by Anna Edwards
“But you said you ran in the mornings,” Laurel stated, confused at what Colin was saying to her. “Why do you have an oxygen tank?
Colin looked at her and Laurel could sense that something was wrong with his cool glance. She felt his lips pressed to her temple, and she realized that he needed to give the reassuring affection as much as she needed it.
“When I get sick, I sometimes need oxygen to help me breathe. It’s more of a precaution than anything. About a month ago, I got sick. It’s no big deal, I swear. Just the flu. Before that, I was fine. I really did jog five miles a day before this.” Colin looked down and used his fingers to flick at his cannula with a hint of a sarcastic smile. “It just takes me longer to heal, and I need this thing to get me through it.”
“I understand, Colin. You can’t help that you’re sick. I wish you would have told me.” Laurel felt her heart sting from the hurt she felt over Colin’s confession.
“Because every woman I’ve told about my illness runs away.”
“Colin, I know we’re new, but I’ve had more conversations with you that are more real, honest and raw than I have with anyone I’ve dated. I would hope you already know I’m not like other women because I know you’re not like other men.” Laurel almost felt hurt by the comment, but in a way, she understood where Colin was coming from, and that eased her frantic mind some.
“No, I feel exactly as you said. I’m pretty sure this gets my man card revoked, but I’ve never felt so…alive. When I’m with you, I don’t worry about being sick. When I’m not with you, everything I do is with you on my mind. So, you see why I’m wary? Everyone has run away, and I’ve accepted it, but I didn’t want that with you. I decided to fight. I –”
Laurel leaned into Colin and pressed her lips to his, effectively shutting him up and telling him, with no words, exactly how she felt about him.
I like you, and no matter what, I’m here to stay.
She felt him deepen this kiss with a silent answer back.
Thank you.
Colin’s hands wrapped around her back, hers curling at the nape of his neck and playing with the soft curls that barely grazed her fingertips. They held on to one another, finally giving in to the kiss that they waited so long for. When their lips parted, Laurel ached for more, but she didn’t want to tire Colin out too much.
“I should probably go,” Laurel started, the heartache already settling in at the thought of leaving Colin’s house. Of leaving Colin. She stood up and gave a tight smile while trying to suppress the sadness filling her.
“Don’t go,” he insisted, his eyes pleading with her. Colin reached out, and his hand grasped hers. “Please?” He took his cannula off and stood up.
“I don’t think you’re up for… that. Not tonight.” As much as Laurel wanted to stay with Colin, she knew that after today, he needed his rest, not more excitement.
“No, not that. It’s been a long day, I’m tired, and I can see you’re exhausted. Just stay with me. I promise it’s just to sleep.” He pulled her into him and just held her. Laurel couldn’t deny the almost instant calmness that came over her when Colin drew her in.
“We can build a pillow fort between us if it means you’ll stay over.” Laurel didn’t need to look at Colin to know he was holding back a smile. She looked up at him, and they both started laughing.
“That’s a shame because I’m a cuddler,” she playfully retorted.
“Woman!” Colin started, feigning exasperation. He jumped from their seat on the couch and tugged Laurel up. The cannula fell from his nose, and he led her down a picture-lined hallway until they stopped at the door. One last smile and the couple walked into the dark bedroom and the door shut behind them.
Colin woke up multiple times throughout the night, pinching his arm to rid himself of the disbelief that Laurel wasn’t actually there. But he merely had to open his eyes and see the sleeping beauty next to him, her back to his front and sleeping almost soundlessly. When he woke for the final time, he knew his bout of luck had run out. The sheets next to him were cold, and Laurel was gone.
Colin sat up and tried to think of how he could rectify the situation. He pulled at his hair in anger when nothing came to mind. It was just last night when he and Laurel confessed that their casual dating had turned more serious. That she scolded him for treating her like every other woman when she told him, as they fell asleep, that she wasn’t going anywhere. And here she was, leaving in the early hours of the morning before he could finish their talk. There was still so much to say.
Colin cleared his scratchy throat, surprised that it hurt a little, but thought nothing more about when his thoughts drifted back to Laurel.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” he grumbled, his head falling back and leaning on the soft pad of the leather headboard behind him.
“I can’t disagree with that,” came a voice that had Colin sitting up and his worries and anger subsiding. “What’s the reason this time?”
Laurel sat a tray on the side of the bed she slept on and stared at Colin.
“You’re here,” he said in wondrous disbelief. He could only stare as she sat next to him.
“I was making breakfast. Are you okay?” Laurel’s banter took a serious turn, and he could see the worry etched in her face as she got closer.
“I thought you left,” Colin admitted rather sheepishly. “I saw the empty bed and had convinced myself that you ran. That whatever made you leave, it was my fault.”
“Colin –” Laurel started to protest, but he cut her off.
“I’m sorry. I obviously have to remind myself that you’re not like everyone else, and I should also stop my muttering when pretty women bring me food in bed. Not that I’m getting food from anyone else,” he added when he saw Laurel’s face and the playful look of resentment written all over.
“Eat your omelet and toast and drink your juice. I have to get home and shower for my shift at Alice’s Angels.” The small tray Laurel handed him only had food for one on it, and he felt his face drop.
“Please stay. Eat with me and take a shower here. I’ll drive you home.” Colin was not above begging for more time with Laurel.
She stared at him for just a moment and sighed. “Okay, but you have to eat everything on that plate. And put your cannula back on. I can hear your breathing getting shallower.”
Before he took a bite of his breakfast, he reached his hand around Laurel’s neck and drew her closer until their mouths softly pressed together.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He watched her get off the bed and start to strip her clothes off without a single hesitance, and the last thought in his head before she turned the corner was how was it that he got so damn lucky to find someone like Laurel Pearce.
Colin waited almost forty-five minutes before Laurel came out of the shower, and when he watched her walk out of his bathroom, he thanked his lucky stars, God, and whoever else would listen. Seeing her in his faded gray NYU shirt that fell to her knees stopped him in his tracks for a second, and when Laurel approached him, still towel drying her hair, he couldn’t stop himself from grabbing the towel from her hands and tossing it on the floor. The way she smelled like him, yet still like her, drove him wild.
Colin spun her and backed her into the wall. His mouth found hers, fervently and full of the same rooted passion that made him go crazy a moment ago. His hands rose from their spot on her waistline, lifting the shirt until they slid under and he could feel how soft and supple her skin felt under his hands. When they snaked around her back, one coming to a rest on her lower back, the other wrapping around her neck, Colin pulled Laurel into him so she could feel just how crazy she made him.
Colin didn’t care that his breathing was getting more labored. He refused to admit that it was from the illness that would just not seem to go away. All he cared about was the woman in his arms that made him go wild.
“Don’t go,” Colin murmured against Laurel’s perfect pink lips. “Stay here with me.”
&nb
sp; “I want to, so badly. But you coughed all night, and I need you to get better. When you’re feeling well, then I will take you up on that offer. Trust me when I say that staying here with you is something I want so badly, but I refuse to get in the way of your healing.” Laurel looked up at Colin, and he nodded, reluctantly giving in.
Yes, he needed to heal. But there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head and deep in his gut that screamed something was wrong. He knew he shouldn’t ignore the unusually prolonged illness that plagued him, but these days he got all kinds of feeling when he thought about Laurel.
“Yes,” he thought, “all these weird symptoms are just my reaction to the way Laurel makes me feel.”
“I understand,” Colin said, dropping his hands from under her shirt and reached for both of Laurel’s hands. He brought them to his mouth and kissed the tops of her knuckles.
Dropping her off was going to be the hardest thing Colin would have to do, and he’d be damned if he let this illness cost him any more time with Laurel. It was time to call Cal and finally get rid of this thing once and for all.
Chapter Four
“You’re moping.”
Laurel looked up from the cooling coffee in her hands to find Skye walking in the house. She let out a sigh and placed the drink on the coffee table in front of her. Skye took a seat in the matching navy armchair next to the one Laurel sat in and dropped her bags on the floor.
“Not moping. Reflecting.”
“Uh huh. So why are you sitting in the same chair, wearing the same pajamas and probably still working on the same pot of coffee that I left you with this morning? Lo, you’re moping.”
Laurel turned toward Skye only to find her sister waiting for answers.
“I haven’t heard from Colin in two days. He dropped me here after helping me at Alice’s Angels, texted me goodnight, and I haven’t heard a word from him since.”
“And you’re going out of town tomorrow until the end of the week, and you want to see him? It’s been two and a half weeks. Is he really that great in the sack that you can’t go four or five nights without seeing him?”
Laurel bit her bottom lip when she felt the blush rise from her neck to the top of her head. She avoided looking at Skye who gasped in shock.
“No! You haven’t?”
Laurel squeezed her eyes shut and giggled. She only opened them to answer Skye, and even then, she couldn’t stop the mystified laugh that bellowed from her belly.
“Stop looking at me like that! We said we would take it slow, and it’s been nice.”
“But?”
Her smile fell until it looked as if she were keeping a precious secret. Laurel thought about Colin and the look he gave her Sunday morning when she stepped out of his bathroom in the shirt he laid out for her. If only he knew that it took her longer to shower when she inhaled the scent of the soap as she lathered it around her. Or how the shirt he’d given her made it feel like Colin was wrapping his arms around her.
But it all came down to that look. Like he wanted to devour her and worship her at the same time. And she almost let him. Almost.
“I want to, believe me. But there’s something exciting about those times when the heavy petting nearly turns into the real thing until I remember that nothing can happen. Not yet.” And it lingered in the back of Laurel’s head that maybe Colin was feeling better and realized that in the long run, he took no sex as a sign to run.
“Go to him,” Skye finally said.
Laurel scoffed at her sister, the idea absurd. “Please, Skye, seriously? I can’t just show up at his house.”
“Why not? The guy is crazy about you. Trust me; you’re all he can talk about.”
“You’ve seen him?” Laurel asked, every ounce of her attention on Skye. Her hands grasped her sister’s in hopes that she’d have news on him.
It was strange for Laurel to act this way, and she knew she was acting like an obsessed maniac when it came to Colin, but she missed him. Longed for her phone to ring with a text from Colin or wake up to a sweet message waiting for her. But these last two days drove her wild, and it made her realize just how much she anticipated his call.
“We work together, remember? Or did you forget how you two met?”
“No, no, I do. But have you seen him the last two days?”
“Nope, no way. You talk to him. Don’t make me the middle man. It’s still early. I know your flight leaves first thing in the morning, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go to New York satisfied.”
Skye wagged her eyebrows jokingly at Laurel who groaned into her hands.
“I’ll go, but don’t be surprised if I’m home in less than an hour.”
“Give the man some credit, would you? I doubt you’ll be home before the sun sets. Now go shower, put on that gorgeous blue blouse that looks hot on you, and get your butt to Colin’s house.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Laurel responded, saluting her sister with a cheeky smile.
Laurel had to admit that Skye’s plan wasn’t all that bad. A little TLC on her part and soon, Colin would be a very happy man.
Colin couldn’t remember the last time that he felt so awful. His body ached in places that he didn’t know he had, his head felt like the seven dwarves were mining for diamonds inside, and his chest felt heavy and full of fluid.
His cannula was on twenty-four-seven. The point of the oxygen tank was for Colin to take it easy when his everyday activities wore him out, and his heart worked in overdrive while he was getting over any sickness. It was meant to be a just-in-case thing. He rarely ever needed it but not recently. Between the time that he dropped Laurel off at Alice’s Angels and when Cal made a late-night appearance late Sunday night, something triggered in Colin that made him get worse.
Laurel said he’d coughed in his sleep, which explained the ache in his chest when he’d woken up. But throughout the day it only got worse, and when Cal arrived to check in on him, Colin could barely move off the couch to answer the door, but when he did, Cal had to grab for his friend and guide him back to the couch before he completely passed out.
“What happened?” Cal asked once he got Colin situated.
“Don’t know. Just started feeling worse. Throat hurt this morning, and Laurel said I coughed a few times last night.” Colin could barely get the words out before he felt the heaviness in his chest stop him from talking.
He felt Cal put his hand on his clammy forehead and mutter under his breath before sharing the news. “What the hell, Colin? You’re running a fever! You know better than this.”
“I wasn’t earlier.”
“I’m going to run to the drug store and fill a script for you. If you aren’t feeling better in the next couple of days, I’m taking you to the hospital. I don’t care what kind of reservations you have about that place, I’m admitting you if this flu becomes worse.”
Those were the last words Colin heard before he let sleep take him…
The couch made for a lousy bed, but Colin couldn’t muster enough energy to walk as far as his bedroom. Luckily, he was just next to the kitchen that had a half bathroom off the side. He didn’t have to wander far for much else because Cal left an ample supply of orange juice, Gatorade, and water next to Colin’s makeshift bed.
Just as he began to stand, an act that took almost every ounce of whatever energy he had, he heard a knock at the door.
“It’s open,” he barely managed to say loud enough.
But as the door opened, the last of Colin’s energy ran out and he started to fall forward. He caught himself on his table and thanks to whoever was inside his house, he didn’t completely collapse to the floor.
“Lay down,” the calming voice said. Colin knew right away that Laurel was helping him, and for that, he already began to feel better. When he shivered, she threw the throw from the back of the couch over him and stood up.
“Don’t leave,” he managed to get out, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m not going anywhere.” The la
st words Colin heard before his eyes shut.
When he awakened again, Colin didn’t know what time it was, what day it was. All he knew was that the first thing he recognized was the smell of lavender. His eyes opened, and he saw her sitting in the armchair next to the couch.
“Hey.”
Laurel turned her attention from the television to Colin, muting the hushed tones of the show she was watching.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“Definitely not,” he answered, glad that the worried look eased a bit from her face. But it only lasted seconds, and the deeply etched lines in her face reappeared worse than before.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital, Colin?”
He hated that place almost as much as he hated being sick. Too much of his life was gone because of the days and weeks spent there. Cal becoming a heart surgeon was the best thing that Colin could dream of.
He tried sitting up but adding to the pain just wasn’t worth it.
“I don’t need to go there; not when my doctor came over Sunday night and gave me medicine.”
“At least I know why I haven’t heard from you in two days,” she said, uncomfortably twisting her hands. “I wish you’d go to the hospital.”
“You know how much I hate that place.”
“And I also know how stubborn you can be,” Laurel retorted almost immediately after.
He could see the anger building inside of her and he wished so much to be perfectly healthy right now. All he could do was promise to make a change if things got worse. He really didn’t like seeing Laurel this way or being the one who put the anguished look on her face.
“I have to leave,” Laurel stated and stood up.
“Do you have to?”
“It’s almost midnight. I’ve got about four hours to get home, sleep, and leave for the airport. I’m going to New York, remember? I’ve left my number for Cal. I know this sounds like I’m making presumptions, but if you need me, or need anything, please have him call me.”