“I’m the only person you’ll know in Maine.”
“I haven’t decided anything yet.”
He nodded. “I think you have.”
“That’s awfully confident.”
He struggled to sit up, and I moved fast, rushing across the room to him to place one hand on his abdomen, the other on his good shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?” I barked. “The bed lifts you up, idiot, you don’t do it yourself. You could hurt—”
He cut me off, grabbing hold of my wrist and dragging me close until we were eye to eye. “In answer to your ‘that’s awfully confident’ statement… yes, I am. I’m sure you’re going to pick me, because as it turns out, I’m perfect for you. You’ve got that hard shell, and you’re all high-strung and prickly and a little mean, and I can even you out.”
“I am not—”
“Aww, you are too.” He chuckled, taking my chin in his hand, easing me forward. “And if you let me go home alone, you’ll wonder every day what I’m doing and who I’m seeing and—”
“You’re very sure of—”
The openmouthed kiss I got muffled my argument, and his tongue tangling with mine pulled a deep, needy moan from my chest. I shifted over him, pressing him down into the pillow as I devoured him, stretching his lips, suckling, nibbling, our whimpers and whines mixing, unable to be stifled.
My hands were in his hair, on his face, trailing down his throat as I deepened the kiss, mauling him as my pulse raced. I was surprised when he shoved me away from him.
“What?” I was panting, my chest heaving as I stared down at him.
“Catheter,” he whispered through gritted teeth.
It took a few moments for my mind to clear, and when it did, I had to bite down on my bottom lip to try to keep from smiling.
“You’re a jerk,” he accused me.
“Sorry,” I managed to get out around the snickering.
“Oh man”—he was wincing—“they need to take that shit out. I can get my ass up and pee.”
I shook my head. “Peeing should be low on your list. Getting a blowjob… that’s more of a priority.”
He looked startled. “You would blow me in the hospital?”
“Yeah, why not?”
When he quickly hit the call button for the nurse, I started laughing.
“Just say you’ll come to Maine.”
I sighed deeply, smiling at him. “I’ll come to Maine.”
His eyes were suddenly glistening in the near dark. “Because you love me.”
“Because I’m infatuated with you.”
“If you think it’s love, then it is. Say it’s love.”
“You’re just gonna bully me.”
“Fuck yes, now hurry up and say it before the nurse gets here.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Quit with that already! I know you better than I know most people.”
“Car—”
“I do,” he said as he turned on the light behind his bed with a flick of a button.
I tipped my head, indicating for him to tell me.
“You make me feel like me. Does that make sense?”
Of course it did.
“Vince?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
His smile was breathtaking.
“You make me feel good and like I’m really here and present and not missing anything anymore. You make me appreciate things, and I want to tell you stuff I think and take you with me wherever I go. Just—say it!”
“Say what?”
“Vince!” he growled.
I was trembling and I couldn’t stop.
“Sorry I came barging into your life and changed everything.”
He was a steamroller, plain and simple. “It’s a good thing.” I smiled through more tears I couldn’t stop.
“I’ll hold my breath, and my brain will explode, and then you’ll be really—”
“God, you just pound away until you get what you want!”
“Yes.”
“Acting like you know me and what I want and need and—”
“I do.” His voice cracked, and his eyes were dark and pleading, and he reached for me even as his breath caught. “I know you. God, Vince, I really do.”
And how or why, I didn’t know, but the truth was that we fit like two parts of one whole. I could make him happy—I knew I could—and between his humor and his stubbornness and the fact that he was crazy about me, I was certain that if I let him go, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
“If I don’t go, you’ll find somebody else, somebody better,” I said, fishing, pushing, because it was my way.
He pointed at me. “After this time right here we’re not gonna do this bullshit anymore. I’m not stroking your ego for the rest of my life, you understand?”
I could only look at him. The rest of his life… had he really just said that?
“It used to be that my heart hurt every time I saw you.”
I nodded, willing him to go on.
“And I kept thinking that I needed to talk to you to figure out what that was about,” he explained, swallowing hard. “But what I found was that when I kiss you or hold your hand… it stops. I feel so good, like all the bullshit is gone and everything’s new.”