Chapter 57
57
S imon curled up in bed, warm, exhausted, but awake. Next to him, tucked against his side, held in his arms because he wasn't willing to let her go, Carlisle slept soundly. She was exhausted after her trip, and he’d just watched her sleep.
I can if you can .
He could hear her voice in his head saying those words. They were seared into his soul. Because he could, and he would .
As soon as she said it, it felt as if all the walls of ice between them shattered and tumbled down. He’d stepped toward her, feeling the pull of gravity between them. He’d kissed her as if his life depended on it. Only now did he realize it did. The life he wanted, the future he needed, they depended on Carlisle.
He kissed her, reveling in the feeling of her kissing him back. She clung to him. He kissed her until he peeled her shirt. Her hands searched and as she started to strip him, Kitten had finally meowed loudly enough to get their attention.
“She might need a litter box,” Carlisle told him. Stepping back, she was practically panting with need. So was he.
“Put your shirt back on. Follow me.” He'd said it partly as a command, partly as a question. Simon was thrilled when she did exactly that.
He scooped up Kitten before she could have an accident on Carlisle's floor, ushered them across the lawn, and ducked through the back door to set Kitten down. She’d raced for the litter box.
With that problem solved, Carlisle reached for him again and he leaned into her, melting in the feeling of having her again. His heart let go, finally having faith that he could have both the family he already had and build a new family with Carlisle.
But, as she tried again to strip him bare, he took her hand and tugged her back toward his office. She looked at him oddly, not quite understanding until he pulled her over toward the desk. Another old piece, sturdily built, but clearly showing signs of age and previous owners.
“You got a desk,” she said, as though that were interesting but not pertinent to the situation. He pulled out the side drawer, letting her see the condom stashed there and watched as her eyebrows lifted.
“Oh.”
In case he wasn't simply grateful enough for her being willing to try, he got to play out another fantasy. He was never going to sit in that old, creaky swivel desk chair again without lighting up his brain with memories of what they'd done.
Of the way she'd knelt in front of him and taken him in her mouth. Of when he'd reversed their positions. Of how she’d ridden him until he was certain the chair was going to break.
Exhausted, they'd come in here, crawled under the covers and before Kitten nestled in at their feet, Carlisle was out cold. He’d been hoping for round two, but it could wait until tomorrow, because there would be a tomorrow.
He would ask her in a while if she was ready to move in together. At some point, he would tell her that he'd played on the skins team at the gym. About the easy acceptance of his scars and even Raymond and the belt buckle. She knew Raymond. He wondered if she knew about his past.
Simon knew he would tell Carlisle about the plans he and his mother and Darcy had made, because she would be here to listen to them. And he would be here to listen to her when she had another idea. Because he and his mother and Darcy had all admitted that they'd been playing by old rules.
That, while Darcy had been trying to get them to see her as something other than a thirteen-year-old kid with mysterious symptoms and terrifying hallucinations, she'd been stuck playing to the old rules, too. He would tell Carlisle that they'd already found Darcy a new therapist that she liked a lot.
He'd bought the desk because he needed a place to have his online meetings that didn't involve a CGI background. He was staying in Breathless, so he needed a real home office. He’d hung Darcy’s artwork directly in the frame of the camera shot.
He would talk to Carlisle about her business and see how it was going. He’d have to tell her, if they were ever going to become millionaires, it would be on her. And if she wanted to go back to nursing, he would support that too because he could.
Because she had said I can if you can . So he would.