The early morning hours approach and I can’t resist anymore. I slip off my shoes, pull the clip out of my hair, and position myself in the only place in the world I want to be.
At Colton’s side.
The morning light burns through my closed eyelids as I try to rouse myself from the deepest sleep I’ve had in over six days. Instead I just burrow in deeper to the warmth beside me. I feel fingers brush across my cheek and I’m instantly alert, my body jolting with awareness.
“Morning.” His voice is a whispered murmur against the top of my head. My heart floods with an array of emotions but what I feel more than anything is complete.
Whole again.
I start to move so I can look into his eyes. “No doctors yet. I just need this. Need you. No one else, okay?” he asks.
Seriously? Is the sky blue? If I could, I’d whisk him out of this sterile prison and keep him all to myself for a while. Forever or more if he’d let me. But rather than letting the flippant comment roll off my tongue, I just make a satisfied moan and tighten my arms around him. I close my eyes and just absorb everything about this moment. I so desperately wish we were somewhere else, anywhere else, so I could lie with him skin to skin, connect with him in that indescribable way. Feel like I am doing something to help heal his broken memory and damaged soul.
We lie there in silence, my hand over his heart and the fingers of his left hand lazily drawing lines up and down my forearm. There are so many questions I want to ask. So many things that run through my head, but the only one that I manage to say is, “How are you feeling?”
The momentary pause in his movement is so subtle I almost don’t catch it, but I do. And it’s enough to tell me that something’s wrong besides the obvious.
“This is nice.” It’s all he says and that further solidifies my hunch. I give him a bit of time to gather his thoughts and work out what he wants to say because after the past few weeks, I’ve learned so many things, least of which is my inability to listen when it matters the most.
And right now it matters.
So I sit in silence as my mind wars with the possibilities.
“I’ve been awake for a few hours,” he starts. “Listening to you breathe. Trying to make my right hand fucking work. Trying to wrap my head around what happened. What I can’t remember. It’s there. I can sense it but I can’t make it come to the forefront …” he trails off.
“What do you remember?” I ask.
I desperately want to turn, to look into his eyes and read the fear and frustration that is most likely marring them, but I don’t. I give him the space to admit that he’s not one hundred percent. To balance that inherent male need to be as strong as possible, to show no weakness.
“That’s just it,” he sighs. “I remember bits and pieces. Nothing flows though, except you were there in most of them. Can you tell me what happened? How the day went so I can try to fill in what’s missing?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I nod my head gently, smiling at the memory of how our morning started.
“I remember waking up to the best sight ever—you naked, on top of me.” He sighs in appreciation that causes parts within me that have been ignored over the past week to stir to life. I don’t even fight the smile that spreads across my lips when I feel his growing arousal beneath the sheet next to me. Glad I’m not the only one affected by the memory.
“Becks came in without knocking and I was pissed at him for that. He left and I do believe your jeans were on the floor and your back was up against the wall in a matter of seconds after the door was shut.” We fall silent for a moment, that undeniable charge crackling between us. “Sweet Christ what I wouldn’t give to be doing that right now.”
I start laughing and this time when I shift myself to sit up and look at him, he allows me. I turn to face him and can’t help the chills that blanket my skin when I lock eyes with his. “Now I don’t think Dr. Irons would approve of that,” I tease, silently sighing with relief that we feel like we are right back where we left off before the accident. Playful, needing, and each other’s complement. I can’t stop my hand from reaching out and lingering on his cheek. I hate the thought of not being in contact with him.
“Well,” he says, “I’ll make sure that’s the first thing I ask Dr. Irons when I see him.”
“The first thing?” I ask and swallow around my heart that’s just somersaulted into my throat when he turns his face and presses a kiss into the palm of my hand. The simple action knotting the bow on the ribbon already tied around my heart.
“A man has to have his priorities.” He smirks. “If one head’s fucked up, at least the other one can be used to its maximum potential.” He starts to laugh and winces, bringing his left hand up to hold his head.
Alarm shoots through me and I immediately reach out to push the call button, but his hand reaches out and stops me. And it takes a second for me to register that it’s his right hand he’s just used. I think Colton realizes it at the same time.
He works a swallow down his throat, his eyes shifting to watch his hand as he releases my arm. I follow his gaze to see his fingers tremor violently as he unsuccessfully tries to make a fist. I notice a sheen of sweat appear on his forehead below the bandage as he wills his fingers to tighten. When I can’t bear to watch him struggle any more, I reach out and grab his hand in mine and start massaging it, willing it to move myself.
“It’s a start,” I reassure him. “Baby steps, okay?” All I want to do is wrap him in my arms and take away all of his pain and frustration, but he seems so fragile that I fear touching him, despite how much it would lessen the lingering unease that tiptoes in my head. My usual optimism has been put through the ringer these past few weeks, and I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that this isn’t the worst of it. That something else is lurking on the horizon waiting to knock us down again.