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That probably had something to do with a team of doctors forcing him into a coma. A coma that had lasted all of an hour.

  “What was it about?” I asked, wanting to reach inside him and extract all the poison I could see eating him away.

  His dark eyes flickered to mine. “You.”

  I swallowed. “Me?” I tried to sound brave, but I’d never sounded so scared. “What was I doing?”

  I already knew before he flinched out his answer.

  “You were leaving,” he breathed, his arm covering his chest. “You left me. And you never came back, no matter how hard I ran after you or how loud I begged you to stop.” And it could have been the drugs, or the horrible lighting in a hospital room, but for the first time, Jude’s eyes looked like they could have spilled tears. “You left me.”

  And now it was my face and my everything else that was twisting as words failed me. It wasn’t my consciousness that reacted next; it was my heart. The heart I’d been depriving for so long and had just busted free.

  In one seamless movement, I was straddling his lap, covering his mouth with mine. I kissed him, God, like I’d never kissed him before. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough. I wanted his mouth to make me forget everything. I needed to forget reality for a while and pretend life was going to work out just the way I wanted it to.

  His lips were quiet beneath mine for one second as he processed what the hell had just happened, but when they came to, they moved against mine like they were trying to consume me as much as mine were his.

  The heart rate monitor starting keeping beat to our frantic mouths retreating and advancing on one another. Leaning back, I ripped the sweatshirt over my head and my tank was off and flying before the sweatshirt hit the floor.

  Jude’s hands grabbed my face, pulling me back to him, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth. I trembled, feeling his hands and his mouth and the rest of his body wanting, taking, and having me.

  One hand crawled down my back, sparing no time freeing my bra from my back. His breathing for the first time was almost as ragged as mine and that realization put a crack in this dream we were actively participating in. We shouldn’t be doing this right now, for a baker’s dozen of different reasons. And I didn’t want to care about a single one of them right now.

  His mouth moving in and over me wasn’t enough to keep reality at bay.

  I had to have all of him.

  Leaning away for what I hoped was the last time, I worked everything that was still covering me down my legs, around my ankles, and off onto the floor.

  Jude’s breathing hitched again as his eyes inspected me. Naked, tortured, and dying in my need for him.

  “I’m one lucky bastard,” he breathed, managing a smile as he propped up on his elbows. “And there’s no way I’m letting anything get in the way of this,”‌—‌his hands slid down my hips, curling into the flesh of my backside‌—‌”so help me get this damn hospital dress off.”

  I grinned, leaning down and letting my fingers work over the knots on the back of his gown while my mouth worked over the tendons and muscles of his neck. His heavy breath burst my body up and down in time to his heart. I rose with him, I fell with him‌—‌always together.

  Pulling the last tie free, I slid the gown up and over his arms, pulling it up through my legs and over his body until it had joined my discarded clothes on the floor.

  It was working. I felt nothing but the here and now. I felt nothing but Jude‌—‌his body, his love, and his need.

  His hands returned to my backside, lifting it and sliding it back. I could feel him against me, just waiting for my final acceptance. Judging to see if this was really the perfect moment. The place in time where Jude and I would mark this last passage of intimacy.

  I was so ready for this moment in time I could feel it throbbing my every nerve to life. “You know, your doctor said you were supposed to stay relaxed and rest,” I said, smiling down on him where his face was as excited as it was tortured. “I wouldn’t say this counts as rest and relaxation.”

  His hands slid up my body, skimming up my breasts and molding beneath my jaw. Holding my face in his gentle hands, the lines and muscles of his face smoothed. “Luce. I love you. This is exactly what I need right now. Doctor’s orders be damned.”

  My heart was pounding so hard in my chest, my sternum was starting to ache. This was it. The green light. Yet I also knew in this moment that a red light was on the horizon and it was because of that glimpse at cruel realty I lifted myself above him.

  “This?” I implied, bracing my hands on his chest. His heart thrust against them.

  He nodded, running his thumbs down my jaw. “This.”

  And then I lowered myself onto him, letting him consume me every way he could.

  He groaned below me as his hands fell back to my hips.

  “This?” I breathed, not able to catch it as I moved above him again.

  We both winced from the separation.

  His fingers curled into my hips, sliding them back down over him. The heart rate monitor was really screaming now, barely able to keep up with Jude.

  “Damn this thing,” he breathed, his forehead lining as I moved above him again. Tearing at his chest, he ripped the wires from his chest, chucking them to the floor. He did the same with his IV.

  “There,” he said, twisting below me, rocking me over until I was on my back beside him. “Nothing is coming between us,” he said, nuzzling into my neck as he rocked over me. I was vaguely aware the heart rate monitor was now screaming some sort of warning, but when Jude’s hips rocked into mine, his moan getting lost inside me as he kissed me to the beat our hips were creating, there was nothing else but him.

  His tongue rocked into me, followed by his hips, while he fitted his entire body against mine. He wasn’t only making love to me‌—‌he was possessing me.

  There was nothing I wanted more than him, nothing I wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice. Nothing my life felt more dependent upon than this man moving inside of me in every way a person could enter another.

  Separating his mouth from mine, his heavy breath came just outside my ear. I could feel the sheen of sweat covering his face, mixing with mine.

  Moving inside me again, deeper this time, I almost screamed. I was so close I doubted I would last one more. “I’m not letting you go, Luce,” he whispered, his voice tight. “I won’t let you leave. You’re mine,” he breathed, sinking his teeth into my ear as his hips flinched against mine once more.

  And that was it. My body trembled against his, my hand reaching for the metal bedrail to brace myself. He continued moving inside of me, his beat quickening as my body clenched around him. His hand joined mine braced over the bedrail and, as he followed me down the forgetting reality path, his fingers wove through mine, squeezing them before his body collapsed against mine.

  “Damn, Luce,” he said, his head rising and falling against my chest.

  My thoughts exactly. “How do you feel?” I asked, trying to bring my heart rate down. It wasn’t having any of it. “How’s your head?”

  “My head’s fine,” he said, winding his arms around my back. “It’s my goddamn heart that’s about ready to bust something.”

  I started laughing, feeling as close to euphoric as a snarky, natural pessimist could be. He joined in, his laughter vibrating against me.

  And then the door exploded open as the same kind-faced nurse rushed in, her expression lined with concern.

  Her eyes landed on the flat-lining machine first, then on where Jude rested bare ass naked over me. The worry lines faded from her face as she blessed us with a very parental expression. Walking over to the monitor, she shut the screaming thing off before turning and heading out of the room.

  “At least you died and went to heaven,” she said in an amused tone before closing us back inside the room.

  “Yes,” Jude said into my chest, his laughter dimming. “I most certainly did.”

  “Too bad our celestial vacay didn’t last a lit
tle longer,” I said, running my fingers over his shaved head.

  His body tensed in my hold as I felt that smile curve into the side of my breast. “Who says we can’t make a return trip?” he said, lifting himself over me again.

  I didn’t have a chance to reply with my answer‌—‌reality‌—‌before his mouth and body moved into mine again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jude was sleeping the slumber of a happy man beside me. His crooked smile was still a ghost on his face as his arms held me like vices. Even after a second handrail bracing, body trembling, grit your teeth around a scream, roll in a hospital bed, I hadn’t been able to fall asleep.

  Jude had no trouble. In fact, my heart beat hadn’t recovered fully before he’d fallen asleep. So I’d been awake for six hours, staring at the man curled around me, more confused than I’d ever been before. How could we be wrong for each other after one more very big part of a relationship just proved how very right we were for one another? And why, no matter what we seemed to do, did things not want to work out for us?

  My flight was leaving in less than two hours. I didn’t have my bag with me, and there would be no way I’d be able to drive to my dorm to get it and make it back before my plane had already landed in sunny south Arizona where my family was spending Christmas with my grandparents.

  Thankfully when I’d booked the ticket last month, I guessed I’d be at Jude’s game the Saturday before I flew out and planned on staying at his place that night before driving to the airport. My plans certainly hadn’t factored in a hospital bed, or clenched fingers running down cool metal bed rails, but if I left now, at least I could still make my flight.

  I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t let him know I was leaving because he wouldn’t let me go. Or he’d buy a ticket and come along with me.

  And one part of me very much wanted that to happen. But the confused part of me, the one that was scratching her head in wonder, contemplating what to do next, needed some time and space to work out this new complication in what was becoming the never ending tale of Jude’s and my story.

  More time and space.

  I sighed, shifting in bed, trying to weave myself from beneath him. This past month’s “time and space” had done nothing but further confuse me and complicate things between the two of us. So I vowed I would force myself to make a decision by the time that airplane headed back to New York after the New Year. Before I came back here, I would be able to give him a firm and final answer to the question that was Jude and Lucy.

  Tucking the sheet around him, I herded up my clothes, jamming my neck and limbs into all the appropriate openings. Grabbing my bag from the table, I paused at the foot of the bed and just stared at him. It seemed like I wouldn’t be able to stop. He was mine. I knew this with all my heart.

  But could I have him?

  This was the question I wouldn’t rest until I could answer.

  Not even daring to run my fingers over the tips of his toes for fear of him waking up and convincing me back into bed, I rushed out the door, careful to close the door without a noise.

  I took the stairs, dodging the elevators by the nurses’s station because I didn’t want to explain myself. I couldn’t explain anything right now. Other than I was confused as all hell.

  Once I was outside the hospital, I had a line of cabs to choose from. Sliding inside the closest one, I glanced back at the hospital, my eyes shifting to the fifth floor.

  “The airport, please,” I said, narrowing my eyes to better focus on the window I was looking into. A shadow moved suddenly away from it. “And please hurry,” I added, the ball reforming in my throat.

  The cabdriver followed my request to the speed-defying T. In fact, he put NYC cabdrivers to shame. Less than a half hour after we’d left the hospital, we were pulling up to the airport’s curb. Having no luggage other than my purse, I handed the driver his money plus a nice tip for a job well done.

  I hurried my way to the ticket counter, wanting to get off the ground here so I could think. My thoughts were stifled here in New York. I couldn’t think clearly.

  Ticket in hand, I got in line at the security checks. Being Christmas Eve, I expected there to be more grumpy faced people and screaming children than there were, and before I’d had time to dig my phone out of my purse to call my parents to let them know I was on my way, a TSA agent was ushering me through the metal detectors.

  Throwing my purse, phone, and boots onto the conveyor belt, I whisked through the metal detector. I breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t beep. Last time I’d flown, I’d forgotten to take off my chunky sterling silver necklace and I’d had to endure an intense “pat down” from one very eager, very young male agent. I’d been the high point to his day as he’d been the low point to mine.

  Snatching my belongings at the end of the conveyor belt, I heard it.

  Well, I heard him.

  “Lucy!”

  My head snapped up. I couldn’t see him yet, but I could hear him like he was standing in front of me. The agents and others around me stopped what they were doing to look too.

  “Lucy!” This time closer as Jude emerged from around the corner, in a full sprint, bare foot and a hospital gown streaming around him. His eyes latched onto me like they were trained to find nothing else.

  “Lucy!” he repeated, charging the security gates. TSA agents were popping up in their seats, looking between one another.

  He didn’t stop sprinting, taking out one, then two rows of nylon people-herders. He didn’t stop until a couple of large agents tackled into him.

  My hands covered my mouth as the guards stopped him, each one grabbing an arm of Jude’s and throwing it behind his back. Jude didn’t fight back, or maybe he couldn’t; he just stared at me with those dark eyes, pleading with me to stay.

  “You can’t leave, Luce!” he hollered, resisting the guards as they tried to remove him from the security area.

  “I’m just going away for a little while,” I said, sure he couldn’t hear me since I couldn’t manage more than a whisper. “I’ll be back. I promise.” With an answer that would decide the fate of our relationship.

  “You can’t leave me,” he said, his voice breaking, his face following as the guards pulled him away. Successfully this time. “You can’t leave me,” he said one last time, defeated.

  I don’t know what was worse: watching Jude give up and be drug away or turning away and heading for my gate.

  Both ate at me until, by the time my plane landed in Arizona, I wasn’t sure if anything was left of the old Lucy Larson.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Christmas came and went without me so much as noticing. Well, I noticed. You couldn’t help but notice when your entire extended family showed up to Christmas Eve decked out in some variety of red and green plaid, stripe, check, or polka dot Christmas sweater, flashing with lights and tinkling with bells. The ugly Christmas sweater was a new tradition, and one that I hoped died off with the department store sales that sold those monstrosities. Two hours into the Larson family shin-dig, everyone save for me was on an express train to Drunkville. Me, the only teenager there, was as sober as a nun about to take her vows.

  Life didn’t make sense any more. I was about to stop trying to make sense of it in the first place.

  I curled up in Grandpa’s old recliner, staring out at the cacti twinkling with Christmas lights, trying to imagine what Jude was doing at that exact minute. Experiencing a moment of weakness, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and typed, “Merry Christmas. XXX&O” and pressed send before I could rethink it. I waited up most of the night, checking my screen to make sure he hadn’t replied.

  He never did.

  Finding myself unable to sleep yet again New Year’s Day morning, I zombie walked into the kitchen, beelining for the coffee pot.

  “And I thought I was the insomniac in the family.”

  I didn’t even startle, I was that sleep deprived. Mom rose from her chair at the table and walked over to the cu
pboard where Grandma kept her coffee cups. Pouring one for me, she added the sugar and cream without asking.

  “Thanks,” I yawned as she set the cup in front of my chair.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, sitting back down and watching me, like she was waiting for something.

  Too early to know what exactly, and with my mom, nothing was ever as it seemed. She might be waiting for me to share my every goal and dream with her just as much as she might be about to tell me that swept off the face hair style I’d been favoring lately wasn’t a good look for my heart-shaped face.

  I’d burned through half a cup of coffee before she cleared her throat.

  “So I’m officially done waiting for you to open up about whatever has got you so down you can’t possibly get any lower,” she said, setting her cup down on the table. “What’s going on with you, Lucille? I know it has something to do with you and Jude, I just can’t figure out what it is.”

  I cringed first over her use of my given name and winced when she said Jude’s name. Even his name hurt me to hear.

  I sighed, taking a deep chug of coffee before setting it down.

  “I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be together,” I said, offering nothing else. This was, at the crux of all my concerns, the cornerstone.

  My mom nodded her head, taking a few moments to think before replying. “You’re not sure if you’re supposed to be together, or if you shouldn’t be together?”

  My brain wasn’t working well enough to have these kinds of conversations. “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course,” she said, cinching the rope of her new bathrobe tighter. “To suppose is to assume. Should is an entirely different beast. Should implies duty and obligation. It’s a period where suppose is a question mark,” she said, watching me across the table. “So yeah, there’s a difference.”

  Yep, I should have stayed in bed and continued to toss and turn. That would be better than having this conversation with my mom before the crack of dawn.

  “I guess I don’t know?” I said.