Chapter 29
Jim
I dreamed her…
My body weighed a thousand pounds. Heavy and sated. Thea was wrapped around me, still, the ghosts of my past whispered this was all a lie.
She raised her head, her hair tousled and smiled sleepily.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
She propped herself on an elbow and made circles on my bicep with her fingertip. “So last night was… um… pretty mind-blowing. Wasn’t it?” She plucked at the sheet now. “It’s been a while for me.”
“Fucking mind-blowing,” I said, brushing a lock of hair out of her eyes.
“I’m a mess,” she said. “Hungover from you.”
“You know what they say about curing a hangover.”
“Hair of the dog that bit you?”
I nodded and leaned in to nuzzle her neck, then lightly bit the skin above her collarbone.
“Mm,” Thea sighed. “I see what you did there.”
She writhed as I worked over her neck and jaw, one hand cupping her breast and running my thumb in circles over the nipple.
“And just like that, I’m wet for you,” she whispered.
I hauled her on top of me and watched her ride me as morning light streamed in from the windows. When she came, I flipped her onto her back and took her hard—as hard as she wanted and as hard as I needed—to prove this was my life.
Nearly an hour later, we collapsed in another tangle of arms and legs, her head pillowed on my chest.
“Jesus, you’re a beast,” Thea said. “No, a warrior. My warrior.”
I kissed her, slow and deep, running my tongue over her swollen lips.
“No, no, no, I will not succumb to your manly seductions again,” she said, hauling herself from the bed. “Today is our first full day. We have so much New York-ing to do. You care if I shower first?”
“Help yourself.”
She bent to smack a wet kiss on my lips and headed to the bathroom.
I lay back on the bed and watched the light grow stronger outside. The storm had passed in the night. A new day. Mine and hers.
Don’t let all that old shit from the past fuck it up.
Thea’s phone rang from inside her backpack.
Delia.
Not my business.
Thea’s phone went silent and my phone rang ten seconds later.
“Ah, hell.”
I went to the window and dug it out of my jacket pocket.
“Ms. Hughes.”
“Why isn’t she answering her phone? What’s happening?”
I glanced down at my nakedness and smothered a laugh. “She’s in the shower,” I said, climbing back into bed and pulling a sheet over me.
“You’re sleeping with her.”
I wouldn’t call it sleeping.
“It’s none of your business, Ms. Hughes. Thea is fine.”
“Fine,” Delia said. “Because you would know.”
“I knew how she was in the amnesia better than you ever did,” I snapped, then rubbed my eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Delia sniffed. “She has to take the Hazarin at seven. Every morning.”
I glanced at the clock. 7:09 a.m. “I’ll make sure.”
A pause.
“I should have you arrested.”
“For what? Taking an adult woman exactly where she wants to go? She wants to be here. With me.”
“And where is here?”
At a hotel in New York City. Maybe you could try calling around to each one until you find us.
My bitterness didn’t hold. Delia was scared for her sister.
“I’ll tell her to call you,” I said.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“She’s the only family I have left.”
I gritted my teeth. Delia didn’t give a shit that Thea meant everything to me too. I wondered how many snakes I’d have to kill to prove it.
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” I said. The water shut off in the bathroom. “I’m going. Goodbye, Ms. Hughes.”
I hung up and put my phone on mute. A few minutes later, Thea emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, her hair falling around her shoulders in damp waves.
“Your sister called you,” I said. “And then she called me.”
“Did you tell her I was in the shower, rinsing off bodily fluids and sweat from our fourteen-hour sex-a-thon?”
“Didn’t mention that.”
“She’s a smart gal. I’m sure she’ll put six and nine together. Get it?” She waggled her brows.
“Yeah, I got it—”
“Six and nine. Sixty-nine.”
I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “She said you need to take the Hazarin at seven every morning.”
“On it.”
Thea tucked the towel tighter around her body and dug the pill bottle out of her backpack. “I’m going to splurge on an eight-dollar water from the mini-fridge.”
I watched her swallow the capsule that kept her tethered to the present. Infinitesimal molecules forming a bridge between the damage done in the accident and the repairs from the surgery. A bridge she crossed every millisecond to stay on this side of consciousness.
I wondered if the bridge were rickety and frail, doomed to fall apart piece by piece. Or if it were iron and steel, engineered to last for decades.
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “No side-effects?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t. It felt like kicking the foundations of that bridge to see if they’d hold.
“Not a one,” Thea said. She started to put the pill bottle back in her backpack.
“You should put that in the hotel safe,” I said. “In case your backpack gets lost or someone swipes it.”
“Good thinking.” She kneeled and created a code for the safe and stowed the medicine. “The code, should you need it, is nine-nine-eight-six.”
“Because?”
“Because Michael Scott worked at Dunder Mifflin for…” She inhaled and sang slightly off-key to the main tune from Rent. “9,986,000 minutes. That’s like watching Die Hard eighty thousand times.”
She laughed and took another swig of water, completely unaware of what she was doing to me, minute by minute.
I’ve never loved anything as much as Thea loves that TV show. Until I came to Blue Ridge.
“You should call Delia back,” I said.
“Later.”
“She’s worried about you.”
Thea slowly bent and captured my lower lip between her teeth, sucking gently before letting go. “Later.”
“I thought we had New York-ing to do.”
She cocked her head and lifted the edge of the towel. Offering.
I tore it off her. “Later, it is.”
Thea called Delia while I showered. I changed into the other pair of jeans I’d brought and was pulling a fresh white T-shirt over my head when Thea rolled her eyes and ended the call.
“She wanted to know which hotel we’re staying in. As if. I should have taken a photo of us in bed together just to piss her off.”
“Keep checking in with her. Let her know you’re okay. It’s all she wants.”