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I wasn’t sure how one cleaned a diamond BDSM collar, so I carefully wiped it down with a damp washcloth and dried it.
Neil came in and washed his hands in the shower spray as he tested the temperature. “Let me see your lip.”
I stood in front of him with my face upturned, blinking from the overhead lights as he carefully examined the place where I’d bitten myself.
“It looks puffy, but not serious.” He brushed his thumb across it. He lifted my chin high and examined my neck. “Nothing. Good.”
“Were you worried you’d bruised me or something?” I felt my neck, where he’d choked me. “I don’t think you pushed that hard.”
“Was that all right?” He turned back to the shower, tested the water again then held the glass door for me. He followed me in. “I won’t do it again, if you didn’t like it.”
“It was fine,” I assured him. “Don’t choke me unconscious or anything—”
“No, no. Never.” He shook his head. “Turn around. Let me wash your hair.”
“Oh, the super special after care treatment,” I teased, doing as he asked. The feeling of his fingers moving across my scalp was absolute heaven.
“It’s partially selfish of me,” he said softly, working the shampoo down the ends of my hair. “I want to take care of you, while I still can.”
“Before I have to take care of you?”
“Precisely.” He urged me to step forward, into the spray. “Rinse off.”
As the suds washed from my hair, the gravity of his statement truly settled in my mind. I pushed the water back from my eyes and turned to him. “You take care of me in more than a physical way, Neil. And I really doubt that a little cancer is going to change that.”
He wrapped his arms around me and we stood, wet skin to wet skin, hugging each other hard.
After our shower, Neil headed to bed and left me to finish up in the bathroom. I thought for sure he would be sleeping by the time I was done putting on moisturizer and combing out my hair. I was tying the ponytail holder around the end of my braid when I clicked off the light in the bathroom.
“It’s difficult to believe that this all ends tomorrow.”
He’d said it so softly, I barely heard him.
I slipped into the bed and spooned up behind him, bringing our naked skin together under the sheets. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
“Not yet. I don’t want to sleep and waste our last hours here.” He captured my hand and brought it to his lips. “I don’t want anything to change.”
“I don’t, either.”
He rolled over, smiling in the dim city light that softy illuminated the room. “I like some of the changes so far, though.”
“Oh? Like me coming to London?” I walked my fingers along the arm he’d draped over my waist.
“The relationship we have now.” He stroked his hand down my arm. “I feel much closer to you than I did even in New York before the... unpleasantness.”
“I feel the same way.” I leaned my head against his. “I thought it was just because you were spoiling me rotten.”
“Ah, the real Sophie rears her materialistic head. I knew she was in there.” He squeezed me tight and buried his head in my neck, tickling and nibbling until I squealed with laughter.
“Stop, stop!” I gasped, trapping him beneath me. I pinned his hands to the pillows beside his head, and he grinned up at me.
“I want to remember exactly this,” he said with a happy sigh.
“Hang on.” I jumped from the bed, ignoring his protests, and ran to get my phone. I slipped back into bed beside him, and arranged the sheets around my body so I wasn’t showing too much. I held the phone above us and leaned my head against his.
“Okay, smile you grumpy old man,” I ordered. The camera flashed, nearly blinding us, and when my vision cleared I saw the image of the two of us, happy and smiling against hotel pillows. Our hair was wet and mussed. My makeup wasn’t quite washed completely off, leaving black smudges beneath my eyes. Anyone looking at the photo would know instantly that it was a “we just fucked” picture, but I hadn’t taken it to show anyone else. This was just for us.
It was absolutely perfect. “There. You can look at that whenever you want, and we’ll always have Paris.”
He kissed my forehead. “And I hope we have it again and again.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Upon our return to London, shit got incredibly real.
One of the bedrooms in Neil’s house in Belgravia were opened up for the live-in nurse who would stay throughout Neil’s induction chemotherapy. Our bedroom now held a hospital bed in addition to the actual bed, a change that wasn’t necessary yet, but likely would be.
Three days after our return from Paris, Neil went for an outpatient procedure to put in a port for his chemotherapy. And even though it was a “procedure” and not an “operation,” I was freaked out.
