What if we mess this up?
So instead of pushing it too far, I moved my face into her palm, kissing her there before pulling back to look at her. “That you’re the only one I’ll ever share my all with, Ceci. You’re the only one, period.”
Chapter Thirty-five
CECI
“You mean everything to me, and you’re breaking my fucking heart.”
The words had been haunting me for days.
Nights when I was on my cycle were like fever dreams most of the time. I sweat, I hurt, I hardly slept and when I did it was fitful.
I don’t know how he came to know this, but somehow Connor had figured out that pattern and had taken it upon himself to wake up in the middle of the night to gingerly pull me out of sleep and feed me medication. I was not a gracious riser and even less so when I had woken up enough to realize all the feverish symptoms were because my cramps had hit, and they were coming on strong.
Normally, I was by myself for this part. I wasn’t strong enough to fully resist skulking over to Connor’s for comfort during my periods, but I had at least always had the decency to use the spare room when I knew I was going to be cramping. And while there always seemed to be a fresh bottle of pain medication or some random remedy ready by my bedside, Con had never outright admitted to knowing my cycle.
I guess that barrier was broken now too.
This time, he woke me out of my sleep as if he was waking a bear. And when I was coherent enough to prop myself up on my elbows, he gave me just one pain pill like that was going to be enough.
“More,” I’d groaned in my confused sleep grogginess.
Con just shook his head. “Try this tea.”
So confused, I started to pat at his hands in search of more. “More medicine, Connor.”
“No,” he murmured patiently. “Tea first. If it doesn’t work, pain meds.”
Then he held some nasty-ass tea to my mouth and made me drink the entire cup. I don’t know if it was the tea or the warm pack he laid across my lower belly that smelled like lavender and peppermint, but something had worked for a little while. Soothing me enough to let me drift off to sleep. Connor drifted too, but he slept sitting upright, his hand strewn across my belly to keep the pack in place. And when I’d groaned awake some hours later, he’d given me another pain pill saying at the very least we were able to space it out a little longer.
Even in my sleep fuzz, I realized what he was doing. Spacing out my drugs. Trying to wean me off them. Trying to find a remedy.
Call it hormones, but the gesture choked me up. It made me want to snuggle into him and never let go. It made me want him like in the park the other day. Like at his front door. It made me want all of him.
Half asleep I settled for playing dead instead. When Connor returned from refilling my water glass on the bedside table, he found me sitting slumped over with my eyes pressed shut. It was sort of mean to pretend to be asleep, especially when he had woken up twice in the night to help me, but I had been feeling needy and didn’t just want to outright ask for him to touch me.
My sneakiness was rewarded when he scooped me up in his arms and settled me back into the covers with a surgeon’s precision. He covered me up to my neck in blankets, smoothed hair out of my face and leaned in to kiss the very crown of my head.
“Why are you so good to me?” I asked. Or at least that’s what I meant to ask, although I think it came out sounding more along the lines of, “Why…are you…so good?”
I asked simply to hear his voice. To keep him near me longer. I thought maybe he’d make a joke or call me a smartass or something else familiar that would put me at ease and help me fall back to sleep.
But no. What Connor did instead, was kneel beside the bed and stare at me for long moments. The weight of his stare making the moments feel like hours as I laid there unable to open my eyes or even change my breathing in fear of giving myself away.
I guess I was a good actress. Because after a while, Con brought his head down to rest on my belly. An arm wrapping around my hip in a little hug. My instincts wanted me to reach up and touch him. To put my hand on his head and rub the smooth shaven hair there. I wanted to participate in this little moment he was giving me, but he already thought I was asleep, I didn’t want to be caught being so sneaky.
“Celestia,” he started, his voice gruff with sleep, tone tired and worn. More exhaustion than one singular day could produce. It was this bone deep kind of tired that seemed to change the feel of him. Change his usual steady aura to something edgy and impatient. But I was still half unconscious, so what did I know? “You are infuriating.”
Woah, woah!
Was he picking a fight with me while I was sleeping? Was I allowed to respond? Because I had a response. But before I could, he was speaking again.
“Sometimes I wish I could just make you understand,” he sighed and seemed to gather me up closer, turning his head into my body so his words were muffled. So he could speak them into me instead of saying them outright. I heard them anyway.
“You’re my world, Cee,” he choked. “You mean everything to me, and you’re breaking my fucking heart.”
* * *
