Shock Therapy, page 25
He winced as I tugged on his hair harder. “You’d better take your fill pulling my hair, amor, fast. I’m cutting it.”
“Don’t you dare! I love it long. It gives me so many things to do with it—and you.”
“Well, in that case, I may be convinced to grow it even longer. And if you’re into new looks, I can even go red.”
At the image of him in red hair, I just had to splutter.
Sobbing at the pain my giggles shot through my healing shoulder, I realized what he was doing. He was taking me away from grief and morbidity. And succeeding.
Though I still ached with the wounds and losses, though I still shivered at the ominous clouds gathering in our horizon, I no longer felt desperate with anguish or crushed under the weight of possibilities and responsibilities.
I felt ready to turn loss into empowering history, into a steadier future. I felt able to fight through whatever came crashing down on us. I felt ready to face anything. Together.
I pulled his face down to me for a fierce nuzzle. “Gracias, mi amor. Portodo. Teamo.”
He shuddered against me. “Madre de Dios, mi vida—do you know what you do to me when you talk in Spanish?”
“If it’s the same as what you do to me when you do, I’d say we’re even.”
Our gazes meshed, said everything.
Then he smirked. “So—still chickening out? Still taking back your marriage proposal?”
“Oh, definitely.” He pulled a face at me. I smirked right back at him. “I was under the influence, still am for that matter. But just for future reference, if one day I reconsider, will you ask for a solitaire?”
He pulled me into his great body, meshed our gazes. “I’ll ask for one all right. A one-of-a-kind-in-history one.” He squeezed me, at once tight and careful of my injury, carried me off the floor and into his power and cherishing. “This one.”
I relinquished his gaze, unable to withstand the intensity, the totality of his passion, my eyes and heart overflowing as I borrowed into his chest.
If one day I reconsidered, and he asked, I wouldn’t be able to deny him anything.
But that day might never come. We might not even survive long enough for it to be an option. All the more reason to take whatever we could, give all we could…now. Stock up on all the love and life we could, for the wars we might have in store for us.
Might? Who was I kidding? Those wars would come.
I squeezed Damian back with all my returning strength, welcoming the sharpness of pain, the proof of yet another chance at life I’d been granted.
As long as I had him, I’d be ready for anything.
Let the next war come.
If you enjoyed the adventures of Calista and Damian and would like to read more, the first two books in their series STRONG MEDICINE followed by RADICAL CURE are available everywhere were ebooks are sold online.
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Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Olivia Gates, Shock Therapy
