by Skye Darrel
I’m already walking toward him, my jaw aching.
“We did it,” he says.
I stop inches from his face and stare with numb eyes, unable to make words come out of my mouth. Reijonen is still speaking. April will need an electromyogram to confirm the results. April will need additional therapy to restore her motor control. But she will live. Within a few months, she’ll be back to her old self.
Reijonen says, “Do you understand what I am telling you, Everett? The treatment worked.”
The others—April’s family, mine, and Yvonne—gather around us. Someone starts to cry, someone thanks God, and another thanks Dr. Reijonen. My eyes are focused on Reijonen and I can’t tell who said what. Someone cheers, high and shrill. Pretty sure that’s Yvonne.
Their voices blur together.
I’m still staring at Dr. Reijonen. “Can I see her?”
My face is stone. I don’t dare get my hopes up until I see her.
April’s parents step forward too.
“Only one person can visit a patient in the recovery unit,” the nurse says, looking at her parents.
But Rita and Michael nod at me.
I follow Reijonen and the nurse to the recovery room, and April is right there on a bed in her hospital gown. A heart rate monitor pulses steadily. She’s pale, but her eyes brighten when she sees me. I pull up a seat beside her bed and Dr. Reijonen says I can hold her hand. She feels cold, but I know it won’t last.
Both of us look at Reijonen. “Thank you,” I say.
“Thank yourselves. You brought me here, both of you.”
April’s fingers wrap around mine.
“But if I win a Nobel Prize,” Reijonen says, “that goes to me.”
We laugh.
He leaves.
My eyes are damp, and I kiss April's fingers. “How do you feel?”
“They stuck a needle in my spine. How do you think I feel?”
“Wait until we get you home.”
“Are my parents okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. They’re waiting. Yvonne is here. My family came too, even Edmund.” I pause. “We're all here for you, April.”
She has a dreamy look, but this is no dream. “Wish I could see everyone.”
“Rest. Plenty of time.”
“Feels like I’ll live forever,” she breathes.
“You will,” I say.
“You’ll have to live forever with me, Everett.”
"Well, that's the easy part.”
“So you say now.”
I laugh through my tears and touch her forehead. Leaning over the bed, I kiss her. Choosing her had always felt like fate, the hand of a higher power pushing us together. Now I affirm that decision. It’s a conscious choice.
Outside the windows, gusts of snow blow against the frosted glass, but in this room there is only warmth.
I love her with all my heart.
Epilogue
APRIL
Four months later
“After my wife recovered,” Everett says to Support Group, “I rejoined Royce Innovations. April insisted that the treatment which saved her life should be further developed to help others. So that’s we did. With Edmund's generous support and Dr. Reijonen's expertise, we founded a new company focusing on biotechnology.”
Everett finishes his story of how we met, how we fell in love, and how we found Lars Reijonen in the middle of nowhere in Norway.
Support Group looks at us with awe, the silence total. George Thompson is among them. Then Everett takes questions, but no one asks about the cure or the disease. They want to know more about how we met, how we fell in love.
Everett calls me to stand. I walk over to my husband. No cramps in my legs, no weakness. After weeks of physical therapy, I’ve never felt stronger. This is my first time back in Support Group after the surgery.
We answer the questions together, glossing over the more intimate details that make me blush just thinking about them.
The meeting ends with applause.
I’m the first survivor of Support Group.
Afterward, Mr. Thompson asks for a moment in private. He starts to apologize for what he told Everett all those months ago, but I shake my head and hug him.
“You were right,” I say. “I wanted him to leave me too, but he was stubborn.”
“I am,” Everett says.
“Good thing,” Thompson says.
Yes.
Everett checks his watch. “Time to go, April.”
He can barely hide the need in his tone. We wish Mr. Thompson all the best and hurry out to the parking lot. Everett’s Audi is already packed with our camping gear. He takes off his suit jacket and dumps it on the backseat. He changes into boots, rolls up his sleeves, the muscles on his forearms bulging out, and gives me a hot glare as we climb into the car.
“Ready?” he asks.
Heat creeps up my cheeks. “Yup.”
“Get some sleep, baby. You’ll need it.”
I roll my eyes as Everett speeds out of the lot.
We got married on the fifth of January, right after I checked out of the hospital. A simple ceremony at a courthouse. We didn’t need anything else. We were already married in our hearts anyway. In our hearts, we carried what marriage is supposed to represent.
Mom and Dad were less pleased. Dad had wanted to walk me down the aisle. Mom had a whole show in mind with matching bridesmaid dresses. Everett’s parents had their own version of the perfect day planned, complete with fireworks and horses and a cathedral, now put on hold.
We can always have an extravagant wedding for our families later. There’s time now for so many things I never thought I would do. Like when we went house-shopping in February. Or the picnic in March with Yvonne, who’s getting ready to leave St. Jude. She’ll be returning to school, with the help of a special fund set up by Royce Innovations to help her and kids like her. I’ll be visiting often.
It’s been a happy new year for Everett and me. We make every day our best.
My only complaint is in the bedroom. It’s hard to believe, but Everett has been too gentle. Ever since I checked out of St. Jude, he’s been the perfect gentleman, catering to my every need like a butler or something.
He sees that tiny scar at the base of my neck where the treatment needle had punctured my spine, injecting the precious genes that saved my life, and all he can think about are those winter days in the hospital. He’s filled with love and sick with worry. He kisses that scar the way he used to kiss another place below my waist. It’s more than a little frustrating.
I’m perfectly fine now. And I didn’t fall head over heels for a gentleman. I want my beast back. That animal of a man who’d do anything to take what he wants.
Oh well. I’m not complaining, especially not today.
With spring in full bloom, we’re going back to the mountains.
◆◆◆
“HURRY UP!” I shout, laughing. It’s right ahead. Our old campsite with the oak tree. My carved heart in the bark still there.
The place is just as I remember, but now blooming with wildflowers and honeysuckle.
Unlike our first trip, I’m carrying half our gear this time. So Mr. Slowpoke isn’t far behind. I drop my pack in the grass while Everett catches up, walking over to me, growling and sweating, his shirt sticking to his physique, and it’s a delicious sight.
He tosses the pack off his shoulders and pulls me down into the grass. I fight him for a second, tumbling in the soft grass and laughing my tummy to pieces before his stare quiets my voice. I look into his eyes as I bite my lip. He shifts on top of me, wedged between my legs. The setting sun gleams off his wedding band, and the same light glitters in the diamond of my ring.
“I told you not to run ahead, April.”
“Sorry. Had to.” I trace my finger over the vein in his neck, and I bet there’s another vein pulsing somewhere else. “I’m a bad girl.”
“Yes you are."
I giggle. “Look! Our tree. The heart.
”
He pulls me up, and we walk over to the oak tree sprouting with new leaves. It looks bigger than I remember. The inscribed heart in the trunk has weathered some, smoothed out around the edges, but still clear as the day I left it.
“Got a pocketknife?” I ask.
Everett takes out a huge Swiss Army knife and unfolds the blade, handing it over to me. “The honor is yours.”
I chisel our initials inside the heart and stand back. There’s still space inside so I etch the word forever. “How’s it look?”
“Perfect,” Everett says behind me. His voice is quiet.
I wanna tell him to show more enthusiasm, but when I turn around, his eyes are wet and he breaks into a smile.
“It’s perfect,” he says again.
We make camp like we did the first time we came here. Tent under the tree, blanket on the grass near the cliff. I gather dry twigs and old leaves and pile them in a circle of rocks. A few flicks of a lighter, and we have a fire. Everett takes off his shirt before he lies down on the blanket. He doesn’t hesitate before he reaches for his zipper.
I cross my arms. The deepening dusk hides my blush.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I glance at the cooler poking out of Everett’s admittedly much heavier pack, which contains the PB&Js I packed this morning. “I want to eat first.”
He wraps one hand around my ankle and sits up slightly, the muscles of his stomach pulling into ridges. “The last time we were here, I thought I was losing you.”
His grip tightens. A feral glimmer in his eyes, primal and wild, fills with the promise of a sleepless night.
I say those words he liked to use. “What’s gotten into you?”
Everett’s smile, slightly askew, makes heat rise in my belly. He stands up and yanks off his pants to show me his hard cock.
“You,” he says.
A hand closes around my neck. There’s the lightest pressure.
Lightning jolts my spine.
I step back and pull down my shorts. Throw off my top. I unhook my bra and reach for my panties. Everett strokes himself as I step out of them.
“Spread your legs and play with your pussy for me.”
My skin ignites. He hasn’t been like this in a long time.
“Now?”
He kisses me, hot and breathless and filled with savagery in the best way. “You heard me, Princess.”
It’s been so long since we played dirty I’ve forgotten how to react. I’m flustered and embarrassed.
He leans into my ear. “Slowly.”
My body clenches. I get on the blanket and spread my legs and reach below to rub my wet folds. Everett stands above me stroking his thick cock.
Oh God. The sight of him is enough to make me steam. That thick, long thing in his fist, his hand moving slowly up and down, the swollen head leaking more strands of clear cum that drizzles my belly. His balls hanging between those powerful thighs. The narrow hips that sweep up to broad shoulders, the solid wall of his chest. His handsome face, fierce now, demanding, watching my fingers slide in and out of my arousal. My nipples stand up in points.
I can’t bear it, and I’m already near that sweet peak.
“Stop,” he commands.
My fingers stop.
He kneels and picks up my hand, coated in my desire, and sucks them clean. His eyes soften. “Do you remember what I said to you the first time we met?”
“I . . .” So long ago, in that security room. The two of us. Alone. My mind blanks as his finger glides across my chin. Then I remember and smile. “You’re safe. You told me I’m safe.”
Everett smirks. “You’re safe.”
“Because you found me,” I whisper.
“You found me, April. I didn’t know it then, but that was the best day of my life.”
“Even better than now?” My smile is coy and teasing.
“Let me rephrase, it was the beginning of many best days. And the best awaits us.”
I lie back on the blanket as he bends down, holding my waist, and when he enters me I let out a tiny gasp. When he fills me, I arch into his body, pulling him deeper. When he tenses, I find my climax too.
Our mouths meet.
Our bodies shudder.
Warmth floods me as the sun dips below the horizon and the first silvery stars twinkle overhead. We make love until stars fill the sky. So many, so bright. As night falls at last, we sit by the fire and eat our fill, and we watch the moon rise over the distant mountains.
“Thank you for the future,” I whisper.
Everett takes my hand and places it over his beating heart. “Thank you for this. Thank you for being my forever.”
“Our forever,” I say.
The End
Also by Skye Darrel
Avalon
Guardian My Love
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Skye Darrel is a normal suburban girl with a dirty imagination that makes her friends ashamed to know her. She writes edgy romance and erotica. All her romance books have her card on the title page.
Her stories can get dark, but she loves happy endings too. What’s happiness without the darkness? Stick around. She has a lot more to tell.
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