AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No arguments,” I said in a gruff voice. My finger slipped away from her mouth slowly, and her eyes were huge when she looked up at me.
“No arguments,” she agreed quietly.
Paige’s words swam through my head as I fixed her a plate and brought it to where she was propped up against my headboard. With perfect clarity, I understood her protective instincts toward Isabel. Not because she wasn’t strong or because she couldn’t handle herself. But because there was some soul-deep recognition that she was mine to protect.
That if anyone upset her, I’d make them wish they were never born.
Only once in my life had I ever felt like that. I’d married her. Loved her. And when I’d lost her, I mourned ever feeling that way again.
But as I watched Isabel eat, drink some water, and as I watched her hug my daughter good night like she was something precious, I already knew that somehow, by some magic, some miracle, it was happening again.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have terrified me more.
Chapter Twenty
Isabel
I managed every wake-up just fine.
Every three hours, Aiden pulled me from a deep sleep, surrounded in sheets that smelled like him. He never touched my face again, simply called my name or laid a gentle hand on top of the covers over my shoulder. His questions were innocuous—the year, my middle name, where I worked. At one point, he gave me more painkillers and a new ice pack for my wrist, and even with the frigid cold against my skin, I fell right back asleep.
Each time, I managed fine. So did he.
Until the last one.
No dreams were happening because I was too exhausted, too sore. But the last time he woke me up, it was still pitch-black in the room with only a weak path of light coming from the hallway. I’d hardly moved on the king-size mattress, sticking to one side and my back because my hip was too sore to roll to the other side.
His voice, low and quiet, pierced through the haze of sleep, and I found myself humming contentedly. My name on his lips made me want to curl up like a cat in his lap and arch my body into the sound, roll my back into his hands.
“Isabel, come on, you gotta wake up for me.”
This time, his hand was skimming down my upper arm in small circles, and the calluses on his palms felt delicious on my skin.
“Hmm, that feels nice,” I heard myself say.
His hand only froze for a moment but then continued. “Does it?” he asked quietly.
I pressed my face into his pillow and inhaled. I kept my eyes firmly shut because if I was dreaming this, I refused to wake up. I wanted to allow myself this moment of a loose, sleepy tongue, where I could say the things in my head without fear of embarrassment.
“Everything you do feels nice,” I murmured. “I wish you’d do more.”
Aiden was quiet for a moment, and cautiously, I opened my eyes in narrow slits to see his face in the dim light of the room. It was so terribly intimate, how closely he crouched down by the bed. He didn’t sit on the mattress to possibly cause me discomfort. He’d given up his bed so I could get better sleep.
His profile was visible as I studied him, but I couldn’t tell where he was looking. Maybe he was watching his hand on my arm because he moved from my upper arm, down around the curve of my elbow, allowing his fingertips to drag softly over my forearm, stopping just shy of the wrapping of my wrist. Then back up.
“Where did you sleep?” I asked him.
“The couch.”
My lips curled up slightly. “You fit on that thing?”
“Not very well,” he admitted. “But I’ve slept in much worse places.”
I adjusted my head and stared openly at him. “Thank you for doing that for me.”
The thick column of his throat moved in a heavy swallow, but he nodded. “I told you, I owe you, Isabel.”
“No, you don’t.” I paused. “I did what anyone would’ve—”
