by Casey, L. A.
I could barely breathe as we figured out how to love one another’s bodies for the first time.
Coherent thought faded out of existence as Elliot replaced slow, gentle movements with hard, fast, skin-slapping thrusts. My senses heightened, and every slight touch of Elliot’s lips, teeth – the gentle breeze of his hot breath blowing on my tender flesh – caused me mind-numbing pleasure. I slid my hands up his muscular back, into his hair, and held him to me as I rolled my hips against his. A moan so low and raw crawled up my throat that I felt it all the way down to my toes.
“Elliot,” I panted. “Oh God, harder. Faster. I can al-almost—”
The erotic sway of his hips forced me to the edge of sanity. Elliot gasped, the rhythm of his movements faltering for a moment before his fingers bit into my flesh as his hold on me tightened. In his warm embrace, I looked up and found him staring down at me, his breathing jagged and irregular. His heated gaze stole my breath and his thrusts became harder, faster, wilder.
My eyes rolled back.
He hissed my name, his lips brushing against my mouth. “Look at me, sasanach.”
The moment I locked eyes with him, and saw the intensity of the love and hunger shining in the depths of his big ocean blues, I shattered. A harsh cry climbed up my throat as an unexpected climax hit me. Toe-curling pleasure licked my nerve endings until my muscles were lax and sated. Elliot pressed his lips against mine as his body stiffened, his movements jerking. His moan mixed with my own as he stilled above me.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed in that position, but when I opened my eyes, I realised Elliot’s face was now buried in my neck and my body was shaking in the aftermath of what we’d just shared. My heart was pounding, and the weight, and heat, of Elliot on top of me was solid and comforting.
I never wanted the moment to end.
“Oh. My. Sweet. Baby. Jesus.”
Elliot’s muffled, tired laughter reached my ears and made me laugh too.
“Noah.” He lifted his head. “You’re mine.”
“Always,” I answered. “You’re mine too.”
He covered my mouth with his as he gently slid out of my body. I was surprised when I winced a little, because the act of coming together hadn’t hurt other than a slight bit of discomfort. Elliot broke our kiss and frowned at me.
“I hurt ye.”
“You didn’t,” I assured him as he looked down and spotted a tinge of blood on his length and between my thighs, and a little on the bed sheets. I had been so wet that it looked like there was more blood than there actually was. “This is normal. This was perfect.”
He looked into my eyes, and when he relaxed I knew he believed me. He quickly discarded the used condom as I closed my eyes and came to terms with the fact that I was no longer a virgin. I had given my virginity to Elliot, my boyfriend who loved me, and he had given his to me. I was positively giddy. I jumped when I felt something warm and wet between my thighs, and I opened my eyes to find Elliot using a washcloth to tend to me. My heart swelled with even more love for him.
When he finished, he joined me in sliding under the duvet and we wrapped our limbs around each other and sighed in satisfaction, contentment and joy.
“Elliot?”
He kissed my neck and hummed in response.
“When I say I love you, I mean that I love you so much that it scares me.”
He was silent for a moment, then he moved his head and kissed my cheek.
“Me too, but isn’t that a beautiful thing?”
“What?”
“Being part of a love that terrifies us,” he answered as his finger drew lazy circles around my now-hardening nipple. “I don’t want a love like everyone else has, I want what me parents have. A love that’s so deep, pieces of you become part of the other person. I want us to love each other so much that it’ll always scare us . . . that’s how we’ll know we’ve got somethin’ truly special. Somethin’ that’s always worth fightin’ for.”
His words touched me in a way that I could never describe, but I spent the next hour loving his body and showing him exactly how much they – he – meant to me, and how much he always would.
CHAPTER THREE
NOAH
Present day . . .
I awoke to gentle humming and soft singing in a language that I did not recognise. I was pulled away from the delicious memory of my boyfriend claiming my body and heart as his for the first time. With a reluctant sigh, I opened my eyes. An off-white ceiling came into view, and it made me groan as memories assaulted me so rapidly that it made my head spin. It wasn’t a night terror after all, then. I was in some sort of accident that put me in the hospital, and I’d just woke up from a fifteen-day coma.
It sounded too far-fetched to be believable, but my gut told me that it was the dreaded truth.
“Noah?”
I stared at the face that was hovering over me. I remembered the man. He’d said he was a doctor, but I couldn’t remember what his name was.
“Hello there, Noah.” He smiled, his eyes searching mine. “Can you tell me where you are?”
“The hospital.”
“Which hospital?”
“King’s College Hospital.” I grunted. “What happened?”
“Do you remember me, Noah?”
I frowned. “Yes, we were talking then it’s just blank.”
He flashed his penlight in my eyes then said, “You passed out. Just for twenty minutes or so, you’re okay.”
Only twenty bloody minutes? It felt like I was out for a lot longer than that; my head was filled with a foggy tiredness that I couldn’t seem to shake off.
“I remember you mentioned something about a coma before it was lights out.” I swallowed as I grimaced in pain. “Am I really okay?”
“You’re really okay,” the doctor assured me. “It was a lot to take in, I probably would have fainted too.”
His attempt at humour, and his grin, did wonders for me. It actually relaxed me a little even though my brain was screaming that I most definitely was not okay. I couldn’t explain why, but I trusted this man. He had a warm smile and welcoming manner. He said I was okay, so I put my faith in him and believed him. I just hoped I wouldn’t come to regret it.
“My family,” I suddenly gasped, thinking of my parents and boyfriend. “My partner. Do they know what happen—”
“They know exactly where you are,” the doctor interrupted in his calm, soothing voice. “They’ve been with you around the clock since you were brought into the hospital. When I came on shift earlier, I convinced them to go home and get some rest, take a shower, get some decent food into them and recharge before coming here again tomorrow to spend the day with you.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my muscles go lax with relief as his words hit home. “Are they all okay? They weren’t in whatever accident I was in, right?”
“Your parents and partner are all perfectly perfect,” he assured me. “They’re just tired.”
I nodded, slowly. “What was your name again? Doctor . . .”
“Abara,” he finished.
He gave me some more water to drink and the liquid felt like Heaven as it slid down my dry, sore throat.
“Right.” I shifted in the bed, wincing. “Doctor Abara. You aren’t going to tell me about the accident I was in, are you?”
When he mentioned it, there was reluctance in his tone though I wasn’t sure why.
“I’m going to leave that to your family,” he said gently. “It’s not my place.”
I wondered why it wasn’t his place but I didn’t linger on it; I was back to focusing on the pain in my head. I lifted my hand to the temple on the left side of my head and groaned, my eyes closing of their own accord. The doctor asked me the pain level on a scale of one to ten, and I told him it was an eight.
“You’re a tough woman, Noah.”
I opened my eyes.
“I don’t feel very tough, sir. I feel the complete opposite, if I’m being honest with you.”
<
br /> Doctor Abara smiled. “You are very tough, and do you want to know why?”
I managed to give him a one-shoulder shrug.
“You just gave what is likely the worst pain you have ever experienced in your life an eight, that is why you’re tough.”
I felt myself smile at his praise. “Thanks, sir.”
I began to feel a little better as the minutes ticked by and the medicine the nurse gave me kicked in and took away the heavy pounding in my head; now I just had a painful ache to deal with rather than a constant throb. The painkillers did nothing for the throbbing in my leg though.
“How injured am I?” I quizzed the doctor. “I seem pretty beat up, and I feel it too.”
“You are,” he answered as he sat on the chair next to my bed. “This will sound like a lengthy list, but you could have been much worse off.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“You fractured your tibia in your left leg and had to have surgery. It was a bit of a mess because you have previously fractured the same bone, just in a different location. The surgery went well, and you’re healing. You had some tissue damage to your right thigh that was cleaned and stitched. Your abdomen was pierced with glass or a sharp object of some kind, but luckily it wasn’t very deep so there was no organ damage, just some ruined tissue that was stitched back together. There were some deep lacerations on your left arm, but nothing serious once cleaned and stitched. You have a dusting of cuts and bruises over your entire body, and you took a hard knock to your head which resulted in twenty-six stitches from your left temple to behind your left ear.”
I blinked. “Fucking hell.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Doctor Abara chuckled. “You are healing, Noah. Many of the minor wounds have already scabbed over, and your stitches have been removed everywhere. Yesterday your stitches in your head came out, the bandage on now is just for the light bleeding that comes with suture removal. I can remove it now.”
I was still as the doctor carefully removed the bandage around my skull. When he was finished, I lifted my hand to my temple and gasped as I gently ran my fingertips along a lengthy, jagged scabbed line that reached back to behind my ear. I realised instantly that half of my hair was shaved down to a buzz cut around the area of the wound. The rest of my hair was shorter too, cut up to my shoulders.
“Does it look really bad?”
I heard in my own voice that I was going to cry.
“No,” the doctor answered. “You will think it looks awful though.”
His honesty brought on a bubble of light laughter, which fought away my impending tears.
“I can get a mirror if you’d—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I think I need more time before I can look at it.”
I didn’t think I’d ever be ready; what my fingers felt scared me. The closed wound felt huge to touch. I could only imagine how it would look.
“That’s okay,” he assured me. “Remind yourself that everything in your body is healing and will look bad before it gets better. Things could have been so much worse, so try to remember that when you think of all of the things that are wrong right now. The majority of the damage to your body is only surface scrapes; what has you in the ICU is your brain injury.”
I had a fucking brain injury.
I nodded, slowly. “I wish I could remember what happened to me, but I just can’t. Is that normal? To have no memory at all?”
“It’s very normal,” he assured me. “Amnesia is a common occurrence when it comes to head injuries. You might remember what happened in an hour, in a week or not at all. We can never tell, it’s completely up to your body.”
I digested that information. I wanted to remember what had happened to me; the blank spot in my memory wasn’t something I liked. It made me feel vulnerable. I tried not to worry about my memory not returning, as the possibility of that truly terrified me.
“Your brain has been through a lot, Noah. It’s your body’s core and it needs its rest, so don’t stress about things that may or may not happen, okay?”
Again, I nodded.
“I need to see my family and my boyfriend,” I urged. “What time is it? Is it too late to call them?”
“It’s just after midnight, and the nurse has already informed them that you have regained consciousness. I imagine they will be barrelling down the motorway to get to you.”
I breathed a small laugh. “I imagine that too.” I rested my head back. “I woke up earlier, I’m not sure when, but I fell asleep before I could press the Call button. I’m so tired.”
“Again,” the doctor said, “that is normal. Each time you wake up, you will stay awake for longer and longer periods.”
That calmed me down a little. I relaxed back into my bed and looked at the small plasma television on the wall facing me. I asked the doctor to turn it on and he granted my wish within seconds.
“Is the news okay or do you prefer something else?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I just want it for the noise right now. I don’t like the silence.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I frowned. Since when did I not like silence? I had always enjoyed the peace and quiet that it brought, but now the very thought of silence made a shiver of fear run the length of my spine and I had no idea why.
It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
I focused on the news and watched it for a few minutes until Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, appeared on screen. He was doing a press conference of some kind outside of Number 10, and it went on for ages but I couldn’t make sense of it. I looked at the doctor, who was now standing over by the window, writing on my chart.
“The mayor is getting his money’s worth today,” I joked. “I’ve never seen him talk so much.”
Doctor Abara looked at the screen on the wall, then back to me with raised eyebrows and said, “He’s not the mayor any more – he’s the prime minister.”
Bemused, I asked, “What happened to David Cameron?”
The doctor opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly closed it. For a handful of seconds, he stared at me, unblinking, then he approached the bed. He sat on the chair next to me again and cleared his throat.
“What is your date of birth, Noah?”
He had already asked me that question earlier, so I frowned at him.
“The sixth of March, 1991.”
The doctor looked at his chart, then back to me and said, “And how old are you?”
Blinking, I replied, “Twenty-four.”
He looked concerned and I had no idea why.
“What year is it?”
I shook my head, though a sharp pain made me regret it.
I grunted. “Why’re you asking me that, sir?”
“Can you answer the question, please?”
I exhaled and said, “It’s 2015. Why?”
The doctor frowned deeply, and I became worried.
“Sir . . .” I swallowed. “What aren’t you telling me? I know something is wrong, I can see it on your—”
“Noah!”
I jumped when I heard my mother’s voice from out in the hallway. Instinctively, I tried to get up, but my body protested and rewarded me with a flood of pain. I fell back against the bed groaning, as Doctor Abara gently leaned over me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You’ll hurt yourself, Noah. Take it easy.”
I looked from him to the door when it swung open. My mother stood in doorway, her hand frozen on the handle as her red, puffy eyes stared into mine.
“Mum,” I whispered. “Mum!”
In an instant, she was by my side. Her hands were on my face, and then so were her lips and tears. She kissed me all over and sobbed the entire time. I had a tight grip on her arms as I whimpered. She tried to hug me, but I yelped in pain.
“I’m sorry,” she wept, and was now careful where to touch me. “Oh, my baby. You’re awake, you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I assured her. “I’m okay, Mum.”
“My heart.” She clung to me. “I was so afraid that we lost you too. My baby.”
I leaned into her embrace and inhaled her scent. A mixture of honey and vanilla invaded my senses. She had used the same scented shampoo and body wash since I was a child, and I was glad of it because the smell was familiar. It made me feel safe, secure . . . protected. There was a lingering feeling in the back of my mind that I hadn’t felt those things in a long time, and I didn’t know why.
“I’m okay,” I repeated as I kissed my mum’s cheek. She pulled up another empty chair right next to my bed. She didn’t sit down, instead she kissed my face again and held me. “I promise.”
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but when my mother and I separated, Doctor Abara was no longer in the room. It was just me and Mum.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s here.” She lowered herself into the chair as she looked over her shoulder. “John! For God’s sake! Get in here.”
Doctor Abara walked in first and it reminded me of my conversation with him before my mum burst into the room. Something was wrong. I knew it was. I could feel it. He was entirely focused on my mother; he wore a serious expression on his face.
“Mrs Ainsley,” he said to my mother. “Your husband would like a quick word outside with you.”
Mum shot to her feet. “Our baby is awake, and he’s outside wanting to talk—”
“Mrs Ainsley,” the doctor interrupted quietly. “Please, go speak to your husband.”
Mum looked from the doctor to me then back to him. My stomach churned when she slowly walked out of the room. The doctor followed her, and I couldn’t hear anything that was being said. I stared at the empty doorway waiting for my parents to come back, and when I heard my mother’s gasp, my body tensed. Fear spread through me like wildfire.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted, not caring that it caused my head to throb. “Mum! Dad!”
My mother came back into the room, but her face was a shade or two paler.
“Please, Mum, tell me what’s wrong. I know something has happened, please. Tell me. I can handle it.”