"Jasper," I gasped and my feet moved towards him of their own accord. With each hurried step, I felt his stare boring into me. As though he was drinking me in. As though he believed I would disappear if he blinked.
When I reached him, I knelt automatically and took his large, cool hands in my own, gripping them tight. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks and my throat felt so constricted. Shit. Not the crying again. I needed to say something. Ask him what happened. Why couldn't I speak?
All I could do was bury my head in his lap and sob. I didn't even care that I was making a spectacle. Why wasn't he saying anything? Did he hate me?
I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and then a warm, steady presence settled beside me. One of those hands moved to my hair and stroked softly.
"Skye," he sighed my name and I looked up at Cole. My lover. My sweetheart. How had I survived all these weeks without him?
"It's alright," he soothed and gave me a small smile. "It's alright."
I shook my head and kept on crying because I could not take his kindness right now on top of feeling so vulnerable. I didn't deserve it after the way I had deserted him for the second time and left him to suffer. Left them both to suffer.
"How did this happen?" I finally managed to ask Cole and he drew my head to his shoulder, allowing me to take comfort from him. I inhaled his all too familiar scent and hated myself for hurting him.
"He's going to be fine. Don't worry. Just breathe," he whispered, his arms coming around me strong and sure as we both knelt at Jasper's feet, oblivious to the people around us.
~~~
Cole
"She's not staying here," Jasper told me firmly when I joined him in our bedroom later that night.
"Shut up, Wells," I said lightly and started to turn down the sheets and do the million other things I needed to do before I crashed for the night.
"I mean it, Cole. What does she even want? What, she feels bad all of a sudden now that she knows I'm-" He broke off and ran a hand roughly through his blonde hair. "Where has she been all this time? She can't just leave and then show up whenever the hell she wants. That's not how relationships work."
I sighed and rolled my eyes. Skye was in the kitchen making herself something to drink. I had given her the option to spend the night here or to go home if she wanted. The thought of letting her go after not seeing her for months had my gut tightening in protest but I couldn't just force her to remain here out of the blue.
She had received a shock. All this time, I had deliberately chosen to keep her in the dark about Jasper's condition. I had not wanted to burden her with that and I didn't want it to be the reason she returned home. Turns out, she wanted to stay for that very reason now. Ironic.
But we had had a long talk after she followed us here from the gallery. I had filled her in regarding the past three months, there had been apologies uttered and tears shed. I was willing to give this another shot and so was she. The hard part would be to convince the asshole who was sitting there glaring at me like he was going to eat me alive.
I felt an unexpected surge of arousal at that thought. Fuck. I turned around before he noticed and fiddled with the dresser drawer.
Jasper and I had not had sex since the day he had suffered from the stroke. The doctors said it was not a permanent damage. That through therapy and willpower, he could regain normal motor functions. He just had to try, get with the program and stuff. But he glowered at the nurse I had hired to look after him when I was at work every time it was suggested that he try the numerous exercises meant for Jasper to get out of his funk.
I was pretty sure my boyfriend was just depressed and lacked the motivation to resume his normal activities. Maybe he also felt kind of useless. Jasper was an alpha male through and though. He hated not being in control. He hated feeling helpless. It made him grumpy and bad-tempered.
I stuck with him through it all even when he had one of his mood swings and yelled at me like I was a child when I offered to do a simple task for him if he struggled. It was not easy but damn, I loved him and wanted him to get better. I didn't mind the lack of sex. Not really. I could jerk off when it got too much for me to handle. But...sometimes, I would wake up in the night and feel his body heat next to mine and misery would overwhelm me because I could sense he was awake but he never touched me. He never tried to initiate anything remotely sexual and did not respond when I made the first move either.
That only worried me further because Jasper never made excuses when it came to sex. It was right up there with food and photography on his list of priorities. At least it had been.
"Sawyer," he suddenly snapped and I blew out a breath and looked at him gravely.
"What?"
His dark eyes narrowed at me. "She's got you distracted already, huh? I can't believe you're this stupid. I mean, this
