AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 39
I slipout of bed the morning after Elena comes back to the island, trying to reacquaint myself with the parts of the house I avoided while she was gone. The beach, where I showed her my physical, visible scars. The library where she spent so much of her time upon her initial arrival curled up, reading books she’d already been through a dozen times, desperate for something to do.
After giving Marcelline the morning off, I toast a bagel, slather it in cream cheese, and split open a pomegranate, arranging the food on a tray and bringing it to bed before she’s even close to waking up.
Setting it on the nightstand, I perch on the mattress beside her sleeping form, running my hand over her side like I have repeatedly since last night, just reminding myself that she’s real.
That she came back to me.
The beast’s beauty.
Hades and Persephone.
She finally stretches awake, blinking those soft golden eyes up at me, giggling when I lean down and cover her mouth with mine. Pushing me away, she lets out a half groan that makes my cock jolt to life.
“Morning breath,” she says, rolling away from me.
Grabbing her shoulder, I pull her to her back, pinching her chin between my two fingers. “After every bodily fluid we’ve shared, that’s where you draw the line?”
Sticking her tongue out, she notices the food from the corner of her eyes, squealing excitedly. “You made me breakfast?”
I shrug, picking the tray up and settling it over her waist. “It’s nothing special, and it’s probably cold by now.”
Rolling her eyes, she ignores the bagel and immediately starts in for the pomegranate, chewing thoughtfully as she studies me. “You know,” she says, “I didn’t really think about how the downfall of Ricci Inc. might affect you when I was sending all that evidence to Channel Ten.”
“It won’t,” I say, waving my hand. “I already took care of my official involvement with your father and his business. As long as my security team did what they were supposed to, I won’t even exist to the Riccis.”
“Will that affect your medical degree?”
My forehead wrinkles, the reserved, almost shy look on her face creating a little wave of unease inside me. “My degree, other than the fact that my work helped fund it, has nothing to do with your father, or anyone else, for that matter. I earned it, and it can’t just be taken away.”
“But... you don’t practice, and you don’t really ever even talk about being a doctor.”
Sitting back slightly, I consider this, folding my hands in my lap. Stripping myself of the last secret I have from her makes me feel like I’m cracking my heart open and shoving it into her hands, praying she doesn’t leave again. But it also feels necessary, like the beginning of us.
“I have this… condition. Misophonia. It’s a psychological aversion to certain sounds. Have you ever heard of it?”
She shakes her head.
“Most of the time, I keep it in check, but other times… it’s a lot. Sometimes, it’s downright debilitating, and I can’t focus on anything but the sound or the anxiety it gives me. Even after it dissipates, I’m still reeling from the episode, and I just… want to work from home, where I can regulate the stimuli I’m encountering. Not because I’m trying to avoid it, but if I can make my life easier, then I’m going to.”
Nodding, she shrugs. “That makes sense.”
“My decision to retire from medicine was made separate from my decision to retire from Ricci business. I just... aside from the sound stuff, I don’t have the same passion for being a doctor that I once did, and I’d begun to suspect that I was trying to complete the fantasy for a kid who only ever wanted to help his mom get better.”
She chews on a pomegranate seed as she listens, pursing her lips. “What would you say if I wanted to go back to school?”
“I’d say that’s great—”
“But I want to learn the craft.” Her gaze dips to my chest, running over the Band-Aid covering the shallow wound she made last night, then back up. “I don’t want to teach writing, I want to do it.”
My heartbeat speeds up, swelling to the point where it’s knocking painfully against my ribs. “Then I say I can’t wait to have a library full of your books.”
Later, after she’s finished eating and I’ve finished my breakfast, I drag myself from between her thighs and slump onto the bed beside her, hooking an arm behind my head as she lays hers on my chest.
“You know what brought me back to you?” she asks after a comfortable silence, raising her chin to look up at me.
“What?”
