Many Blessings

Chapter Sixteen

“Mandaline?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

Brad stared out the windshield at the rain. “I don’t hear Julie anymore. It’s not like the other times, when she went quiet. It’s like she’s gone for good now.”

Mandaline nodded and wiped at her face with the towel as she slowly drove down the driveway. “I know, sweetie. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be okay now. In a couple of days, you’ll feel good as new.”

He rested his head against the passenger window and shivered. She cranked the heat up to full and set it to blow to the floor and the defroster.

“Is Ellis going to be okay?” he asked.

“I think so. I think we’re all going to be okay now.”

He was quiet for most of the drive. As they neared town, he asked, “Mandaline?”

She couldn’t help but smile. He almost sounded like a kid. “Yeah, sweetie?”

“I forgot the condoms. They’re in my dresser with my wallet.”

She burst out laughing. “Honey, it’s like three o’clock in the morning. I have a full schedule today. I’m sure Ellis does, too. And you’ve had a pretty rough couple of days. I think we all need sleep.”

“Oh. Okay.”

When they reached the shop, she got him out and inside and upstairs to her bathroom, where she made him strip. She climbed into the shower with him and thoroughly shampooed and scrubbed him and her both, with the water as hot as they could stand it. She scrubbed their bodies with a washcloth and a loofa to make sure no trace of the mold remained on either of them.

As she ran her hands over his back, for the first time she got a clear look at his old injuries. Up his entire back pink, twisted skin marked the path the explosion had ripped into his flesh. With his hair wet and plastered against his skull, now she could see a couple of the bare patches, especially at the base of his skull, where hair didn’t grow and white, gnarled scars remained.

She wished she could stand there and kiss every inch of him, love every last bit of hurt out of his soul.

But it was late, and they were both yawning. She helped him dry off, wrapped a towel around her own hair, and got him tucked into her bed. She placed a kiss on his forehead. “Go to sleep, sweetie.”

“Is Ellis here yet?” Brad’s voice sounded hoarse, no doubt an effect of all the screaming.

“Not yet. I’m going to wait up for him, don’t worry.”

“Okay.” His eyes dropped closed and it sounded like he was falling asleep. Pers jumped up onto the bed and snuggled next to him.

“Don’t wake him up,” she whispered to the dog.

She grabbed her bathrobe and slippers and put them on. Closing the bedroom door behind her, she set herself up on the sofa with an extra pillow and sheet from the closet. She turned the TV on and tried to stay awake, but her eyes opened with a start when she heard a car door shut just below the apartment window.

She had dozed off. It was now 4:19, according to the time on the cable box.

She went downstairs to find Ellis coming through the door, laden down with garbage bags full of clothes. She grabbed a bag from him. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, I brought as much as I could.” He stopped and looked at her, their eyes meeting. He dropped everything and grabbed her, pulling her to him and crushing his lips against hers, stealing her breath and her heart.

“Thank you,” he said when he ended the kiss. His voice sounded ragged and full of emotion. “You have no idea how grateful I am to you and how much I love you right now. Thank you for not giving up on us. I don’t care how you figured it out. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you did it.”

She managed a smile despite wanting to break her self-imposed waiting period. “I love you, too. Let’s get you upstairs.”

“How is he?”

“Asleep. I gave him a shower and put him to bed. And that’s what you need to do, too. You won’t have long to sleep.”

She helped him ferry everything up to the apartment that could go up there. He’d brought one suit still neatly on a hanger to wear to work, and she volunteered to take the two garbage bags full of suits he’d pulled from his closet to the cleaners for him in the morning.

“I figured I’d better wash all my stuff, too,” he said. “I don’t want to risk him getting sick from them or spreading it to his clothes.”

“The washer’s down here, in the back room. Help yourself.”

Once they got the other bags of clothes stowed in the back room, she set another set of towels out for him in the bathroom. “I’m guessing you don’t have a problem sharing a bed with him? It’s a king-sized bed.”

He frowned. “Where are you sleeping?”

She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “On the couch.”

“But—”

She silenced him with a kiss on the lips. “We have all the time in the world now to figure things out. But I need sleep, and you definitely need sleep. He can sleep all day if he needs to.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She smiled. “The couch is too short for you. I’ll be fine. I’ve spent plenty of nights on it before. Go on and get your shower.”

Once again she didn’t know if she’d fall asleep, but when she opened her eyes again, it was daylight and she smelled coffee. Wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and a smile, Ellis walked over from the kitchen and dropped to his knees next to the sofa.

“Good morning,” he softly said. She suspected his smile would be just as deadly to her reserve as Brad’s, now that they’d finally managed their personal hurdle.

“Good morning. Is he awake yet?”

“No. If he’s not up by noon, please make sure to wake him up to take his meds.” He leaned in and kissed her. She found her hand cupping the back of his head, her fingers twining in his hair as she closed her eyes and savored it.

He laid one hand over her belly, his fingers working on the knot on her bathrobe before he pulled it open to expose her. She didn’t bother pushing his hand away. She wanted to find out what he had in store.

He broke their kiss to move down her body, his kisses blazing a scorching trail down her chest, along the valley between her breasts, down past her navel until he gently pushed her legs apart with his hands.

She started to offer up token protest, but his fingers unerringly found their way between her legs. Then he spread her labia and bent his head to her pussy.

She kept one hand in his hair, all the while praying he didn’t stop and thinking maybe this wasn’t the best idea right now. The other hand she clapped over her mouth to stifle the loud moan she let out when his lips nibbled at her clit.

He looked up her body, his blue eyes dark and smoky. “I owe you this. I interrupted you two the other day. You deserve this and more.” Before she could respond, he’d lowered his mouth to her clit again.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, off the way he eagerly worshipped her body with his mouth, his tongue doing deliciously evil things to her aching clit. He shifted position, turning her and draping her legs over his shoulders as he set to work in earnest.

It felt like she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her world ended outside the heat of his body as he flicked his tongue up and down her clit. Then he worked a finger between her folds, stroking it up and down, coating it in her juices before gently sliding it inside her pussy.

She arched her back, giving him better access as he finger-fucked her wet cunt. Mesmerized by his eyes, she couldn’t look away, didn’t want this moment to ever end.

Her body, however, begged for release, for the feel of an orgasm she didn’t have to give herself for the first time in too damn long.

She was vaguely aware of him doing something with his other hand, but she felt scorching tingles flaring out from her clit, followed by an avalanche of pleasure as her orgasm hit. For a few timeless moments that bliss became the focus of her world.

His eyes dropped closed as he let out a soft groan of his own, which vibrated out his mouth and through her pussy and triggered another orgasm for her. It was only after her senses slowly began returning and she caught her breath that she could begin to think about it.

Or think about anything.

He rested his cheek, scratchy with morning stubble, against her inner thigh. When he finally opened his eyes again, he wore a playful smile.

“Are you okay?” she managed.

He kissed the insides of her thighs before carefully untangling himself from her. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, but I couldn’t help myself.” She looked over the edge of the couch and saw that at some point he’d pulled his briefs down to expose his cock, which was quickly growing limp. His other hand was covered with his own cum.

Her cheeks heated a little. “I would have taken care of that for you,” she softly said, unable to take her eyes off his softening member, practically licking her lips over it.

He leaned in and kissed her. She tasted herself on his lips. “I figured you would have. But you did say you wanted to wait. I’m happy to wait as long as I know I can keep you satisfied.” His eyes searched her face. “I’ll wait as long as I need to. As long as you need me to. I know I screwed up the other night and I can’t believe how lucky I am that you’ve given me another chance. I know you’re probably the only woman in the world who can tolerate me putting him ahead of you in my life, because I know you’ll also put him ahead of me. And I love you even more because if it. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect woman.”

She was left trying to figure out how to respond to that when he leaned in and kissed her again. “And now I have to get a shower, shave, and get ready. I have clients coming in at eight and it’s almost seven.” He smiled. “Since I don’t have to take him to Tampa, I can’t play hooky from work.”

She lay there and watched his cute ass as he walked into the bathroom, where he closed the door behind him. A moment later, she heard the shower start.

Was this love? Really?

I’ve been through the wringer the past couple of weeks emotionally. How do I know I’m really in love with them and not just latching on to them because it makes my heart hurt less?

She wasn’t sure she wanted to figure that out right then.

At least the weather had improved. It would be a bright, sunny day, albeit on the hot and muggy side. She peeled herself off the couch, retied her robe, and grabbed a mug of coffee. She let Pers out of the bedroom and took him downstairs for a quick walk out back.

When he looked like he wanted to head toward the library, she shook her head. “Sorry, pup. I’m too tired. Maybe later.” She scooped him up and headed inside.

Before going upstairs, she went to the back room where several garbage bags full of the men’s clothes were stashed next to the stacked washer and dryer units. She didn’t know whose was whose, but unless she wanted Brad running around dressed in nothing but a towel all day, she knew she’d better wash something for him.

She rooted through the clothes and threw some underwear, shorts, and T-shirts in the wash together to start with, set on the shortest wash cycle. Hopefully Brad would sleep late and she’d have some ready for him by the time he awoke.

Back upstairs, she found Ellis was already shaved and out of the shower. He stood in the kitchen in slacks, but shirtless, and working on a bowl of cereal.

She walked behind him in the narrow space and slipped her arms around his midsection. When she pressed her face against his back, she could smell her bodywash on his skin.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He turned and put his arms around her. “No, thank you.” He tipped her chin up so she had to look into those gorgeous blue eyes. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be hauling Brad down to Tampa right now for a round of testing and medications that wouldn’t have helped him at all. We’d still be working on this months from now, with no clue what the problem was until the mold finally got so bad that it broke through the wall or something. You’ve saved us untold grief. Who knows? At the rate he was declining, you might have saved his life.”

“It’s still hard to believe it could have affected him that badly.”

He shrugged. “I’m not going to question it if it means he’s better now.”

Mandaline couldn’t take the intensity of his gaze any longer. She closed her eyes, pressing her cheek against his chest. The short, curly hair across his pecs tickled her cheek. “I don’t want to make a mistake. This soon after losing Julie, I’m afraid maybe I’m rushing into something for the wrong reasons.”

“I told you, I’ll wait you out as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere, and neither is he.”

“I’m a witch.”

He sounded amused. “I know.”

She took a deep breath. “I mean, I do spells and stuff. It’s part of who I am.”

“I know.”

“I read Tarot cards. For myself and others.”

“I know. Well, I don’t know anything about it, but I know you do stuff like that. Brad told me.”

“I run a New Age shop and do ghost hunting.”

He chuckled as he rubbed his chin across the top of her head. “I know.”

“I’m not selling or closing it.”

He outright laughed. “I know. I don’t expect you to. It makes you happy.”

She took a deep breath. “I dreamed about Julie and she led me to the mold. That’s how I found it. And…” She knew this wasn’t her secret to tell, but it had to get brought out in the open. “Brad was talking to her from the afternoon she died until this morning. She’d tell him things. Things there’s no way in hell he could have known, because only Julie and I knew them.”

He paused, but she felt him nod. “Okay. I believe you. I don’t know if I believe in what you believe in, but I believe you believe it, and that’s good enough for me.”

“I’m not going to change my beliefs or apologize for who or what I am. You have to accept me the way I am.”

He made her look at him again. His quiet, serious voice reverberated through the depths of her core. “I won’t ask you to change. Ever. Mandaline, I don’t care if you paint yourself purple and worship a flying eggplant from another universe. As long as you aren’t hurting yourself or anyone or anything else, I don’t give a flying crap what you believe. All I care about is that I can spend my life with you and him and be happy. If you’re happy, I’m happy. No, I won’t believe everything you believe in. If you want to set an altar up in my living room, go for it. You want to sacrifice a chicken, however, then I’m going to put my foot down.”

She smiled. “I don’t do that.”

“Sacrifice chickens, or paint yourself purple and worship flying eggplants?”

Damn, he’s got a cute smile. “Both. Neither.”

He leaned in and nibbled along her jawline until he reached her ear. “I’m going to wait as long as you need me to wait until you’re sure we’re what you want. Even if it means the worst case of blue balls I’ve ever had in my life. Even if it means I have to jerk off three times a day to keep my sanity. Because when you finally are sure, you will have to use a cold hose to peel me off your body for a while if you want a moment’s peace.”

Her breath caught in her throat as another wave of heat pulsed through her pussy. She’d thought she’d been satisfied by their earlier encounter, but now that only seemed to rev her up even more.

He kissed the side of her neck and gently released her, a playful smirk on his face. “I need to finish eating and get ready.” An eyebrow arched. “Unless you want me fucking you right here on your counter?”

She was about to say yes when she realized she couldn’t yet. Not without second-guessing herself to infinity…and beyond.

Not to mention one other problem. “I’m going to have to pay Doc Smith a visit today,” she said.

He frowned. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “But when we do get there, we’ll spend a fortune in condoms unless I get back on the pill.”

He grinned. “Worth every penny.”