Ellie screamed his name as the sweet explosion of her orgasm erupted over her. Her body convulsed against him, feeling as the contractions of her release stimulated his. Her body was being showered on from every direction, the hot water on the outside and the warm flood of his orgasm pouring inside of her. She saw circles of color bursting behind her eyelids just before everything went completely black for a few moments. Ever so slowly, she came back down from the heaven he’d taken her to, realizing that those color spots hadn’t been behind her eyelids, they’d been in her vision – her vision that had gone dark because of dizziness, and black because she’d fainted for a moment.
She felt Tristan panting against her shoulder, “I love…” he began, trailing off as Ellie held her breath, praying she stayed lucid enough to hear what was next, “how exquisitely unpredictable and evocative you are.” He finished his sentence with his next drawn in breath, still trying to slow his racing heart. Ellie smiled, a small laugh escaping her as she let her head tip forward to rest on his shoulder; her body fluttered at the compliment, but her heart constricted in disappointment.
She knew that he loved her. She felt it every time he looked at her, every time he touched her, every time he drew her. She knew it deep down inside of her; her belief as strong as her desire for him.
Her vision, her head, had almost returned to normal as Tristan pulled out of her, gently lowering her to stand. Handing her a washcloth, he shot her a satisfied grin as he began to wash himself. Ellie made no move to…well, move. Using the tile wall for support, she stayed propped up against it, trying to normalize everything that seemed to be going haywire in her body right now. Thankfully, her eyes appeared glazed over from pleasure instead of from partial hypoxia. Thankfully, she looked like she was relaxing up against the wall, enjoying the show, instead of the reality that she felt so weak and tipsy, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand on her own.
She was still enjoying the show though.
“Alright, I’ll stop hogging the water now and get back to the breakfast that I was interrupted from making,” he teased, “I hope you like burnt pancakes.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied, her tone and smile indicating that she really wasn’t.
“Mmm.” He put both hands on either side of her head, covering her body with his again. “Don’t ever be sorry. You know,” he paused, his hand moving to cup the heavy weight of her breast, “I’d rather eat you for breakfast anyway.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Insatiable Ellie,” he laughed, even though desire flared in his eyes again, “that’s what your new nickname is.” He dropped his head to tenderly kiss her lips before turned and stepping out of the shower.
The rush of cool air that he had let in by opening the shower door shivered some life into her body. Ellie used the few moments of clarity to quickly wash before the heat of the shower made her head start to feel fuzzy again. Shutting off the water, she opened the door to release the steam, her body again rocketed from extreme heat to extreme cold as she grabbed the towel hung over the door and began to dry off.
Again, the moment of lucidity fooled her into complacency as she reached down to begin toweling off her feet and legs. Blood rushed to her head and she felt herself start to wobble, quickly putting her hand on the floor, hidden by the towel, to steady herself.
Deep breaths. Just stand back up and wait for him to leave so you can sit down.
With a nice long inhale, she straightened back up, abiding by the voice inside of her head.
Big mistake.
Just as quickly the blood rushed back down from her head, from her brain and every sensory center it contained that was crucial to keeping her stable and upright.
It was happening again and there was nothing she could do to stop it this time.
No breathing, no tricks, no wall, no Tristan…nothing could stop what was about to happen. The next few seconds passed in slow motion. The room began to wobble and disappear around her. Only Tristan, pulling on a pair of sweats, managed to stay in her quickly diminishing cone of focus.
No, no, no.
Her mouth became dry. Her stomach rolled with nausea, even though she knew she’d be passed out on the floor well before she would actually throw up. She couldn’t feel her legs or arms, or if she was even still holding her towel.
Not now. Please.
She begged and prayed, she didn’t want him to find out like this. She tried to suck in deep breaths in an attempt to prevent her body’s over reactive response, but it was already too late. Her anxiety rose, her heartbeat pounded in her chest, knowing what was about to happen. She tried to look around for something to grab onto. There was no bar on the shower, there was no rod for the towels, there was only the countertop with the sink, but that was behind Tristan – she would never make it. The only thing left was the cupboard that held the clean towels and washcloths, and even that was a good two whole steps away.
She should just sit on the ground, put her head between her legs and wait for it to pass. But, if she could just reach the shower door she could lean against it long enough for Tristan to leave the room so that he wouldn’t have to see that anything was wrong.
She couldn’t feel them, but she forced her brain to tell her legs to move. And move they did, clumsily, out from underneath her. She didn’t feel them give way, only her limited vision in front of her clued her in that she was falling, Tristan rapidly rising through her frame of view. She couldn’t really see him anymore, only the outline of him as the lightheadedness got worse.
“Tristan,” she slurred, rapidly losing consciousness, barely catching his attention as he was about to walk out the door. She was falling, hard and fast; now, all she could hope was that he would get there in time to save her. She said the only thing that remained brightly in focus in her mind. “I love you…”
I’m sorry.
This time, she wouldn’t know if he said it back or not because the rest of her vision, the rest of the world went black. She vaguely heard Tristan say her name as she felt her body jerk – whether he caught her or she hit something, she didn’t know and couldn’t feel. She hoped he’d caught her as she slipped out of consciousness and into the darkness that finally consumed her.
He’d just finished pulling on his sweats, when he heard Ellie mumble his name. He hadn’t thought anything of it, until he glanced up and saw the vacant look in her eyes a second before she started to go down. Cursing, he’d lunged for her, catching her just a second too late as her head smacked into the glass door of the shower, shattering it into the stall. Even though he’d caught her before she’d fallen onto the glass shards below, his heart had stopped and he wasn’t sure it had started up again yet.
He carried her back into the bedroom and laid her on the bed, trying to ignore the streaks of red on his sheets that weren’t from her hair. She was completely unconscious.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
His mind frantic, he searched for his phone, finding it on the kitchen counter he dialed nine-one-one.
“What’s your emergency?” the operator asked.
“I need an ambulance. My girlfriend passed out and hit her head; she’s bleeding pretty badly.” He tried to speak objectively, but his voice was thick with pure fear.
“Ok, sir, is she breathing? Has she regained consciousness?” the woman asked as Tristan walked back into the bedroom, his gut wrenching, seeing his Ellie laying lifeless in the bed.
“Yes, she’s breathing, but no, she’s still unconscious.”
“Ok, an ambulance will be there shortly.”
Tossing the phone on the nightstand, he knelt by her side, frantically pushed the hair off of her face, trying to rouse her.
“Ellie, gorgeous,” he said softly, “are you ok? Please wake up.”
Nothing.
“Fuck,” he swore, “please fucking wake up Ellie. You are scaring the shit out of me right now, siren.”
Moving her head to the side, he saw the nasty gash from the shower d
oor on the left side of her head, blood still flowing vigorously from it. He stalked into the bathroom searching for a clean washcloth.
Returning to her side, he begged her again, “Christ, Ellie, don’t do this to me, please.” He felt a tear slip down his cheek as he pressed the cloth to wound on her head, applying pressure to try and stop the bleeding. As he pushed, he thought he heard her moan softly.
“That’s it, siren, just come back to me.” His voice choked with emotion. “Just come back to me, Ellie, I love you so fucking much.” He laughed scornfully at himself as the tears rolled faster, thunder booming in the background; the storm raging outside of the windows like the one about to break open inside of him. “I love you, siren.”
The pounding on the door was almost as loud as the thunder outside. Quickly wrapping a sheet over her, Tristan rushed to the door to let the EMS in.
“You called for an ambulance?” the EMT asked.
“Yes, she’s still unconscious, I think, in the bedroom; this way…” Tristan led the paramedics into his apartment, wheeling in the gurney behind them. He walked into the room and expected to see Ellie sitting up in bed, biting her lip nervously, afraid that she’d done something wrong. His chest squeezed when he saw that she hadn’t moved an inch. He walked into the room first, his body tensing as they moving next to her body to assess her vitals.
“Airway seems fine. BP is low, but steady. Nasty gash on her head, though, let’s get a neck brace,” the lead paramedic instructed. Tristan made a move forward, determined to be the one to lift her onto the stretcher, when he felt a hand on his arm.
“Sir, let us do this please,” the EMT said. “She’s had head trauma, we need to stabilize her neck and lift her carefully.”
His jaw clenched, but Tristan nodded in assent, watching as they put a brace around her neck before they moved her carefully onto the gurney. Grabbing his phone from the nightstand and his keys off of the counter, he followed right next to her as they headed for the elevator.
“Are you her husband?” the other paramedic asked as they entered the elevator.
“No. Not yet,” Tristan replied tightly, watching the floor levels quickly tick by.
“Ok, well I’m afraid you won’t be able to ride in the ambulance with us. You’ll have to meet us at the hospital.”
“I’m not leaving her,” he replied harshly, fist clenching prepared for a fight.
He hated ambulances. The last one he’d been in had taken him with his mom to the hospital before she died. He hated everything about ambulances and hospitals, but there was no fucking way that Ellie was getting in one without him in there with her.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” the EMT huffed as the elevator doors opened and they began to wheel her through the lobby of the building, “but you aren’t a family member. Legally, I can’t let you in the ambulance.”
“What the fuck—” Tristan began to yell at the guy as they hoisted Ellie into the back of the ambulance, but he stopped on seeing her face; anger was not going to get him what he needed. “Please, I need to stay with her. She’s all I have.”
The paramedic sighed, putting his hand over his mouth. “Ah, fuck it. Get in, but if anyone asks, you’re related.”
Tristan just nodded, too grateful to speak, as he climbed in beside his muse, taking hold of her hand as they shut the doors behind him. His blood pressure rising as his body fought to keep thoughts of his past at bay. His eyes stayed trained on the woman in front of him, keeping her front-and-center in his mind.
“You’re going to be ok,” he whispered to her has he rubbed the back of her hand gently with his, “everything is going to be ok.”
This time, he was sure he heard her moan. His gut wrenched at the thought of her in pain. “Ell, can you hear me?” Unable to stop the hope bubbling up inside of him.
She moaned again.
He pulled her hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it, asking her again, “can you hear me gorgeous?” His heart began to beat again when he felt her lightly squeeze his hand, and as quickly as it happened, she was gone again; her hand resting limply in his. “You’re going to be ok,” he said again.
Are you telling that to her or yourself?
He laughed softly, knowing he was only reassuring himself. Ellie was probably thinking to herself, ‘of course, I’m going to be ok, do you think you can get rid of me that easily?’ She was a fighter, and she would definitely be teasing him right now. How did he know? Because it would be the most unexpected, unpredictable thing for her to do.
Everything about her was unpredictable, including the way that she had stolen his heart. Just be ok, gorgeous, so I can tell you how exquisitely in love with you I am.
Chapter 29
Tristan paced inside the waiting room. Even though the paramedics had been sympathetic, when they’d gotten to the emergency room the hospital staff had been unwaveringly strict about only family member’s being allowed back with her while she was being treated for her injuries. So, he paced, and then he called Sloane, needing to hear the man’s chronically calm voice.
“Hello?”
“I’m at the hospital.”
“Wait what? What’s going on?”
“Ellie,” Tristan choked out, taking a second to find the words that he needed, “I don’t know what’s wrong. One minute she was fine, the next she passed out.”
“Ok, did she come right back?”
“She passed out into my shower door and her head shattered the damn thing,” he ground out, trying to block the memory of her lifeless body falling, the sound of her head crashing into the glass, the sight of her blood all over his bed.
“Shit,” Sloane said softly. “Is she ok? What have they done?”
“I have no fucking idea. They won’t let me back there because I’m not family.” His fist flexed at his side, wanting to punch whomever it was that came up with that rule.
“Ah…what the fuck,” Sloan sighed, “what can I do? You want me to come there?”
“No, I’m fine.” That was an obvious lie. “I just needed to do something, talk to someone before I fucking punched a wall. I’m going crazy waiting for someone to tell me what the fuck happened.”
“How long has she been back there?”
“An hour and a half.”
“Well, syncope is a pretty easy fix, at least until they figure out the underlying cause. It sounds like she just bumped her head and knocked herself out.”
“I don’t know. There was a lot of blood; it looked pretty deep.”
“Head wounds usually look worse than they are. I’m sure she’ll be fine, Tris. I mean, to put up with you, she’s got to have a pretty thick skull,” Sloane responded, trying to lighten the mood.
“Nice,” he replied, appreciating his friend’s attempt at humor, but physically unable to appropriately respond to the joke. His eyes jerked towards the double doors as the nurse who escorted Ellie’s gurney back walked through them. The woman began to approach him, “I gotta go,” he said into the phone, not even waiting for Sloane’s response before hanging up.
“Mr. Black?”
“Yes, that’s me,” he replied anxiously. “How is she?”
“She’s awake, and she’s asking for you,” the nurse replied with a tight smile.
“Can I see her? Do they know what happened?” he asked urgently.
“Yes, come with me,” the nurse motioned for him to follow her as she continued to update him. “Well, right now the doctors believe that it was just the fall and the bump to her head that is really what kept her out for so long. The gash was pretty bad, so she has a few stitches, but other than that her brain is fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” the nurse sighed, “we took a CT scan and an MRI as soon as she got here and the results came back normal. It was just a good bump and a deep cut – she’ll be just fine.”
“But, why did she pass out?”
“Well, that we are still waiting on. She just woke up, so I believe the doctor sh
ould probably be in there with her by now, if not very shortly. We took blood and it’s being tested but we won’t know the results for a little while. She just kept asking for you, Mr. Black, which is why I’m bringing you back here even though you aren’t related,” the nurse explained. “Does she have any family that we should call? That she would want us to call?”
Fuck.
“Yes, her father. His name is Jack Carter and I can get you his number,” Tristan pulled out his phone, scrolling through to Morgan’s email where he’d sent him all of Jack’s information. Taking the pen and clipboard from the nurse, he wrote down the information just as they got to Ellie’s room.
“Thank you,” the nurse said, “you can go in. She just woke up and we have her on a couple of medications right now so just take it easy with her, she’s still a little out of it.” She turned and left him at the door, probably to go and call Ellie’s dad. Tristan just stared through the glass panel for a second.
She didn’t look awake.
Fear gripped him as he gripped the door handle. It looked like the doctor hadn’t been in yet, because she was alone and sleeping in the room. She looked so peaceful laying there. They’d cleaned her face, and her hair to a certain extent, from the blood although the hair on the left side of her head was messy because of the bandage that they’d put over where they had stitched her. Tristan stepped into the room, closing the door gently behind him.
God, he hated seeing her like this. He hated this – feeling helpless. She was hurt and there was nothing he could do about it. The panic that gripped him was the same one he’d felt the day his mother had died, seeing her suffer and knowing that nothing he did, said, or felt could change it. Only today, it had been a thousand times worse. He couldn’t lose her, he loved her too much to lose her.
The soft click of the door shutting stirred her and Tristan let the breath go that he’d been holding.
She was awake; she was going to be ok.
The Artist's Touch (The Gentlemen's Guild Book 1) Page 34
