Chapter Eighteen
Alara
The mattress depressed as Christopher slid in behind me, his body curling around me, legs cocking under mine, his arm draping over my hip, and his face nuzzling into my neck.
“Hey,” he murmured.
“Hey.”
“Were you sleeping?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I’m used to being more active. It’s hard to be tired when I spend most of my day in bed or on the couch with my leg up.”
“But the longer you stay off it, the faster you can get back on it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t come to me with your logic when I want to bitch.”
His silent chuckle shook through me as he leaned to press a kiss to my neck.
Heat bloomed, a slowly simmering fire that I sank into, not feeling the need to act on it. Not yet.
“You’re just in here because your back hurts from sleeping on the couch.”
“Says who?”
“That stiff gait you have every morning.”
“Noticed that, huh? Thought I was hiding it well.”
“Sorry, old man, your grunting and wincing give you right away.”
“This bed isn’t much better,” he admitted. “Bought the mattress without ever trying it out. It’s too soft.”
“Sometimes it feels like it’s grabbing onto me when I try to roll over,” I agreed. “I think if you made the mistake of rolling onto your stomach in your sleep, you might actually suffocate.”
“So, we’re in agreement about needing a firmer mattress the next time around.”
“And a bedroom with room for two whole nightstands. There’s no room for your phone, watch, and glass of water with my books.”
“A private bathroom,” he added, dreaming with me.
“With no one banging on it,” I agreed.
“Or steaming it up so bad the walls are dripping when you try to go in behind them to shower.”
“And a less creepy laundry room.”
“A bigger kitchen.”
“And lots of room for bookshelves. I don’t have a big collection yet. But I have a feeling Charlotte is going to have me with a collection rivaling her own eventually. Plus, I want to watch you build them.”
“Wouldn’t even help me, huh?”
“If by help, you mean watch your forearms do that twitching thing while you turn the screwdriver or tap in the nails, then yes.”
“That’s all it takes, huh?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t object to you being an alien with a specially placed nub, either…”
His teeth bit into my shoulder.
“Think I do a good enough job without one,” he said as his hand pressed between my thighs.
My head leaned back into him as I sucked in a deep breath while his fingers pressed in and started to stroke me through my shorts and panties.
“I think I need a refresher,” I told him.
It had only been a day.
The night before, we’d both been beat from running around, sex, emotional conversations, and then a long game of Scrabble that ended in cheating accusations from Charlotte when Liam won.
Then life had pulled him away most of the day today, leaving me alone in the apartment to fiddle with some cleaning, read some chapters, and do a lot of daydreaming about what our life could be like a few months, or a year, from then.
A new apartment.
Cozy nights at home with the kids.
Someone to curl into at night and talk about my day.
But despite it only being a day, my body was aching for more, for him.
It wasn’t long before Christopher grew tired of the barriers, his hand slipping beneath to tease me without them.
His thumb circled. His fingers slipped inside to thrust.
I rocked back against his cock as it hardened and pressed against me.
“Chris, please,” I pleaded quietly.
“Never gonna get tired of hearing you beg for my cock,” he murmured, lips teasing the shell of my ear.
His hand slid out of my panties to push them and my shorts down to my knees.
He turned away for a moment, digging in the nightstand, then I felt his material sliding against me as he pulled his own pants down, then reached between us to slide on the protection.
“No, stay,” he demanded, grabbing me when I tried to roll onto my back.
My sex clenched as he slid in behind me again, knees behind mine, but with his cock pressing between my thighs.
“This way, I can make sure you stay quiet,” he told me, his hand sliding to my chin, his thumb teasing over my lips as his cock pressed against me. Then, with one long stroke, he slid deep inside me.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he hissed in my ear, making my walls tighten around him, dragging a groan from him.
His hand slid to my throat, resting there lightly as he started to move, his thrusts slow and careful, both of us painfully aware of the creaking bed frame.
Sensations built—not just in my body, but buried in my heart as well. Each movement, each hiss of his breath in my ear, only seemed to make it intensify.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he said, his teeth gently nipping my ear. “I couldn’t think about anything but being inside you again.”
A soft whimper escaped me.
“Yeah, love how you sound when my cock’s inside you.”
His free hand slipped under me and between my thighs, working my clit as he kept rocking.
“There you go,” he said as I tightened around him.
My whimpers grew louder as I got closer to the edge.
His hand moved from my throat, pressing over my mouth.
“It’s okay. Cry as loud as you need to.”
Like I could help it.
Even with his palm covering my mouth, the sounds grew until, with a muffled cry, I shattered apart.
He pressed in deep, body tensing, groaning out my name as he came.
His hand slid from my mouth, settling on my chest instead, resting right over my heart. A place where he seemed to start to occupy.
He pulled away for only a moment, pulling his pants back into place, then sliding mine into place as well before coming back to me, pulling me onto his chest.
“I can’t fall asleep here,” he said, but he was already sounding half-asleep.
I knew I should probably insist he go back to the couch too. But it felt too good to be on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling his breath, and having his arms around me.
So I didn’t fight it.
And I let myself drift off.
Only to have us both shock awake sometime later when Charlotte’s voice rang through the apartment.
“Uncle Chris?”
She sounded high-pitched, a little frantic.
I rolled off him as he shot off the bed and made his way to the door.
“Charlotte?” he called softly as he moved out of my door.
“Why are you in Alara’s room?”
“I was just checking on her.” The lie was impressively genuine. “What are you doing up?”
“I don’t feel good.”
“Uh-oh. What kind of not good?”
“My throat hurts.” She sounded a little raspy and nasal.
“Yeah? That sucks. Is it like when your allergies are bad or how it was last year on the day before your field trip?”
“Field trip.”
God, she sounded miserable.
I climbed off the bed and made my way to the door.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Char’s not feeling good. I’m gonna grab the thermometer.”
“Hey, kiddo,” I said. We didn’t need a thermometer to know she had a fever. Her face was flushed, and sweat was clinging to her forehead. “Want me to see if there are any ice pops in the freezer?”
She gave me a sad nod as Christopher came out of the bathroom with her temporal thermometer.
“How bad?” I asked after I heard it beep.
“Time for some medicine. But not a hospital trip. Unless the meds don’t cut it.”
Charlotte let out a little whimper and took a bite of the ice pop I handed to her.
“You feeling achy?” I asked.
“My legs hurt.”
I glanced over at Christopher, wincing.
“Flu?” I said.
“Starting to sound like it,” he agreed. “Want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie until the meds kick in?” he asked.
“Will you sit with me?”
“Yeah, of course,” Christopher said.
“You too?” she asked, looking at me.
“Only if we pick something fun.”
She was up for the challenge.
So after taking her medicine and grabbing her blanket and her stuffed animal from her bed, she climbed onto the center of the couch to click through the options as we moved to flank her.
“Any better?” I whispered as Christopher reached out to press his hand to Charlotte’s clammy forehead after she dozed off from the meds.
“A little cooler, yeah.”
“She sounded stuffier by the moment.”
“Yeah. Looks like there’s a doctor visit ahead of us tomorrow.”
“If she makes me sick, I better be getting some of the homemade soup you promised her.”
“I have a feeling this thing is going to rip through all of us.”
“I don’t know how to play nursemaid,” I admitted. “And I can’t make soup. I mean, I can warm some up in the microwave. Or order it.”
“That would be more than I’ve ever gotten.”
“Don’t sound eager for it,” I said, shaking my head at him.
“It’s gotta be nice to be taken care of.”
“Well, I haven’t had someone take care of me when I’m sick, but I can speak from experience that it’s really nice to have someone care about you when you don’t feel your best.”
“What’s going on?” Liam’s voice called, making his uncle and me glance back at where he stood halfway between his bedroom to the bathroom.
“Char’s sick.”
“Again?” Liam asked, sighing. “Time to start guzzling orange juice.” Then, softer, “She okay?”
“Fever’s a little better. She’s probably going to feel like shit by morning, though.”
“Couch drops, ice pops, electrolytes…”
“What are you doing?”
“Making a mental list of everything she’s gonna need to keep her from complaining too much.”
“Oh, she’s still gonna complain.”
“You guys are being mean. Like you wouldn’t be moaning and complaining you’re half dead if you had the flu.”
“You’re not wrong. Liam was ten times worse than Char when he caught the flu from her last time. Why don’t you go to bed? I’m just gonna make sure she’s out before I move her.”
“You sure?”
“No sense in us both being sleepless. We can pull shifts.”
“Okay,” I agreed, carefully sliding off the couch.
“Alara?”
“Yeah?”
In answer, he reached for me as I passed behind him on the couch. He reached behind my neck, pulling me down for a quick upside-down kiss.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I said, running my fingers over his hair before I walked away.
I couldn’t say how long I managed to sleep before the bedroom door flung open, making me yelp and whip around.
“Chris?” I asked, slow-blinking at him as he reached to flick the light on, making me wince. “Is everything okay?”
But my vision adjusted.
And I could see that he was very much not okay.
“Char’s fever is getting dangerously high,” he told me. “I think I need to get her to the hospital ASAP.”
“What? What time is it? Is she due for meds?”
“Not for another two hours. She can’t wait that long.”
I was off the bed in a second.
“I’ll keep an eye on her. Get dressed.” I waved to the closet as I pushed past him and rushed over to where Charlotte was sitting on the couch with her shoes already on. “Hey, kid, how are you—” I started, then trailed off as my hand met her scorching forehead. No longer clammy. Just way too hot.
She looked off, too. A little unfocused, her face too flushed.
“Oh, Char,” I said, running my hand over her hair.
“I don’t feel good.”
“I know you don’t,” I said, sitting down next to her.
“Can I have a hug?” she asked, sniffling, her eyes filling with tears.
“You don’t have to ask,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “You’re going to be okay. Your uncle is going to get the doctors to fix you all up, okay?”
She sniffled and nodded.
“Probably not right away. But you’ll feel a little bit better once the doctors check you out. And then we’re going to spend a few days waiting on you hand and foot until you feel better.”
“You too?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re not going back to your apartment?”
“No way. My girl needs me.”
Christopher moved in front of the couch, giving me a soft smile. “Ready, honey?” he asked.
Charlotte let out a whimper but got to her feet.
“Just a couple of hours and it will all be over,” I assured her. “And then we can eat ice pops and watch that show you were talking about earlier. Here,” I said, folding up Charlotte’s blanket and handing it to Christopher. “She’s always chilly.”
“Thank you.”
“Liam…”
“He’s got me.”
Christopher leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine for a second. “I will text you when I know something.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you in a bit, okay, kiddo? What flavor ice pops should I order?”
“All of them,” Charlotte said, leaning into her uncle’s side.
He wrapped an arm around her, and the two of them made their way out of the apartment.
Alone, I was surprised by the way my stomach twisted and my heartbeat fluttered.
Worried.
I was worried about Charlotte.
Christopher and Liam told me that she spiked dangerously high fevers when she got sick, once so bad that when they walked into her room to check on her, she was hallucinating and didn’t even respond to them until they got her to urgent care and got her fever down with medication and fluids.
I grabbed my phone and camped out on the couch while adding ice pops, cough drops, medicine, electrolytes, orange juice, menthol rub, and a heating pad for her body pains. Plus some soup in case she was hungry before Christopher got a chance to make it from scratch.
Then I did something that my sister said she did every single time the kids were sick.
I sat up and worried.
Even after Christopher texted to say she was taken back pretty quickly and was on an IV for fluids and was suffering through some cooling blankets.
At some point, the update was that the meds and fluids had her down under one hundred degrees, and they were just waiting for discharge papers.
I let myself drift off on the couch then, hoping that Char would come home and go right to sleep so we could both catch a few hours before the day really started.
All that hope vanished when the door flung open, cracking against the wall.
Then hands were grabbing me.