from it like a damp rag. I could only lie there and relish that stunning afterglow that had me flying so high. Adam straightened and looked at me, then ran a hand over my stomach before moving up to lie beside me. We lay like that for a long time, the tops of our heads pressed together but no other part of us touching. I reached out and grabbed his hand, lacing my fingers around his.
Then he turned and did the most wonderful thing of all. He said, “Don’t let that shitty voice inside your head tell you that you aren’t sexy.
Ever.
Because you are burning a hole right through me. And I love it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Adam
Two days after we returned home, Emilia went in for her scan. I could hardly breathe at all the entire day. And I had to sit in a waiting room in the hospital while she was gone for hours, much of the time locked inside a giant machine, keeping absolutely still. At least that’s how they’d explained it would happen.
Since waking up that morning and getting ready, she’d been unusually quiet. And just before being called back, she had taken off the compass I’d given her—probably one of the few times it was ever off of her body, but she had been prohibited to wear or hold it during the scan. She’d pressed it into my palm and made me swear to keep it safe. I looked down into my palm now, studying the dark blue surface, the constellation outlined in diamonds. My throat closed with emotion and I stuffed it in my shirt pocket.
I glanced across from me where Kim sat paging jerkily through a magazine without reading it. My Uncle Peter had a hand on her leg, watching her with concerned eyes. My leg tapped up and down repeatedly.
She was going to be okay. I’d repeated that phrase in my head a thousand times since waking up. It was my mantra today. The scans would come back clean and we’d be able to breathe again. If all it took was sheer thought power on my part, we’d have this in the bag. Because I’d dedicated every spare thought and feeling to this outcome for weeks.
Peter looked up and we shared a glance, and then I shot out of my seat and went to the water cooler down the hall for what seemed like the twentieth time. Peter was beside me a minute later.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Trying to be,” I answered.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “You know you can talk to me whenever you need to.”
I nodded.
“Don’t try to be the strong, silent type here. I know it’s your personality. You’re just like your dad in that respect.”
I shrugged and took a sip of water. “If you say so.”
“Adam, I know we don’t like to talk about these things much. I know you and I have had some kind of silent understanding since you came to live under our roof but—I just need to say this. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my son. I’ve loved you since you were born and I was glad and fortunate to have been able to help raise you. Your dad was my favorite brother.”