Chapter Eighteen
I’d like to say that lucidity came in several slow stages when I awoke, but in reality it came with a cold, wet nose and a face full of whiskers being pushed into mine. “I’m not dead,” I mumbled.
Speech seemed to satisfy Quasimodo enough for him to jump off the bed and leave me blinking myself awake. The other side of the bed was empty, the momentary thought occurring that the previous night had been nothing but a bizarre dream. And them someone—Cillian—cleared his throat in the living room and I realized the entire thing, Laurent’s accident, my night spent at the hospital, and Cillian rushing to Paris to be by my side, had all been real.
I turned my wrist and stared at my watch, the sight that greeted me sending a flare of panic through my system just as effective as any cold shower for shedding the last strands of sleep. I narrowly avoided getting tangled in the duvet as I leaped out of bed, not stopping for clothes before bursting into the living room. “I thought you were going to set an alarm.”
Cillian looked up from the screen of his laptop, his air of serenity a startling contrast to my wild-eyed panic. “I did set an alarm.”
“You were supposed to wake me. I needed to call work.” I ran a hand through my hair, most of it plastered to my head. “I was supposed to be there at nine. That was four hours ago.”
Cillian gestured to the seat at the other side of the table. “Sit down.”
“I can’t sit down. I need to find my phone. I’ve only worked there for a few months. Jules is gong to think I’m a complete flake.”
“Finn, sit down .” The stern voice did nothing for me. Him holding my phone up so I didn’t have to search for it, had me sinking into the seat, though. When I stuck my hand out for it, Cillian didn’t pass it across.
“I set an alarm, and I got up,” he explained. “I didn’t see any reason we both needed to be up.”
“I already told you, I—”
“I called your boss.”
Surprise had me blinking at him for a few seconds. “You did?” He nodded. “And said what?”
“That Laurent had been in a nasty accident and was in hospital, and that you’d kept a vigil until he’d gotten out of surgery in the early hours, that you hadn’t gotten to bed until a ridiculously late hour, so wouldn’t be in today. But that you’d be back tomorrow. Did I miss anything?”
I shook my head. Movement had me looking in Quasimodo’s direction as he jumped on the sofa, the stub of his tail twitching. “I need to feed Quasi. He’s probably starving.”
“I already did that. He got breakfast before I did. I cleaned his litter tray as well, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “Have you done anything else?”
Cillian considered the question for a moment and then gestured toward the kitchen. “There’s a pot of coffee in there for when you want one. And I bought croissants for both of us. They’re in a box on the counter.” His brow furrowed. “I spoke to Amrita to explain why I was mysteriously missing from the office. Oh, and I spoke to a couple of clients as well. I think that was it.” He cocked his head to one side and studied me. “Are you pissed at me?”
“I’m trying to be, but I’m failing miserably. You make those of us who aren’t superhuman look bad.”
Cillian waved the compliment—or maybe it was a criticism; I wasn’t entirely sure myself—away with a flick of his hand. “You needed to sleep.” He took a sip of his coffee before remembering something. “Oh, and I called the hospital, as well. Visiting hours start at three. Which”—he glanced down at the time on the laptop—”gives you just enough time to shower, shave, dress, and eat breakfast. I was going to wake you at half-past one if you hadn’t stirred by then. I’ve booked a cab for a quarter to, so we get there in plenty of time.”
“We?” I questioned.
He smiled. “We,” he confirmed. “And no, I don’t know if Laurent’s awake. I tried to find out, but I hit a brick wall. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
I might not have had a full night’s sleep, but there was a lot to be said for showering and eating breakfast for feeling like something other than roadkill. And if I was honest, there was something relaxing about being able to sit back and let someone else take charge: a role Cillian was obviously born for. “Why didn’t I ever see this side of you before?” I asked as we pulled up in front of the hospital and Cillian paid the driver.
His expression was quizzical as he turned my way. “What side?”
I laughed as we started for the entrance. “The take charge side. It’s very attractive.”
“Yeah?” Despite Cillian trying really hard to hold back his smile, it still escaped. “It’s not too bossy?”
“Not when it involves me getting extra sleep. I’d be a zombie now if you’d gotten me up when I wanted you to. Plus, I should have set my own damn alarm if I was that bothered.”
“You were so out of it I’m not sure you were capable.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” I agreed. “You haven’t answered the question, though.”
“I guess… because I was stupid, and I poured it all into work rather than what really matters. There wasn’t a lot of Cillian King left for you.”
“Just the one part,” I quipped with a sideways glance and a smirk.
He laughed. “Yeah, that was all for you.”
“I just had limited access. More like a rental than ownership.”
Our coded conversation brought us all the way to the lift, Cillian standing aside to let people pass as we timed it perfectly and one arrived. Our visit turned out to be an anticlimax, Laurent still unconscious. A nurse—this one speaking fluent English—assured me it was perfectly normal and that it would only be a cause for concern if forty-eight hours passed with no sign of improvement. Either Laurent looked slightly better as I sat by his bed and carried out a one-sided conversation, or I’d just grown accustomed to his bruised and swollen appearance.
Cillian, meanwhile, melted into the background to give me some privacy, and then embarked on the longest jaunt to get coffee the world has ever seen or is likely to, given there was a vending machine right at the end of the corridor.
We grabbed ingredients to cook on the way home, Cillian proving himself just as capable in the kitchen with rustling up a salmon-based dish as he was everywhere else. “What aren’t you good at?” I asked as we ate the meal and Quasimodo devoured his share of the salmon.
“Erm… tightrope walking.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t count, then. Because for all you know, you might be a natural at it. It has to be something you’ve tried, and that you failed spectacularly at.”
“I lost you,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t very good at that.”
It wasn’t so much the words that got to me, but Cillian’s crestfallen expression when he said it, like he still hadn’t fully come to terms with how badly he’d botched things between us. “Well…” I said cheerfully, determined to banish that haunted look from his face. “The good news on that front is that I’m not dead, and that we’re here together now.”
“Yeah,” Cillian agreed, his eyes soft.
We cleaned up together, the specter of the night ahead with all of its unanswered questions hanging over us. It was Cillian who plucked up the courage to lay things on the line first. “If I stay tonight,” he said slowly, “things will happen. So if that’s not okay, tell me to find a hotel.”
“Things?” I teased.
“Sexual things,” Cillian said with a glint in his eye. “Things we’ve only been able to talk about over the past few weeks and not put into action.”
“You’ve made a lot of promises,” I pointed out. “If you stay, you’re going to have a lot to live up to. I think you even promised me multiple orgasms in one night.”
Cillian gave an embarrassed little smile. “I didn’t say that. My cock said that.”
I dried the last plate and placed it back in the cupboard. “The moral of that story is not to let your cock do all the talking.”
Cillian laughed. “I’ll try to bear that in mind next time I embark on an odyssey of online sexual encounters.” There was a long pause while he emptied the water out of the sink and watched it swirl down the drain. “Seriously, though. I need an answer.”
I counted to ten before responding, trying to ensure that I wasn’t doing what I’d just accused Cillian of and thinking with a part of my anatomy not equipped for measured consideration. “I think we’ve waited long enough. Don’t you?”
Cillian propped his hip against the sink and turned to face me. “That’s not a question for me to answer. Only one person can make that decision, and that’s you.”
“I already told you I would have slept with you on the second night you were in Paris.”
“Which is why I want you to think carefully about it. I can wait as long as it takes for you to be sure.”
I imagined the scenario he’d painted for a moment. Me, sending him to a hotel, and then the two of us spending the night in the same city, but apart, after so many nights of telling each other exactly what we wanted to do to each other online. It would be ridiculous, and I couldn’t promise it wouldn’t end in one of us video calling the other. “Stay,” I said. “I want you to.”
Cillian scrutinized my face for a few seconds in a way that said he was searching for something before nodding, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smile. “In that case, can I take you to bed?”
“Yes, please.”
When he held out his hand, I took it without hesitation, the two of us making our way toward the bedroom in a fashion that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Jane Austen novel, only minus the breeches. It was very different to the way we’d crashed against the wall in a conflagration of heat and desire the first time we’d ever had sex. Different was good, though. Different was what we needed.