I hum, staring at her mouth.
“You don’t have to say it back, but I want you to know: I love you very much.”
Happiness blooms behind my breastbone, and I lean into her this time, kissing her palm.
30EMERY
To only Luca’s surprise, we wake up at sunrise a mess of tangled limbs. I don’t remember a single time we shared a bed that we didn’t end up wrapped around each other, and the feel of his erection pressed to my thigh sends a wave of heat through me so intense I imagine he can feel my fevered skin go warm against his.
He pulls back to look down at me, his cheek pillow-creased, his dark blond hair a crazy nest on his head. Luca smiles sleepily and, for just a second, he looks like he’s back.
Like he remembers me.
I watch in real time as realization washes over him—we’re in bed together, and his morning wood is pressing very firmly into my leg, both of us moving slightly on instinct. His eyes widen in shock, and he jerks his hips away, coughing out a laugh. Unfortunately, we’re mostly on his side, and there isn’t a whole lot of space for him to retreat to. In a flurry of arms and legs, he almost falls off the bed.
I reach for his arm, helping him find his way back onto the mattress, and we both break out laughing.
“Shit—sorry,” he says, righting himself, still laughing but without meeting my eyes.
I feel too good to be defeated by this weird little setback. I slept in my husband’s arms! Bring it on, universe, you can’t hurt me today. I am bulletproof.
“I wasn’t complaining,” I say with a grin.
He gives me a warning look. “Not helping, Emmy.”
I’m still laughing as I roll to my back, giving him space and stretching my arms overhead, my feet toward the end of the bed, elongating. Two nights of solid sleep, and I feel incredible.
Warm slashes of morning light streak across the room. I stretch again and tilt my head to see him. “What do you feel like doing today?”
He yawns before pushing up onto an elbow and looking down at me. “I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Friday,” I tell him. “I need to give you a brief checkup at some point.” At his sour expression I add, “I know, I know. But doctor’s orders. Other than that, I’m all yours.”
“Do I, at some point, need to get back to my job?”
“Crash said he’s got it covered for a couple of weeks.”
“Still, don’t I—”
“Do you mean financially speaking?” I ask, and he hesitates, and then nods. “No.” He waits for me to say more and uneasiness twists in my gut. “Okay. So, I guess you can imagine that being a lead scientist for a supersecret agency pays a bit better than being a project manager of a surgical laser company.”
Luca’s brows lift. “Is this your way of saying I didn’t know how much money you make?”
Wincing, I confirm this with a nod. “I make a lot.”
“What’s ‘a lot’?”
“We’d be okay if you didn’t want to go back.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“What if you decide you don’t want to go back to BioNEX?”
“I can find something else.”Unless I have a host of criminal charges brought against me and lose my medical license along with all of my references, I think. But something tells me BioNEX doesn’t want the medical ethics board snooping around. If things went south, they’d have to find another way to ruin me. My mind rolls back to the possibility thatLuca’s accident wasn’t an accident, or that someone was trying to send me a message.
Beside me, he takes a long, slow inhale. “Didn’t we talk about money before? Do you have bank accounts that I didn’t know about?”
