“Is it that late already?” I asked Emma. Neil was across the room, lounging on the sofa, laughing at something the man next to him was saying. I didn’t want to break up Neil’s good time, but we had to go to the hospital super early in the morning.
He looked up and caught my gaze, and I gave him an apologetic shrug as I pointed to my wrist. I wasn’t wearing a watch, but he got the hint. Almost everyone had cleared out already, as it was a weeknight. He excused himself to the few people who remained, accepted their good wishes, hugs, and firm handshakes, and called it a night.
“I’ll take care of shooing everyone out,” Emma told him, standing on her tip toes to hug him. “Just go get your rest.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, bright and early at the hospital. With donuts, if they have them over here.” Holli promised.
I made a face. “That’s really not necessary. We have to be there early, and there’s not much you can do.”
“This is what I’m here for. To lend you support, even if it does mean just sitting in a waiting room in case you need me.” She gripped me by the shoulders. “This is my sole purpose for being here. Now, tell me what you need, and I will be there.”
“Well, we check into the hospital at seven-thirty,” I said, issuing an unspoken challenge.
“I will be there at ten,” she vowed in the same serious voice.
I laughed and hugged her, and I hugged Deja, too. Even though I didn’t know her as well, I felt like she was... family. Because she was in love with Holli, and she made Holli happy, I love her, too.
As Neil and I rode the elevator up, I thought about Michael and Emma downstairs. I wished Neil could feel toward Michael the way I felt toward Deja; that he could love Michael just for making Emma happy. I wondered if Neil would understand if I explained it that way.
Then he smiled down at me, looking happier than I had seen him since Paris, and I remembered what he’d said about my collar. He’d wanted to give me something no other man could give me. Whether he realized it or not, that was what drove him to dislike Emma’s fiancé. Emma didn’t need her father anymore, or at least, that’s the way he perceived the situation. It was driving him crazy.
This was something Neil definitely needed to face. But not tonight.
Not when it was our last chance to get some before the transplant shut us down for months.
I wasn’t the only one thinking about the long dry spell we were facing again. Neil wrapped his arm around my waist as he stepped off the elevator, and steered me directly for the bedroom.
“I know we have to be up early, and I need my rest,” he said, anticipating a scolding. “But this might be the last time I feel this good for a long while. And I intend to enjoy myself, if you’re amenable.”
“What do you have in mind?” No matter what he said, I would be in. But I loved hearing him talk about what he wanted to do to me.
His hand slipped down, over my butt, and his fingers dug in through my skirt. “I want to paddle your ass until you can’t sit down tomorrow. I want to make you come so hard, you can’t walk.”
“I need to walk and sit down tomorrow,” I pointed out, giggling as I leaned against him. We tumbled through the door, his hands already pushing my skirt up. “And Emma and some of your friends are still down there.”
“You’ll have to practice being very quiet,” he admonished me. “There is absolutely no way I’m going to face a hellish year of transplant, exhaustion, fatigue and recovery without a proper send off. Now go and get your collar.”
My pulse thrummed between my legs as I headed to the dressing room. I had a wicked thought. “You stay right here. Wait for me.”
I’d bought something to celebrate after he was finally cancer free... but I could always find something else for that. Tonight, I wanted to give him a memory that would sustain him through high-dose chemo and his transplant process, so I dug it out from the back of my underwear drawer.
The bra, thong, and garter belt were mostly assembled from wide, stretchy straps of thick black elastic. The bra’s cups were padded, underwire, and tiny, exposing most of my breasts, but another thick band lay across my nipples. Wide swaths of black elastic pressed into my skin over my hips, breasts, and backside, more like a stretchy cage than lingerie.
When I stepped out of the dressing room, collar in my hands— he hadn’t told me to put it on, but to bring it to him— Neil’s eyes widened, and he took an audible breath.