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His hand had moved again in mine, and I’d squeezed a little more firmly. He’d probably been heavily sedated for comfort, and there’d been no telling what his comprehension ability would have been had he even been conscious. Still, I’d wanted him to know how much he’d meant to me.
When I’d finally kissed his cheek and left the room, I’d found Chris again and fallen into his arms. We’d spent the rest of the day leaning against each other on a sofa in the family waiting room. Chris had taken several more visits into Gordon’s room until he’d finally passed away.
Leaving Gordon at the hospital had been harder than I’d anticipated. I’d thought maybe it was a good thing I’d had this experience so I could better empathize with my own patients’ families. Dealing with this had been so much worse than I’d thought it would be.
After a somber dinner with Chris’s parents, we’d gone home to Chris’s apartment near Union Station where I’d assumed I’d spend the night on the sofa the way I always did when I stayed over. But Chris had taken my hand and led me into his bedroom, pulling me into another hug and rubbing his hands up and down my back. When he’d pulled away, he’d pressed a long kiss to my cheek. “Stay with me in here tonight? Please?”
I’d nodded in surprise and stripped down to my T-shirt and boxer briefs before climbing into the luxurious queen-sized bed with its fancy sheets and fluffy pillows. There I’d been in one of my lifelong fantasies of climbing into Chris Banks’ bed, yet I’d been so tired, I’d fallen right to sleep before he’d even crawled in beside me.
But this morning, I’d jolted awake when I began to snuggle into the hard body and harder dick pressed against me before realizing it was not Jack Snyder.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from yelping at the same time my brain provided the explanation by reminding me I’d shared a bed with Chris the night before.
Chris’s arms tightened around me and pulled me closer to him. “Mm, you feel good,” he murmured, pushing a leg between mine. I felt the brush of his hard-on against my ass, and it cause me to leap out of bed for an “emergency” visit to the bathroom.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What had just happened, and how did I feel about it?
I used the toilet and washed my hands before rifling through his cabinet in search of a spare toothbrush. As I brushed the hell out of my teeth, I lectured myself.
This is not how this is going to go down. You will not take advantage of someone going through grief.
My heart thundered. None of this felt right, and that was enough to remind me to put the brakes on it. Besides, he’d practically still been asleep. He hadn’t meant anything by it. Had he? No.
I finished up and made my way back to the bedroom as nonchalantly as possible, expecting an awkward encounter in which I’d be forced to decline his advances and explain that he was under a tremendous amount of emotional stress at the moment.
He was snoring.
I sighed and made my way out to the kitchen to put on some coffee. When he finally came shuffling out of the bedroom an hour later, there was no acknowledgement of either his snuggle hold or the semi-rutting. Fine. Good. That was good.
But, after a long day of dealing with family and funeral details, Chris asked me to stay over again. And the rutting and snuggling happened again.
And again the next night.
I would have been confused by the mixed messages except they weren’t mixed. During the day, Chris was just as affectionate as he was in bed. He reached for my hand when crossing the street or making a hard decision, he leaned his head on my shoulder when he was overwhelmed, and he’d even kissed me on the cheek a few times. One of those times, I could have sworn he was aiming for my lips, but my phone buzzed at the last minute, causing me to turn my head before I realized what he was doing.
It was like… suddenly we were more than just friends, but I didn’t know what the hell we were.
Meanwhile, Jack kept checking in on me making sure I was okay. He asked if I was remembering to eat and getting enough sleep. When he texted on Thursday to see if he could arrange to have dinner delivered to me that night, I burst into tears.
I was at Wilton Manor checking in on Hattie when I received the text. I’d just come out of helping her put a necklace back in her little jewelry box when the words she’d said hit me full force.
“I should give this to Chris to give to his wife one day.”
