Crashed(book three)(35)

I field a couple of texts from Haddie, check in on the boys and see how Ricky’s math test went today, before texting Becks good night and telling him Colton’s still out.

The early morning hours approach and I can’t resist anymore. I slip off my shoes, pull the clip out of my hair, and position myself in the only place in the world I want to be.

At Colton’s side.





The morning light burns through my closed eyelids as I try to rouse myself from the deepest sleep I’ve had in over six days. Instead I just burrow in deeper to the warmth beside me. I feel fingers brush across my cheek and I’m instantly alert, my body jolting with awareness.


“Morning.” His voice is a whispered murmur against the top of my head. My heart floods with an array of emotions but what I feel more than anything is complete.

Whole again.

I start to move so I can look into his eyes. “No doctors yet. I just need this. Need you. No one else, okay?” he asks.

Seriously? Is the sky blue? If I could, I’d whisk him out of this sterile prison and keep him all to myself for a while. Forever or more if he’d let me. But rather than letting the flippant comment roll off my tongue, I just make a satisfied moan and tighten my arms around him. I close my eyes and just absorb everything about this moment. I so desperately wish we were somewhere else, anywhere else, so I could lie with him skin to skin, connect with him in that indescribable way. Feel like I am doing something to help heal his broken memory and damaged soul.

We lie there in silence, my hand over his heart and the fingers of his left hand lazily drawing lines up and down my forearm. There are so many questions I want to ask. So many things that run through my head, but the only one that I manage to say is, “How are you feeling?”

The momentary pause in his movement is so subtle I almost don’t catch it, but I do. And it’s enough to tell me that something’s wrong besides the obvious.

“This is nice.” It’s all he says and that further solidifies my hunch. I give him a bit of time to gather his thoughts and work out what he wants to say because after the past few weeks, I’ve learned so many things, least of which is my inability to listen when it matters the most.

And right now it matters.

So I sit in silence as my mind wars with the possibilities.

“I’ve been awake for a few hours,” he starts. “Listening to you breathe. Trying to make my right hand f*cking work. Trying to wrap my head around what happened. What I can’t remember. It’s there. I can sense it but I can’t make it come to the forefront …” he trails off.

“What do you remember?” I ask.

I desperately want to turn, to look into his eyes and read the fear and frustration that is most likely marring them, but I don’t. I give him the space to admit that he’s not one hundred percent. To balance that inherent male need to be as strong as possible, to show no weakness.

“That’s just it,” he sighs. “I remember bits and pieces. Nothing flows though, except you were there in most of them. Can you tell me what happened? How the day went so I can try to fill in what’s missing?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I nod my head gently, smiling at the memory of how our morning started.

“I remember waking up to the best sight ever—you naked, on top of me.” He sighs in appreciation that causes parts within me that have been ignored over the past week to stir to life. I don’t even fight the smile that spreads across my lips when I feel his growing arousal beneath the sheet next to me. Glad I’m not the only one affected by the memory.