His eyes narrowed. “What about it?”
“My fractures have healed, but the nerve damage isn’t clearing. Eight weeks ago, you said I wouldn’t be able to operate for months. Were you being overly optimistic? Will I ever regain the precision I used to have and need as a surgeon?”
“It’s still early, Cybele.”
“Please, Rodrigo, just give it to me straight. And before you say anything conciliatory, remember that I’ll see through it.”
“I would never condescend to you like that.”
“Even to protect me from bad news?”
“Even then.”
She believed him. He would never lie to her. He would never lie, period. So she pressed on. Needing the truth. About this, if she couldn’t have it about anything else.
“Then tell me. I’m a left-handed surgeon who knows nothing else but to be one, and I need to know if in a few weeks I’ll be looking to start a new career path. As you pointed out before, the arm attached to my hand had extensive nerve damage…”
“And I performed a meticulous peripheral nerve repair.”
“Still, I have numbness and weakness, tremors-”
“It’s still too early to predict a final prognosis. We’ll start your active motion physiotherapy rehabilitation program the moment we have proof of perfect bone healing.”
“We have that now.”
“No, we don’t. You’re young and healthy and your bones look healed now, but I need them rock solid before I remove the cast. That won’t be a day before twelve weeks after the surgery. Then we’ll start your physiotherapy. We’ll focus first on controlling the pain and swelling that accompanies splint removal and restoration of motion. Then we’ll move to exercises to strengthen and stabilize the muscles around the wrist joint then to exercises to improve fine motor control and dexterity.”
“What if none of it works? What if I regain enough motor control and dexterity to be self-sufficient but not a surgeon?”
“If that happens, you still have nothing to worry about. If worse comes to worst, I’ll see to it that you change direction smoothly to whatever field of medicine will provide you with as much fulfillment. But I’m not giving up on your regaining full use of your arm and hand. I’m stopping at nothing until we get you back to normal. And don’t even think about how long it will take, or what you’ll do or where you’ll be until it happens. You have all the time in the world to retrain your hand, to regain every last bit of power and control. You have a home here for as long as you wish and accept to stay. You have me, Cybele. I’m here for you, anytime, all the time, whatever happens.”
And she couldn’t hold back anymore.
She surged into him, tried to burrow inside him, her working arm shaking with the ferociousness of her hug. And she wept. She loved him so much, was so thankful he existed, it was agony.
He stilled, let her hug him and hold onto him and drench him in her tears. Then he wrapped her in his arms, caressed her from head to back, his lips by her ear, murmuring gentle and soothing words. Her heart expanded so quickly with a flood of love, it almost ruptured. Her tears gushed faster, her quakes nearly rattling flesh from bone.
He at last growled something as though agonized, snatched her from gravity’s grasp into his, lifted her until she felt she’d float out to sea if he relinquished his hold.
He didn’t, crushed her in his arms, squeezed her to his flesh until he forced every shudder and tear out of her.
Long after he’d dissipated her storm, he swayed with her, as if slow dancing the Sardana again, pressing her head into his shoulder, his other arm bearing her weight effortlessly as he raggedly swore to her in a loop of English and Catalan that he was there for her, that she’d never be without him. His movements morphed from soothing to inflaming to excruciating. But it was his promises that wrenched at the tethers of her heart.
For she knew he would honor every promise. He would remain in her life and that of her baby’s. As the protector, the benefactor, the dutiful, doting uncle. And every time she saw him or heard from him it would pour fresh desperation on the desolation of loving him and never being able to have him.
She had to get away. Today. Now. Her mind was disintegrating, and she couldn’t risk causing herself a deeper injury. Her baby needed her healthy and whole.
“Cybele…” He shifted his grip on her, and his hardness dug into her thigh.
She groped for air, arousal thundering through her. Voices inside her yelled that this was just a male reaction to having a female writhing in his arms, that it meant nothing.
She couldn’t listen. It didn’t matter. He was aroused. This could be her only chance to be with him. And she had to take it. She needed the memory, the knowledge that she’d shared her body with him to see her through the barrenness of a life without him.
She rubbed her face into his neck, opened her lips on his pulse. It bounded against her tongue, as if trying to drive deeper into her mouth, mate with her. Every steel muscle she was wrapped around expanded, bunched, buzzed. She whimpered at the feel of his flesh beneath her lips, the texture, the taste, at the sheer delight of breathing him in, absorbing his potency. “Cybele, querida…” He began to put her down and she clung, captured his lips before he said any more, before he could tell her no.
She couldn’t take no for an answer. Not this time. She had to have this time.
She caught his groans on her tongue, licked his lips of every breath, suckled his depths dry of every sound. She arched into his arousal, confessing hers without words. Then with them. “Rodrigo-I want you.” That came out a torn sob. “If you want me, please-just take me. Don’t hold back. Don’t think. Don’t worry. No consequences or considerations. No tomorrows.”
Rodrigo surrendered to Cybele, let her take of him what she would, his response so vast it was like a hurricane building momentum before it unleashed its destruction.
But her tremulous words replayed in his mind as she rained petal softness and fragrant warmth all over his face, crooning and whimpering her pleas for his response, her offer of herself. He felt things burning inside him as he held back, the significance of her words expanding in his mind.
Carte blanche. That was what she was giving him. With her body, with herself. No strings. No promises. No expectations.
Because she didn’t want any? Because her need was only sexual? Or because she couldn’t handle more than that? But what if she couldn’t handle even that? If he gave her what she thought she wanted and ended up damaging her more?