Listed: Volumes I-VI

by Noelle Adams

  But, despite his attempts at rational thinking, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was pulling back from him.

  She loved him. He believed that. But she’d fallen in love with him when they’d been living in a fragile, intense bubble of crisis. Now that the bubble had burst, he might not be what she wanted or needed for the long, normal years of her life.

  He kept brooding on it, and every time Emily acted distant or seemed distracted, he brooded about it even more.

  But she liked to know immediately when Dr. Franklin called with her results, so he tapped on her bedroom door and pushed it open.

  Emily had been lying on her stomach with her face away from the door, but she rolled over kind of clumsily when he entered. She was flushed from her nap and looked a little annoyed with him, maybe for waking her up.

  “Sorry,” he said, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “Dr. Franklin called. Everything is still fine.”

  “Oh. Okay. Good.” She blinked at him and scooted up so she was leaning against her pillows, pulling her arms out from under the cashmere throw draped on top of her.

  Paul’s brow lowered as he studied her. Her cheeks were red, and she looked like she might be hot. Her breath was a little shallow, and she seemed to be having a hard time focusing.

  Maybe it was because he’d woken her up, but he reached over to feel her forehead just the same.

  She jerked away from his touch, frowning at him grouchily. “I don’t have a fever. Stop doing that. Dr. Franklin just told you the virus is still gone.”

  Paul frowned back at her, dropping his hand. She didn’t normally snap at him for no reason. He wondered if she was stressed about how to tell him her feelings were changing.

  “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “Didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

  He shook his head and smiled, moving over to lean back against the pillows beside her. “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have woken you up from a nap.”

  “I wasn—” She cut off her words abruptly and dropped her eyes.

  Paul studied her, deeply confused and worried again. He tried to work up the courage to ask her directly, to let her know she wasn’t obligated to stay with him, to tell her she could leave if she wanted.

  But the words stuck in his throat. The truth was he wasn’t sure he was capable of letting her leave.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Emily said into the silence, her voice wobbling slightly like she was nervous.

  Paul froze, and it took all his control to keep his voice casual as he asked, “About what?”

  “About…about us.”

  Something started to shake inside him as he realized it was happening—everything he’d secretly feared was, at this moment, beginning to play out. He opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t. He literally couldn’t say anything.

  Emily didn’t seem to need him to. She was staring down at her twisting hands as she continued haltingly, “When we got married it was because I was going to die. And when we…when we fell in love it was when I was going to die. So…so…I just wanted to say…I know that, if I don’t die, it might change things.”

  She sounded pained and almost heart-broken, as if she knew how much this would crush him. But she was making herself say it anyway, so Paul made himself listen. It felt like he’d gone dead white.

  “So I just wanted to say I understand if it does. I mean, if your feelings change. I mean, I know we weren’t supposed to be married for the rest of your life. So if you…if you decide…” She made a little sound like a sob and raised a hand to cover her mouth.

  Paul was so primed for agonizing pain that it took a minute to orient himself to what Emily was actually saying. Then it took a moment to process it, to recognize the significance.

  “What?” he gasped, when he finally caught up. “What?”

  Emily finally looked up from her clenched hands and stared at him with despairing blue eyes. “I just mean that I never really expected you to love me the way I love you. And it’s okay.”

  “You think I don’t love you?” He was too flabbergasted to recognize the hope that had clenched in his chest.

  “No, no. I know you love me. I wasn’t doubting that. But I know it was…it was…I know things might change if I live. And it’s okay.”

  “Why would you think I don’t love you?” Paul asked breathlessly. He reached over and grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “How could you possibly think that?”

  Emily looked shocked and just as breathless as he was and then just a little awed. “I…I don’t know. I just thought, if you really wanted to be married to me for decades and decades, you’d be…you’d be…”

  “I’d be what?”

  “You’d be more happy.” She dropped her eyes, her voice cracking as she continued, “That I wasn’t going to die.”

  He swallowed so hard it physically hurt. “You don’t think I’m happy?”

  She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Are you?”

  “Oh, baby, your living is the best thing that will ever happen to me, but it’s so good I still can’t really believe it. Things never work out miraculously for me. They just don’t. So I kept thinking that—if you’re really well—then you’re not going to want to stay with me.”

  She stared at him, her eyes enormous in her flushed face. “Why wouldn’t I want to stay with you? I love you more than anything. But you were starting to act kind of standoffish. And you've been working all the time these last three weeks. And you didn’t seem to want to have sex with me anymore, so I thought…” She trailed off, something joyful awakening in her eyes. “So you still love me and want me to be your wife?”

  “Of course!” The two words were embarrassingly thick, but he was too relieved and elated to care. He pulled her into a hug so fierce he might have hurt her. “Of course, baby. I’m never going to let you go.”

  Emily shook against him, in his arms, and he finally allowed something like joy to wash over him completely. Maybe it was true.

  She was going to live, and he was allowed to love her for the rest of his life.

  After a few minutes, Emily finally pulled away. Her face was a little damp, but it was beaming. “Okay,” she said, a little sheepishly. “That’s good then. I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

  Paul couldn’t help but laugh. “Now, why the hell would you think I didn’t want to have sex with you?”

  “Well, you haven’t tried. Not for ages.” She glared at him. “You haven’t made a single move.”

  “I thought you were still recovering. I didn’t know you were up to it yet.”

  “Of course, I’m up to it. I’ve—” She cut the words off unexpectedly, cutting her eyes down and looking strangely embarrassed.

  Paul grew suddenly still as his mind started to put pieces together. After a moment, he asked in a low voice, “What were you doing when I came in here just now?”

  “Nothing!” Emily burst out, her face blazing red. “I was doing nothing!”

  Suddenly, more pieces started to fit themselves together in his mind in a crystal-clear revelation, filling him with gratified hilarity and awe. This wasn’t the first time he’d barged in on her in a room, catching her looking flushed, breathless, and grouchy. “Back in Egypt,” he breathed, “when I—”

  Emily practically tackled him, trying to cover his mouth with her hand. “I was doing nothing then too. Nothing!”

  “I had no idea,” he gasped, half-laughing and half-struggling against her weight and the clasp of her hand on his mouth. Her body was soft and wriggling, and she was practically lying on top of him now. All of it was giving him some very particular ideas. His body tightened in anticipation.

  She managed to muffle his words with her palm, and she glared down at him hotly. “I was doing nothing. Both times. And, even if I was, it was all your fault.”

  Paul’s heart felt like it was overflowing—with love, with amusement, with understanding, and with the warmest kind of hope he could re
member. He tried to talk, but he couldn’t through her hand. So he gently reached up to pull away her wrist. “Of course, you were doing nothing,” he said, his voice thick with many things. “But, now that I know, maybe we can do nothing together.”

  She tried to sustain her fierce frown, but her lips kept trembling into a suppressed smile. “I guess that would be all right,” she said, feigning disdain.

  With a laugh, Paul adjusted his legs and used them to lever himself up and flip both of them over, so he was lying on top of her, his lower body settling between her legs. She was flushed and shaking and clinging to him, and her face was filled with humor and intelligence and excitement and something he couldn’t fail to see was love. “Oh baby,” he murmured. “I love you so much.”

  She reached up to cup his face with one of her hands. “’Til death do us part?” she whispered.

  She was everything he'd ever wanted, and she was his. Paul said, “’Til death do us part.”

  They gazed at each other for a minute. Then he finally prompted, “So did you want to have sex?”

  “Yes, please.” She smiled as they started to fumble with each other’s clothes, muttering when she couldn’t get his shirt unbuttoned quickly enough and giggling when her pants got twisted up around her ankles.

  When Paul’s watchband got snagged on a strand of Emily’s hair, he frowned as he carefully untangled it. “We seem to be a little out of practice at this,” he grumbled, although he felt warm and aroused and as close to anyone as he’d ever felt in his entire life.

  “Well, it’s been a while,” she replied, although she was shaking with laughter. “Don’t blame yourself. You’ll get the hang of it again soon.”

  When she beamed up at him, teasing and fond, a new wave of affection washed over him. Laying his watch aside, he took Emily’s face in his hands and leaned down into another kiss.

  Their naked bodies moved together as the kiss deepened, and both his heart and his body reacted to the eager pliancy with which she responded to his embrace.

  For a long time, they drank each other in, caressing and gasping with increasing urgency as their skin rubbed against the covers and each other. When Paul felt Emily pushing gently against his shoulder, he willingly allowed her to roll them both over, letting her drape herself on top of him.

  Her soft breasts pressed into his bare chest, and her hair spilled all around him as she trailed kisses along his face, jaw and neck. He loved her sweet attentions, loved the way her hands fluttered greedily on his shoulders and then down his sides to his waist.

  He palmed the curve of her butt, pushing her down into his pelvis. She felt as good as anything ever had, but he wouldn’t be able to take much more of her foreplay before the pulsing in his arousal forced him into action.

  When her wanton wiggling on top of him caused his erection to get squeezed between their bodies and she started to grind herself against it, Paul tensed and couldn’t hold back an animalistic grunt. “Damn, Emily, please say you’re ready for me.”

  She laughed huskily against his lips. “God, yes, I’m so ready.”

  Paul exhaled in relief as Emily raised herself up and took him in both of her hands. She stroked him a few times, making him gasp and shift beneath her. Then she lifted her hips and carefully, with a few adjustments, sheathed him in a tight clasp.

  They both groaned at the penetration, and then Emily leaned forward to claim a deep, sloppy kiss.

  He couldn’t keep his hips from rocking up into her, needing the motion, needing the friction, needing her to match his deepest rhythm.

  “So good, Paul,” she whispered, still pressed against him fully. “You always feel so good.”

  Paul was so focused on trying to restrain his urge to thrust that he could only make a wordless, guttural noise.

  Then Emily took his earlobe between her lips. Sucked it a few times. Every time he felt the wet tug from her mouth, his pelvis bucked up involuntarily.

  Letting his earlobe slip out, Emily murmured huskily into his ear, “Let go, Paul. Let go.”

  He released a long moan—like some kind of primitive creature—and he held her hips snugly against his as he levered them both over without pulling out.

  His flesh sank deeper inside her as she wrapped her legs around his middle. Emily arched up with a pretty cry of pleasure, and Paul’s whole world narrowed down to the soft strength of her, the warm, perfect shelter of her body, the depth of love he could see in her eyes.

  He pulled back and thrust—long and deep—propelled by the need to love and be loved. Both of them at once.

  Emily gasped and rolled her hips, digging her fingers into the back of his neck. “Paul!”

  The sound of his name on that taken breath was so intoxicating he reared back and thrust again, rasping out “Emily” on the in-stroke.

  She lifted her hips to meet his, their flesh slapping together deliciously. They built up a shared motion that was urgent, hungry, and almost primal in its rhythm.

  The blanket slipped down around his ass, baring his back to the cool of the room. But the contrast between the cool temperature of the room and the heat he was generating with Emily only added to his stimulation. When he felt a climax starting to coil in his balls, he accelerated the pumping of his hips, grunting in rough bursts of instinctive sound.

  Paul knew Emily was with him. Her breathless whimpers, her shameless writhing beneath him, and her eager, clutching hands proved that she needed this as much as he did.

  “Eh, Paul!” she gasped as they moved together almost frantically. “Love you.” Her neck arched and her eyes fell shut briefly. “Love you!”

  “Me too,” Paul choked, barely leashing the momentum of his impending climax. “Love you too.”

  The tension inside her broke visibly as she came.

  Paul released a rough exclamation, freezing inside her as the deep, coiled pressure shuddered with unbearable intensity.

  Then he heard Emily breathe, “Love you, Paul. Let go.”

  He let go and came hard. Whispered her name like a secret.

  Then her arms were gathering him in, and he’d collapsed into her embrace.

  He wondered what he’d ever done to be allowed such a thing—soft, shuddering, warm, loving Emily in his arms.

  Maybe for the rest of his life.

  It was a long time before either one of them could speak. Even wanted to speak.

  But eventually Emily began to shift beneath him and, with a groan, Paul rolled them both onto their sides to relieve her of his weight. His erection had softened, and he’d slipped out with the motion of the roll. Her legs were still tightly wrapped around him, though, and he wasn’t about to let her go.

  Finally, the lingering edge of insecurity in his soul prompted Paul to murmur diffidently, “Do you feel okay?”

  “Well,” Emily teased, “You are a very fine lover, but you haven’t yet sexed me into a coma.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh.

  ***

  An hour or so later, Paul woke up from a light doze at the feel of Emily’s moving behind him. He’d rolled over on his side at some point, and now she wrapped an arm around him from behind.

  She lightly kissed his shoulder, then the back of his neck, then his shoulder again.

  It felt more tender than sexual, so Paul enjoyed it without feeling any particular urgency.

  After another minute, he felt her lips trailing lower down his shoulder blade. When they started to trace a distinct pattern, he immediately knew what it was.

  She was kissing down the line of one of his scars.

  “Don’t, baby,” he murmured, rolling over onto his back so she couldn’t continue.

  His tone had been gentle, but she was still frowning when he met her eyes. “Why not?”

  He wasn’t capable of explaining how much he hated the idea of those scars, of all they reminded him of. He never should have said anything about it, though, so he tried to make light of his objection. “You can kiss any other part of my anat
omy that you get the urge to. That’s a standing offer.”

  “Nice try. Why is your back off limits?”

  “You know why.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your scars.”

  He just shook his head.

  “Paul?” she prompted.

  “I hate them.”

  She leaned over and pressed a soft kiss on his shoulder. “I know you do, but I don’t. I love them.”

  He slanted a dubious look over in her direction. “That’s just weird.”

  “It isn’t weird.” She rolled over until she was almost on top of him. “I know they’re painful for you to think about, and I’m really sorry you got them. But I can’t hate them.”

  “Why not?” Despite his discomfort with the conversation, he was genuinely curious.

  “Because they’re part of what made you…you.”

  Touched despite himself, he pulled her down into a deep kiss. When she pulled away, however, her expression was thoughtful rather than passionate.

  “What is it?” he asked, having a feeling he wouldn’t like what she was thinking.

  He didn’t.

  “I think you should go see your father again.”

  He let out a rough exhalation. “Emily—”

  “I know it wouldn’t be any fun for you to do, but I still think you should.”

  “Why exactly?”

  “To talk to him. To find out…I really think he’s the reason I’m alive today, Paul. He was the one who made sure we found that report.”

  “He also could have been the reason you got sick in the first place.”

  “Maybe. But maybe not. We just don’t know about that for sure. I know you disagree, but I still don’t think he was responsible for me getting virus. Either way, I really think he was trying to help you by leading you to that report. And I think…I think it would be good for you to see that.”

  He knew she was serious, so he didn’t want to just blow her off with the sharp retort that sprang to his lips.

  But going to visit his father was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. He was just finally starting to feel good about things.