With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

“Hi yourself,” he choked out when he was capable of speech. “Welcome back, beautiful. You scared the ever-loving hell out of me. How about we agree you never do that again?”

Her lips quivered into a semblance of a smile and her eyelids drooped as though it was taking all her strength to remain awake. He pulled his forehead from hers and then stroked her brow lovingly with his hand.

“Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up. I swear it.”

“Wade?”

Wade roused instantly when Eliza’s voice reached his ears. It was a low, husky whisper, but nothing had ever sounded sweeter.

“I’m here, baby. How you feeling? Are you in pain? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

After regaining consciousness the initial time, Eliza had roused a few more times, but hadn’t had the strength to do much more than direct her determined stare at Wade and squeeze his hand. She’d held his hand while her team filtered through, often falling back asleep after only the first few had gotten to talk to her. Wade didn’t know how aware of them she had been or if she would even remember their presence.

Carefully, Eliza shook her head. Then she pursed her lips and Wade leaned forward, knowing there was something she wanted to say. He pulled her hand to his lips and simply pressed it against his mouth as he gazed at her with so much love in his heart that it was a physical ache.

“Thomas?” she rasped out.

Wade’s expression tightened. “Dead.”

Relief washed through her eyes and for a moment she closed them and he thought he’d lost her again to unconsciousness. But then she reopened them, tears turning the beautiful green glossy.

“Good,” she whispered.

“Not happy about you taking a bullet for me,” he said in a tense voice that still reflected his vivid memory of the event.

She half-smiled. “Didn’t figure you would be.”

God, she seemed stronger now. After several days of drifting in and out, not even speaking after her first whispered, “Hi,” she seemed more determined to remain awake this time.

“Swear to me you’ll never do anything so stupid again,” he demanded, or rather he intended it to be a command. It came out as a fervent plea, him begging her to never frighten him the way she’d frightened him again.

Her smile was crooked now and she squeezed the hand he’d never once let go. “Can’t promise that.”

Her words were labored and raspy and she sounded as though she were in pain. He leaned forward in concern.

“Do you need the nurse?” he asked again. “You’re hurting, baby.”

“No,” she said. “Need you to talk to me. Don’t want to sleep anymore. I hate sleeping. I feel so alone. It’s so dark.”

She shivered as she spoke, and it nearly undid him.

“You aren’t alone, baby. Never again. Do you understand that? I’m here. I’ll always be here. I’m not going anywhere so don’t get any ideas of getting rid of me. I’ll give you the moon, and there isn’t a damn thing I won’t do to make you happy, but what I will not do is ever leave you.”

A tear trickled down her cheek and he tenderly wiped it away.

“I couldn’t let him take you away from me,” she said painfully. “When you burst in, the last thing I was thinking about was guarding against his mental intrusion. I was so terrified. I wouldn’t have survived losing you and he got in because I lost focus, because I panicked and allowed him to see what you meant to me. He wanted to punish me, hurt me, by killing you and I couldn’t let him do that.”

“Do you think I would have been any happier if you had died?” Wade asked, his voice cracking with emotion. “Do you not have even a clue how much I love you? How much I need you? That I am and have nothing without you? You are the only person I have ever loved, Eliza. The only person who has ever loved me. That kind of beauty can’t be lost once experienced. You couldn’t expect me to survive losing you. I wouldn’t have survived it.”

“And I couldn’t have survived losing you,” she whispered.

He sighed. “Don’t we make a fine pair. Bitching about not taking bullets for the other when we’ve both done exactly that because we love one another and can’t even begin to fathom our lives without one another. That’s rare, Eliza. That’s rare and precious. Just like you.”

Her eyes shimmered with emotion at hearing the words he’d given her what seemed a lifetime ago. Words he’d meant absolutely.

“I guess what we have is pretty special,” she murmured.

“Bet your ass it is,” he said around the knot in his throat. “What do you think we should do about it?”

She went pensive, exhaustion creeping in to her features. He thought she might fade away but she seemed to rouse herself and once more directed her full focus on him.

“Are you going to demand that I quit my job?” she asked after a hesitation.

He softened all over with love for his badass, justice-minded woman.

“Not unless you continue with these suicide missions.”

The corner of her mouth turned upward and relief flickered in her eyes. He kissed her hand again and became utterly serious when he said his next words.

“I once told you that you stood for what’s right. That’s who you are, Eliza. And I wouldn’t change one single damn thing about you. Will I worry about you and bitch over some of the missions you take? Hell yeah. But I’ll never stand in your way or demand that you choose between me and something that is one of the biggest reasons I love you so much. I will, however, expect you to allow me to help when I need to help.”

Eliza’s eyes were warm as she gazed back at him. “We do make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

“Bet your ass,” he said again. “And speaking of team, they’re all here. I don’t know how much you remember, or if you remember them being here at all, but they’ve been camped out in the waiting room ever since you were brought into surgery. Dane has been worried sick. He loves you, Eliza, and he feels guilty for not doing more to shut you down before you took off for Oregon.”

Eliza sighed, pain replacing the warmth in her eyes. “I’d like to see him. I need to apologize. What I did wasn’t cool. It was selfish. I made a lot of people who care about me worry. I was too focused on my own pain, fear and vengeance to realize that I was the one hurting the people I love.”