by Ella James
That makes me feel good, especially considering I’ve been spending four or five hours a day sitting by Ricardo’s bed.
Today, when I go, I’ve got my binder with me. It’s mostly filled with paperwork I don’t understand, but sometimes when I come visit, I bring the binder with me, and I try to understand the charts and graphs.
It’s not easy.
Ninety million dollars is a lot of money, and until he wakes up again, they tell me all of it is mine.
Just another twist in this strange fairy tale of ours.
I’ve been sitting by his bed for an hour, staring at the binder, when I realize I haven’t read a word of it today.
I’m just…staring.
Tears start falling down my cheeks before I even know exactly what I’m crying about. Mom? Ricardo? Ad? The empty, sick feeling that never seems to leave my stomach, and gets worse when the doctors come in, with their nasty clipboards and their mean white coats, and their sympathetic nods and vague prognoses? I cry especially over Dr. Haberman, otherwise known as Dr. Doom, who's told me more than once he can’t guarantee Ricardo will wake up at all.
When he got to the hospital that day, he’d lost almost all his blood volume, and when they started giving him a blood transfusion, his body reacted badly to it, which triggered a minor heart attack.
His coma isn’t medically induced. It’s real.
Most of the doctors think there’s every reason to be optimistic, especially given his age and health status, and the good news he’s got coming when he does wake up. But me…
That’s just not enough for me.
I need fucking guarantees.
I need to see his eyes and hear his voice. I need to feel his hands on me. I need to climb in bed with him and hold him.
My heart pounds so hard I feel like I’m having a heart attack myself, and after a quick glance around the private ICU room, I take a deep breath, put the bed rail down, pull the blankets back, and break every rule in the book by climbing into bed with him.
There are wires and tubes everywhere, but I don’t care. I duck under some and rearrange others so there’s nothing but my green dress, his pale blue gown, and a bunch of bandages and sensors keeping us from being skin-to-skin.
He got stabbed almost everywhere on his upper body—thirteen times, much more than I actually saw—so the layers of bandages around his chest are thick enough that I can see them through his gown.
There’s oxygen tubing taped to his cheeks and IVs in his arms, but there’s a spot between his shoulder and his jaw—a small spot of real, Ricardo skin that I can nuzzle up to. And I do.
My pulse slows almost instantly as my cheek strokes his neck. The tightness in my chest that makes every breath feel strained eases a little. I kiss his smooth skin and inhale deeply, and I swear, I can smell him. Not the acrid scents of a hospital room, but him—my Beast. My Ricardo.
I look around—there are cameras hanging from the ceiling—then look at the door, but no one’s come yet, so I decide I’m going to enjoy this.
I kiss his cheek and stroke his hand and start to whisper to him, telling him about my mom, about Thom, about La Rosa and the Juarez Cartel, and the New York Times, and his re-sentencing results, and the yacht I’m going to buy.
I tell him how much I love him, how much I miss him, and even though I promised myself that I’d be strong, I end up crying, begging him to wake up.
“I need you. Please. I really need you. I know it’s wrong to…pressure you. The nurses say it…isn’t good, but please,” I sob. I lace my fingers through his. “Please wake up. I miss you so much, Beast. I miss you so much.”
And maybe they’re usually right, those nurses. Maybe usually, it is bad to pressure a coma patient into waking up.
But most patients aren’t Ricardo. And most people doing the pressuring aren’t kissing all over the person they’re threatening.
Maybe my tears have magic, as they do in fairy tales.
All I know is, when I open my streaming eyes again, his eyes greet me.
“Beast!”
He coughs, then smiles, a little hazily, and mouths, “Ricardo.”
“Yes, Ricardo. I love you so much. Thank you for waking up. I was starting to lose it here.”
He clutches my dress, and I stroke his hair and kiss his temple, and do everything I can to touch him, so he feels my love and wants to stay.
He stays.
That night, we talk. And three weeks later, we go home to our new mansion on the coast of Santa Barbara.
EPILOGUE
Ricardo
TWO MONTHS LATER
I step off the treadmill and almost trip over Adrian, who’s got herself wedged between two exercise bikes, curled up with a Beauty & The Beast coloring book and the little velvet box.
She draws her feet underneath her and gives me a funny look.
“Sorry, Ad. I didn’t see you there.”
She stands up, balancing the box in her palm.
“That’s because you’re nervous.”
I narrow my eyes at her, exaggerating the expression until she smiles. “Nervous? I’m not nervous.”
She nods. “You’re nervous. Remember, you told me! You said you’re nervous about this box.”
She holds it out, and I pluck it from her palm.
“Nervous you’re going to lose it, little girl.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not what my mama said.”
My lungs seize up. “Did you tell your mama, Ad?”
She shakes her pigtailed head again. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I watch her nod in the reflection of the wall of mirrors in the yacht’s new gym.
“Are you positive?” I run my towel over my face, watching her as she twists her arms together and bats her pretty eyes.
“Yep.”
“Then why did Mama say I’m nervous?”
Adrian grins. “She says you’re all rusted, and you really want to be the booker from Tall Street!”
Whew. I laugh, and Ad laughs with me; then she scampers off down the hall, probably headed toward the longue where her nanny, Holly, likes to study.
I’m tempted to follow her, but the sound system starts playing Miles Davis, and I need to do my stretches anyway.
If she runs into trouble, there’s help everywhere. The new yacht has two dozen staff, and at least three of them are sort of backup nannies.
I lie on my back on the rubber mat, enjoying the cool rubber against my sweaty skin. I start my stretches, moving carefully at first, because my chest is still tight in some places and zingy in others.
There are lots of scars, not fully healed, and even though I’m running now and starting to get back on the bench, I’m a long way from fully healed.
I put the little velvet box just above my navel as I stretch. It’s kind of stupid, but I like to have it in my sights.
I’ve been toting it around since two days after I woke up, after I found out about the scandal and the campaign for my release, which went viral and set a new record for Twitter retweets in the first three days I was in my coma.
I’ve been waiting for the perfect time, but no time seems perfect enough. Angel and I drove up to L.A. yesterday, so I could audition for the part of a Wall Street banker in a new Scorsese project.
I smirk a little. That little beastling Ad is right. I am pretty fucking nervous.
The door to the workout room opens, and I jump. I grunt a little in my struggle to stuff the box under my ass before Angel glides inside. That’s how she seems to me, in her soft, red yoga outfit, with her hair pulled back and diamonds in her ears. Just like a real angel…she glides.
I must have a weird expression on her face, because she laughs at me.
“What?” I sit up, raising my leg to hide the black box.
She laughs. “Just…you. You look so funny doing your exercises.”
I arch a brow. “Funny how?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Just grumpy.”
I stand up, expertly hiding the box behind my back. After all, I’ve been doing it almost constantly for two months now.
“I am grumpy,” I say as I slide my arm around her waist and brush her cheek with my lips. “I’m tired of doing PT all the time and ready,” I say, lowering my voice, “to use our new private room.”
She grins. “Me, too. The doctor said just another two weeks.”
I lower my forehead to hers and lick my lips. “Two weeks is two too long.” I want to tie her up. To spank her, to restrain her. To really play. But for now, I have to take it easy. No lifting Ang.
Which is why I’m so lucky she plants her palms against my chest and pushes me against the mirrors. My dick is hard already, but it juts up, making a tent of my work out shorts.
She pulls back the elastic and sinks down to her knees. Takes me deep in her throat and starts to suck me off.
It feels amazing. So incredible, my knees feel unsteady after only a few strokes of her hot mouth over my shaft. So incredible, I want to touch her, too. My hands move to stroke her neck, to knead her breasts, but I make a pivotal mistake.
I forget what I’m holding.
The little box falls to the floor, and I stiffen, waiting for her eyes to find the shiny, eleven carat ruby. But my Angel is good. She never even opens her eyes as she blows me. As I come into her throat and pick her up and lie her down on the soft, rubber mat and peel her pants off. As I spread her soft thighs and start to eat her pussy.
She does everything right. The perfect little groans. The sexiest thrusting of her hips. The way she pushes her sweet pussy into my face, urging me to get her off right now. So of course, I take my time and make her scream.
As I’m bringing her to orgasm, my mind spins back through the events of the last few months. The way I almost lost her, because Thom’s boss betrayed his word. The way Thom spoke out, telling a reporter the truth about what happened with me, Angel, and Ryan. The way the Juarez Cartel went down, and almost everyone with a Twitter account called for my release. And then a judge agreed. The look on Angel’s face when she told me I was free, and that she’d bought a yacht.
The first time I fucked her, in my hospital bed.
God, I love her. So fucking much.
And when I’m loving her, I grip her hands, and slide the ring on her finger. She comes screaming my name, and climbs on top of me because she wants my cock inside her pussy.
She bounces on me a few times, and then she screams.
I grin, still hard as nails inside her hot cunt.
“Do you like it?”
“Is this a ring?”
I laugh as she keeps on rising and falling on my dick.
“It’s an engagement ring, Angel. What do you say? Will you marry this beat up, out of work actor who loves you?”
Her knees stop moving. She falls all the way down on me, and my dick throbs as she takes it deep into her pussy.
“Yes!” She bounces on my dick. “Yes, Ricardo! YES! I will.”
I roll her over and I fuck her from on top. And Angel comes. And cries. And when I carry her out of the workout room, breaking the doctors’ rules as I spirit her to our room, I have to wipe a small tear from my cheek as well.
“Perfection,” I whisper to her after we fuck two more times in our bed. “Our life is perfection.”
She grins. “Yeah, it really is.”
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My next fairy tale, Hansel, is coming October 22. Read the blurb and add it to your Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23208364-hansel-part-i
Unlike some of my other serials, Hansel will not be available for pre-order. If you want a release day reminder October 22, as well as a chance to win prizes, sign up for my mailing list. http://ellajamesbooks.us8.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=a22900f40502ee2fc5671a7bc&id=e7b30fab36
Want something to read in the meantime?
Selling Scarlett, the first novel in the Love Inc. Series, is free right now.
The first part of Red & Wolfe, my first erotic fairy tale, inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, is also free.
Bored and want to talk about books? Find me on Facebook or Twitter. My Facebook page is www.facebook.com/ellajamesauthorpage, and my Twitter handle is author_ellaj. I love talking, and am usually always on Facebook, so feel free to hit me up anytime.
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I’d like to thank my incredible team: my publicist; my agent; my PA, my editor. You are all patient beyond measure, and helpful and encouraging, and I love you for it. My author friends; my loyal, encouraging, and fabulous readers; my fabulous family—you guys make my world turn. Thanks for always being here for me.
Bloggers: Your generosity and hard work never fail to amaze me. For the ones of you who’ve stood by me and helped with my Red & Wolfe blitzes, and my Beast stuff, THANK YOU. T-shirts are still on their way…
And, last but definitely not least, thanks to you there with the ereader in hand. Thanks for giving me a shot if I’m new to you. Thanks for sticking with me if you’ve been reading my stuff for a while. Because of you, I’m able to do what I love—what, for years, was my own personal fairy tale. I’m more grateful for that then you will ever know.
