22. Ellie
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ellie
IWOKE TO THE feeling of being nuzzled.
The press of a nose, or perhaps lips, in my hair. Strong, thick arms caging me against a broad chest. Faint grumbling, the kind that you could feel more than hear. Warm breath flirting with my ear, tickling all my senses. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this safe.
Too bad I couldn’t feel my right arm.
I tried shifting my body in hopes of eliciting some sort of sensation that might reassure me that I hadn’t lost a limb while sleeping, and the strong, phantom arms around me tightened.
“No,” a deep voice grunted, and I stilled.
Sawyer.
Who knows why I didn’t immediately make the connection that the warmth engulfing me was Sully, but now, reality rushed in. Last night came back to me in hot, steamy flashes: Sully’s hand wrapped around his erect length, his bright eyes devouring me, the blinding heat of my orgasm.
I could barely remember anything after that. Sully had gotten up, gone to the bathroom to clean himself, but then…everything was blurry.
I must have fallen asleep on the couch, which made sense.
What didn’t make sense was that Sully was still here. That Sully was holding me.
With my eyes now open, the busy print of Anne London’s wallpaper stared back at me, decorated with shadows from the morning sun, which streamed past faded curtains. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted the TV, no longer playing The Princess Diaries.
Glancing down the length of my body, I found that my legs were entangled with much longer ones. How the hell had Sully made it through an entire night on this couch when he was at least a foot too tall for it? I’d never know.
“What time is it?” I wondered aloud.
A sigh.
“Too early.”
The arm caged around me loosened, but barely. Sully only moved enough to drag his palm over my stomach, letting it settle there, spread and possessive.
“Too early, El,” he reiterated, and then I felt the tip of his nose along the curve of my neck. “Go back to sleep.”
“Sawyer,” I protested. Weakly.
This was…not good. First last night and now this—this entanglement. Nothing about it was going to make our lives easier, but I wasn’t in a position to complain, considering I’d been the one to encourage him last night.
We were even now. He’d propositioned me in that elevator. And I’d…well, I’d asked to see him touch himself.
“For the love of God,” Sully groaned, and his face was buried in the dip of my collarbone now. “Just go back to sleep and let me hold you.”
I closed my eyes, hoping Sully couldn’t feel the rapid pitter-patter in my neck, how fast my pulse raced.
“You’re still here,” I breathed, stuck on that fact. I didn’t know how to get over the fact that he was here, pressing into me from behind. That I’d fallen asleep after we’d both ended up half-naked, and I woke up to find him not only here, but with his body wrapped around mine.
“I’m still here.” He lifted his head, making it that much easier to hear the husk in his voice that made my pulse flutter, interrupting its incessant beating. “When I came back after cleaning up last night, you’d passed out.”
Last night.
I didn’t know how to feel that we were acknowledging that last night actually happened. That last night existed.
“Sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say, but I was suddenly so unbelievably grateful that he couldn’t see my face. The warmth in my cheeks told me all I needed to know about how red I likely was.
We’d never done anything like that before—what I’d proposed on his couch.
There were fleeting moments, of course. Moments I’d seen him stroke his hand down his length before I’d taken over or vice versa.
But I’d never sat back and…watched. I’d never sat back and let him watch. And God, I’d liked it.
“No need to apologize, El.” He was drawing circles around my belly button now, and I had a feeling he had no idea he was doing it. “I didn’t want to disappear again, didn’t want to leave. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s okay.”
Okay felt like a very poor descriptor for what it really was, but I certainly wasn’t mad he’d stayed. I was far from mad. I was a million other things but mad.
Breathless and afraid to move, I lay as still as possible.
Sully’s hard body was already touching mine in so many different places, sending liquid heat straight to my belly—which he’d returned to aggressively palming—and I was terrified that even the slightest adjustment would make everything so much worse.
“When do we get to talk about names?” Sully asked while softly drumming his fingers on my abdomen. Apparently, he’d given up on going back to sleep. “Is it too soon for that?”
“Probably,” I breathed as my brain caught up to what he was talking about. He wanted to casually lie here together and dream up names for our child, as though this was a totally normal thing for us to wake up and do these days.
“What do you think about a last name?” he questioned anyway, as though that was better than first names and not totally devastating when, once upon a time, I’d imagined that if we were ever in this situation, I’d already have his last name.
“What do you think about hyphenated names? London-Summers? Or Summers-London? That’s what Noah and Gemma did for Delilah, since they weren’t married yet. ”
But they were together, I wanted to say but didn’t have the heart to. And it didn’t really pertain. A hyphenated name would work regardless of whether Sully and I were together.
“I’m not opposed to it,” I finally said, forcing myself to answer him.
“No?”
“No.”
But for some reason, it didn’t feel right. It felt like a reminder of what I’d lost when it came to a future with Sully.
“What if I wanted their last name to be Summers?” I found myself asking.
I felt Sully shrug. “Feels fair, considering you’re doing a hell of a lot more work here.”
His voice teased, like it did when he was trying to mask something. So I gave him a little nudge with my elbow, and he sighed.
“I’d love to have a Summers child,” he said, his voice softer as he curled his fingers around my belly like he could protect it from the world.
“Wouldn’t be the first time that someone with the last name of Summers was my favorite person in the world.
Imagine if there were two of them. How lucky would I be? ”
Tears sprang to my eyes in an instant, and I found it hard to catch a breath, let alone form a response.
“I like the last name of Summers a lot, actually,” Sully went on as though he hadn’t just lassoed my heart and given it a tight squeeze. “So, whatever you want, El.”
Whatever I want.
I was starting to realize that I wanted so much, and that terrified me.
Unable to bring myself to talk anymore about our child’s name, I instead murmured, “You know, I prefer this.” For just a second, I dared to cover my hand over his and sink into his embrace. “Compared to the last time.”
I felt Sully’s lips now, grazing the curve of my ear, and I sucked in a breath.
“Compared to Boston?”
He sounded dazed.
What was he thinking about?
“Yeah, when you weren’t…” My breath hitched as I shifted and felt other things that reminded me of Boston. Or one thing, rather—one thing that was prodding my ass. “There,” I managed to finish. “You weren’t there when I woke. It was…”
The worst. The absolute worst. The coldest splash of water when I’d been expecting this—this warm comfort, this moment of familiarity.
Sully’s breathing stilled as he waited for me to finish my sentence. His fingers flexed a little in the fabric of my dress—the same dress I’d been wearing last night—and the press of his fingertips against my belly only liquified my insides further.
I’d never felt so many conflicting things all within a single moment before.
“Eleanor,” Sully rasped before releasing an exhale that was heavy with a pent-up emotion I couldn’t quite identify. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s—” I started to say that it was okay, but then my mouth snapped shut, not letting the words out. Those words, in particular. “You asked to stay, and I thought…” I shook my head. What I’d thought had been foolish, but still—it had hurt, his disappearing act.
Because truth was, I went to sleep thinking I’d have more time. Sully had curled himself around me, had said he was going to stay the night, and I hadn’t worried about the fleeting moments, the time I’d miss out on with him if I fell asleep. Because I thought he’d be there when I woke up.
But he’d been gone.
And I hadn’t expected it to hit so hard, but fuck, it did.
“I wanted to,” Sully said when I didn’t finish my sentence.
His lips brushed the side of my throat, the faintest kiss against my skin.
“I hated leaving, El.” He released another sigh, and this time, I felt the regret, so easily identifiable.
“But I couldn’t watch you walk away again.
So I left before there was even a chance of that. ”
I let that sink in. Let it wrap around my heart. Squeeze. Bruise it. I let myself feel how heavy a truth that was. “You could have at least woken me first.”
“I could have,” he acknowledged. “But I just…I didn’t want to hear you say goodbye, either. I thought it would be easier without it.”
“Was it?”
“Nothing about this summer has been easy, Eleanor.”
The truest words he’d probably ever spoken.
Sully’s grip was loose enough now that I was able to turn in his arms. I faced him, our noses less than an inch from brushing and our eyes flicking to find each other, a collision of brown and blue.
“Hey,” he murmured, and I tried to ignore the way my stomach flipped as he brushed my tangled hair out of my face.
“Hey.” I gave him the smallest smile.
And then I snapped my mouth shut again when a distinct gurgle in my stomach made its way quickly to my throat, and—
Oh, God.
“El?”
Sully must have accurately read the panic on my face because it quickly reflected on his.
I scrambled inelegantly off the couch, limbs flying and ass landing on the ground before I was able to push to my feet and sprint to the bathroom.
I could hear Sully’s footsteps following me, and I tried to shut the door before he could also enter the bathroom, but he shot his hand out before I could.
It palmed the door, knocking it open again, the walls reverberating with the sound of that, combined with the clang of porcelain as I flicked the toilet seat up.
And then Sully’s hands were in my hair, fisting it as I hunched over the toilet just in time.