“Don’t give her too hard of a time. I think because we can’t go anywhere, she wanted to at least make sure you had the romance of a honeymoon suite,” I reply. “What if we get changed and check the kitchen to see if Maria and Josephine left us a little something.”
She snickers because she knows about my sweet tooth at this point, and even though I had a small piece of wedding cake, it wasn’t enough to satisfy my craving. “Can you unzip me, please?” she asks, turning so her back is facing me.
Reaching out, I move her hair to the side so it doesn’t get caught in the zipper. She’s got a fancy updo thing and the only reason Iknow the correct term is because of my sisters, and I don’t want to pull it out until she’s ready to take it down. Grasping the pull, I start sliding it down, my breath catching in my throat when I see how raw looking her skin appears.
“Mindy?” I quietly ask as I finish my task. “Kitten, what have you done to yourself?”
“What do you mean?” Her tone is a bit defensive and the last thing I want is to argue with her, especially on our wedding day, but this is concerning.
How did I not notice? She’s been wearing long sleeve shirts and either jeans, sweatpants, or lounge pants, so her skin wasn’t exposed per se, but that’s not a valid excuse as far as I’m concerned. “Mindy, the skin on your back that I can see is raw and chafed.”
Her shoulders fall and I see them start to shake. Turning her around, I pull her into my arms, uncaring that the dress is now pooled at her feet and she’s standing there in some kind of lacy undergarment that has my pulse increasing even more.
Now’s not the time, asshole,my brain shouts.
“I… I still feel so disgusting and dirty,” she mumbles. Honestly, it’s a good thing she’s in my arms because otherwise, I wouldn’t hear a word she was saying.
“Have you shared what you’re doing with your therapist?” I gently question. “If not, I think you need to do so because she’s there to help you through what happened, Mindy.”
She shakes her head, and I catch a whiff of her scent. At this rate, I’ll be taking a freezing shower, not just a cold one. “Not yet.”
“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. I know you’ve got lotions and shit, are any of them unscented?”
“Most of them are, why?” she asks.
“Because I’m about to check you over and make sure you haven’t got anything going on in the areas you can’t see, then I’m going to put lotion on you so your skin heals, kitten.”
Some areas were so raw, they had started forming scabs, but thankfully, I saw no sign of infection. Even though I’m no longer practicing medicine, I still have a full medical kit, because I had the wound wash, skin barrier cream, and light gauze to cover the worst areas. The rest just needed lotion. After we were done, she got into something a bit more comfortable while I took my cold-ass shower and handled a pressing need that seeing, holding, and smelling her created in my body.
As I put together a tray of the desserts that Maria and Josephine made for us, including a smaller version of our wedding cake ‘so we could have more than a bite’ according to the note, she’s making our drinks.
“So, you’re off the next two days?” she asks as we carry everything into the den, which boasts my seventy-five inch television and a comfortable couch with recliners on each end.
I set everything down in the middle, which folds down while she puts our drinks in the cup holders. “Yeah, figured we could do a little more unpacking and decompress from this past week. I know it probably got a bit overwhelming to you. What do you think?”
“I like that idea. I have the next week off from work, so I can continue puttering and before we know it, the house will be done,” she replies.
“I think we should be able to get the last of the stuff from our places on Monday before I have to go back to work,” I tell her as I pick up the remote and hit one of the streaming services I have. “Do you know what you want to watch?”
“You’ll think it’s silly, but can we watchSweet Home Alabama? It’s kind of a comfort movie for me,” she replies.
“Sounds good to me.” I’m a closet romantic, not something I’ve shown many because there wasn’t ever anyone I wanted to expose that side of myself to, but my sisters set the stage for what type of man I want to be and I’m going to utilize that with Mindy; she deserves it.
She wakes up as I carry her to the bedroom since she fell asleep halfway through the movie. Since I’ve never seen it before, I watched the rest before shutting everything down so we could go to bed. “I can walk, Cruz,” she protests as I breach the door of our bedroom.
“And I think there’s a tradition somewhere that I’m supposed to carry you through doorways,” I reply as I make my way to the side she’s claimed as hers. “Pull the comforter down for me, please.”
She shakes her head but does as I ask and I soon have her ensconced in bed. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. I’ll be right back, I’m going to check to make sure the house is locked for the night.”
“Okay.”
Leaning in, I kiss her forehead and say, “Go back to sleep, Mindy, and put whatever thoughts are running through your head out of there. This is us, this relationship will move at the speed that you’re comfortable with, okay?”
“Mmhm,” she mumbles, already sliding back to sleep, her breath evening out before I’ve made it out of the bedroom.
It doesn’t take long to do what my mother calls a ‘reset’ and soon, I’m sliding between the sheets, extremely aware that she’s mere feet away. But, I’m a patient man, so I curl up on my side to face her and will myself to sleep.
