I watched the numbers on the doors even though I knew the way. When I reached his room, I didn’t hear voices so I slowly walked in.
Marcus was standing up! Jen had him on one side and a nurse stood on the other to help him. I froze, hope swelling in my chest. He’d been so frustrated before; I knew even if he didn’t let on or tell me about it.
He grinned, his handsome face glowing. The bruises were hardly visible at all now. He wore a normal gray T-shirt with sweats, and his hair was styled and looked kinda messy, kinda sexy.
“Hey, babe. Check this out.”
“I see!”
“Do you want to sit down?” Jen asked.
“No.” He motioned for me to come over, then told the nurse, “I’m good. I want to stand on my own.”
“You sure?” She leaned her head over to look around Marcus at Jen. They were both mothering him.
“Yeah, I got this,” he insisted. “No worries.”
The nurse stepped back but waited to make sure he was stable before giving him more space.
“Jen?” Marcus asked. He didn’t have to finish the question. She took a step back, and then Marcus reached for me. I stepped close and wrapped my arms around his neck, careful not to learn on him. Actually, he leaned on me, burying his face in my neck and pulling me tight against him with his arms around me.
The nurse talked to Jen before leaving, but I closed my eyes and ignored them. This was the first time we’d embraced like this, both of us standing, our bodies touching all the way down. His heart beat against me, and I bet he could feel mine. My breathing came fast and irregular. I’d missed him so much. Now that I held him, my entire body came alive, an electric buzz running down to my feet. For the first time all week, I didn’t miss our old connection when I could tell what he was thinking and feeling.
“You’ve been working hard this week,” I whispered.
“Getting there.” He lifted his face to kiss my neck, sending a shiver down me. We still had to get used to being able to touch each other. It gave me a huge adrenaline rush, like the first time we hit a jump together in my mind.
“I wanted to surprise you with my standing up and all.” He grinned against my face. “Funny that it’s so impressive, right?”
“Not funny, Marcus, really good.” I pressed my cheek against him and felt the stubble on his jaw.
“You feel so good, babe.”
I opened my eyes at his words, trying to see if Jen was right there.
“She left,” he said with a chuckle. “But she looked a little worried.”
“Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I need to hold you.” His good arm held me tightly. It sent energy through me like a live wire, and urgent need stirred and sparked. Luckily he couldn’t read my thoughts, but the way I pressed into him might have clued him in.
I closed my eyes again, roaming his back with my hands. He made a happy murmur against my neck as my hands slid over his muscles.
“Are you sore?”
“Yeah,” he said, but with a light laugh. “From the accident still and from laying in that bed for so long. And probably the therapy. I don’t mind being sore, but your hands feel really nice.”
I kept touching him but soon noticed he was trembling. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I eased back and helped him to the bed without saying anything. While he settled in, I checked out the pictures on the wall. He had a poster of photos and all his drawings up. I’d seen a ton of shots online of him in action, but the photos felt more personal. He was snowboarding or hanging out with snowboarding friends in all of them.
“I’m getting back to that,” he said.
I leaned against a counter. After driving all the way up here, I really didn’t feel like sitting down. I’d gotten restless in the car, and it made me think of Marcus wanting to get up and be active.
“I know you will,” I said with a smile.
He turned his head to gaze at me, and after a minute I felt like he was studying me through artist’s eyes, like he needed to see every detail to draw them. Of course, he had drawn me quite a bit already. I finally had to laugh and say, “You should know what I look like by now.”
“But I need to count every freckle.”
I hid my face for a second.
“Ave, I love your freckles! And your little nose, and your eyes, and especially that dreamy look you get when you’re looking back at me.”
I peeked at him through my fingers.
“And you know it, too,” he added with a glint in his eyes. “You got to hear all my lewd thoughts about you.”
That was certainly true…and fun. I had to admit I liked knowing this funny, attractive man wanted me so badly.
“So… Are they going to let you have some down time this weekend?” I asked, and the implied question was, would we get any time together? Maybe alone?
Marcus gave me a wicked grin in response and stretched his hand out so I’d come over. “I’ll make them. Jen stayed here today to give my parents some time off. They’re all going to let me have tomorrow to spend with just you.”
“Just me. I like the sound of that.” My heart took flight for all of two seconds before crashing down again. All the doubts I’d been stuffing away burst out into the light, almost suffocating me. I let my gaze drop down to our entwined fingers and asked, “How is this going to work?”
Wow, how did all that come out so suddenly?
He was quiet for so long that I had to look up, worried that I’d see doubt in his face. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared that. What if my doubt made him doubt all of this?
“Do you mean, how will we work?” he asked. It was out there, and I couldn’t take it back. I knew the best course was to be honest and tell him everything.
“I have college in Ashland, and you’re up here, and you’ll go somewhere for therapy—what if you go back to Colorado with your family for that? Then you’re going back to snowboarding. You’ll go somewhere else to train. When you’re up to speed soon, you’ll be traveling even more.” My fears and doubts were like a tsunami. They’d been lurking underneath the surface, building strength until everything spilled over. Sharing gave me a tiny measure of relief, but now I feared what he’d say. Suddenly I knew I shared so he’d reassure me, but what if he couldn’t?
“Ave…”
I didn’t let him finish.
“And you don’t need me anymore,” I said, feeling like it was too much, making me too vulnerable, but he had seen and known everything about me before. It felt wrong to have anything between us now.
“I wish you could still feel my heart, babe. Then you’d know how much I love and need and want you.”
At his words, tears instantly pooled in my eyes.
“Ave?” he tugged my hand and I leaned over onto his chest. “You’re worried we can’t make it?”
“You’re famous. You’re a gold medalist for Christ’s sake. I’m just some girl still figuring things out. I don’t have any family around. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life yet. And you have it figured out, and you have a future—”
“Ave! Babe, stop it.” He pulled my face up by my chin. I felt my tears running down to my chin and joining together. I wanted to wipe at my nose but he held me frozen with his piercing eyes. “Avery, we’ll make it no matter what. Okay? You don’t have to have your life figured out.” He smiled and shook his head. “I fell in love with you just the way you are.”
I closed my eyes, just taking in his words.
“Why are you doubting anyway?”
I tried to shake my head but his hands were holding me. “I don’t know. I guess because we’ve been apart and life seems really hard right now. And I don’t know what you’re thinking anymore, like you said.” Suddenly I laughed. “I wanted you out of my head so badly at first, and here I am crying about losing you!”
He laughed too and kissed my mouth. I pulled back. “I’m a mess. Wow, look at me.”
“I am, babe.”
That stopped m
e for a second. He did see all of my. And he liked it.
I got up and went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. Marcus didn’t need me crying all over him. He had a hard road too, and his dreams were on the line. What if he couldn’t make a full recovery and go back to snowboarding? I would always love him no matter what, but I knew that’d be hard on him. So I pulled myself together and even smiled at myself in the mirror.
When I came out, Jen was stepping into the room with a fast food bag in her hand.
“I snuck this in!” She grinned, making her look a lot like a blue-eyed Marcus.
“You’re my hero!” He held out a hand and she tossed him a hamburger.
“Here.” She tossed one to me too. My stomach growled. I normally didn’t eat this crap but it smelled like it’d come straight from heaven. We dug in, laughing like evil conspirators.
“Avery, are you okay?” Jen asked with an intense look at me. Had I missed some stray mascara?
I gave her a brave smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine now. I just have moments.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling.” She laughed, a bit sadly. “It hasn’t been easy. We’re on the downhill side now, by a long shot. This is so much better.”
I had to agree with that.
“Easy for you to say.” Marcus wadded up his wrapper and made a basket into the trash can. He paused, his hand up in the air, with a curious look on his face, and it hit me that he hadn’t expected to make it. He was getting more motor control back. His sister watched it too. He caught sight of Jen’s expression and shrugged. “I know, sorry. I shouldn’t complain. I just want up and out of this bed more.”
Marcus and Jen both looked up at something behind me—I was sitting facing the bed so I had to turn around to see that his parents had come into the room.
“We wanted to say goodnight,” Elaina said with a smile for Marcus as she went to the bed to embrace him.
As far as I knew, they hadn’t hung out in the hospital all evening, so that meant they drove back here to talk to him instead of calling. Maybe they needed to see him before spending an entire day away from him, but it still made me feel like they didn’t trust me.
I stepped into the hallway while they said goodbye, and ended up pacing down the hall and back.
When I turned around and paced back toward his room, both his parents walked out and spotted me. I hoped Jen would be right behind them. She worked as a pretty good buffer sometimes. But she wasn’t there this time.
I slowed down but I couldn’t just turn around and run off. They watched my approach, and I felt like the principal was standing in the open door of the office, waiting for me.
“Hi Avery,” Elaina greeted, her arms wrapped around her waist the same way Jen does. I tried to return a real smile for her nervous one. “Ready for this weekend?” she asked.
A loaded question for sure. She tended to put things delicately as far as I could tell, and that was her subtle way of asking, can you handle taking care of Marcus all weekend?
“Yes, very,” I said, proud of myself for responding in a sure, firm tone.
“So I’m curious,” Tom said, his eyes boring into me from behind those glasses. I felt myself falter. “I don’t understand how you met Marcus or got so involved in his life. You live in Ashland, right? How’d you end up there?”
He sure didn’t have the same social smoothness Marcus did.
Elaina rested a hand on his arm. “Tom, that’s a lot of questions, let her talk.”
“Ashland, yes,” I said deer-in-the-headlights blank.
“Did you live in foster care after your parents died?”
“Tom!”
“Would that make me a certain kind of person?” I asked without even thinking about it first. “Like less of a person somehow?”
His head pulled back—my words actually, literally, knocked him back.
Elaina tried to say something, and even mouthed several words.
Jen startled us from the door. “Good for you, Ave!”
She had her arms crossed as she looked between her parents.
“About time you stood up to them. And that’s exactly the kind of woman Marcus needs too.”
A funny chain of expressions crossed Elaina’s face: shock, reflection and then a-ha. Maybe I just won a few points with her. Tom stuttered and looked down, and I had to bit into my lip to keep the smug smile off my face. A silence stretched out.
“We’ll be fine,” I finally said. “Marcus is doing great, and we’re right here in a hospital.”
For Christ’s sake, he say. We’re surrounded by doctors.
Elaina nodded and took Tom’s arm again, physically pulling him in the other direction. “I’m sure you will be. We might see you tomorrow?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
Tom nodded and straightened his back as he turned and walked down the hallway, Elaina walking sideways beside him and muttering at him. Jen walked behind them, and she turned around backwards and made a funny face at me. We both silently laughed and waved.
Then I raced back into the room.
“Alone at last.” I rubbed my hands together and tried for an evil grin while adding, “What should we do?”
“Let me think…” Marcus tilted his head, one eye closed and a hand to his chin in a classic thoughtful look. “Get over here.”
I giggled and hopped up on his bed.
He sat up halfway and wrapped an arm around my waist so he could pull me against him. Our lips met. I wanted to straddle him but I was still being careful, so I just cradled his head while kissing him. His hand slid down my lower back and over my butt, squeezing.
“Mmm,” he moaned against me. “I love touching you.”
I edged closer, aching inside for him. My hands suddenly had minds of their own and ran over him, exploring, touching, trying to tease so he’d want me more too. His hands followed suit, and we were inside each other’s clothes.
I could hardly handle his touch on my bare skin and gripped a handful of his shirt as I pressed my face into his neck, gasping. My body moved against him, overriding any thoughts. I didn’t want to think anyway.
Then he took me by the shoulders.
“I can’t,” he said against my mouth. I heard the words but they didn’t make sense. Yet at the same time they did. I was just too shocked to move. I slowly leaned back, trying to read his eyes.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… like this…” He waved a hand down his body. Did he feel self-conscious? Or worried he couldn’t perform? I didn’t care about any of that.
“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to control my breathing so he wouldn’t hear just how badly I wanted him. I lay down with him. “You’ve only had, what a week to recover? We can give it time.”
It wouldn’t kill me to wait…right?
Chapter Fourteen
Marcus
I woke up looking down at Avery, her hair flared out around on her on the snow. Her nose was pink from the cold and her eyes sparkling under the cloudy sky. I smoothed her hair back from her forehead and laid a kiss there.
“Hey, Tiger Lily. What are you doing out here?”
She laughed and shook her head back and forth. “I guess I’d be making a snow angel except…” you’re on me.
That little thought zinged through me, instantly turning me on. I suddenly felt her body against mine and her legs wrapped around my hips. Her normally light blue eyes appeared smoky right now, maybe because mist surrounded us. Her light golden-orange freckles stood out, spots of color in her pale face.
You are so uniquely beautiful.
The corners of her mouth curved up for a second before she bit her bottom lip. I cradled her head in my hands and leaned down to kiss her. She slid her fingers into my hair and pulled me closer, kissing like she meant business, her tongue teasing mine.
I closed my eyes and felt the world shift, like swaying, pulsating like we were… oh, wow…
Avery…
My body tightened and
everything exploded, the world going soft and silent, like when you’re out alone in deep pow.
Then I only heard her breathing….us breathing together. I followed the noise, sailing away.
***
I thought I’d drifted off again but I floated into some other dream. Avery’s dream?
I looked with her as she turned her head. Her heartbeat went crazy when we both spotted Kyle driving his car beside us.
What the fuck?
I jumped down from the curb and raced toward it.
“Marcus!” she called after me.
When I looked back at her, the area around us faded away and the engine noise died, almost like she was pulling it all back.
“Are you trying to stop me?” I asked. “What’s going on with that?”
She stepped closer and took my hand. “I went running one evening, and he stopped to talk to me.”
My temperature rocketed up. I had to let go of her hand and pace. “What happened? You’re okay, right? You would have told me if something happened?”
If he scared her or threatened her…
“Nothing did—well, he apologized for being such an ass. So something kinda big, but not…”
I stopped and stared at her, hands on hips. My breathing was getting out of hand so I closed my eyes and calmed myself down. What did she even say? I had to repeat her words in my head and get myself to understand what she was telling me.
“He was sorry?”
“He’s been having dreams too.” Her expression clouded over with those words, her gaze dropping. I went back to her and wrapped my arms around her small shoulders. It always felt so good to pull her close, no matter how many times I feel her in my embrace, and no matter how many times I feel her body pressed to mine. I inhaled the scent of her shampoo and ran my hands over her.
The rest of the story fell into my head, the way things do when we’re connected like this. I watched the scene happen and went through her line of thoughts with her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She stayed quiet.
“Ave?”
“I don’t know… We were busy and I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. So I waited, and the right time just didn’t come up.”
In My Dreams (First Tracks Book 2) Page 9
