“You’re standing,” I mouthed and swatted away some of my tears.
“It feels real now. With you here, it finally feels real,” she whispered, wobbling a little and gripping the door. My first instinct was to reach for her. But I tightened every muscle in my body and held back. I wouldn’t do that to her. “Can you believe it? I can lift my foot too and shuffle a little.” She looked down at her feet and my eyes followed her gaze. I held my breath then she wiggled her toes a couple times and I grinned.
She had this.
She had us.
In a very slow and shaky movement, she lifted her right foot off the floor. It looked like it took a Herculean effort, but she did it. My woman took a step. Then she inched her left foot forward too. She regained her balance and met my watery eyes. Her left hand gripped the railing lining the wall, but her right hand was now outstretched and reaching for me. With two more small shuffles she was in my arms again. And I was spinning her around like a fool.
“You walked,” I yelled. My woman fucking walked. To me. I wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs. I could’ve punched through steel. I could’ve dove headfirst out of a plane. I was ready to drop to my knees and thank every God, superpower, or spiritual entity that made this possible. I thought I knew what it was like to experience joy and true happiness. I had no clue. Or maybe I had and this feeling—right this very second—had yet to be named, because I couldn’t imagine many people had ever felt this surge of overwhelming, all encompassing emotion.
I thought it was impossible to love this woman any more. But I was wrong.
Nothing was impossible.
I crushed her against my chest and showered her hair with kisses and tons of I love yous. There was no way I could ever tell her enough but I was sure as hell gonna try. Pulling back, she swiped at her fresh tears and lit up the hall with her smile again.
“PTs say I’m getting stronger every day and you know what’s crazy, I can actually feel my muscles working. This wasn’t exactly my vision of how I was going to show you, though.” She laughed, glancing around at the elaborately decorated corridor. If my chest swelled any more I was going to crack ribs.
“It’s perfect.” She knew I didn’t give a fuck about the location. “You moved your legs. Teeps, I just watched you move your legs. That was the hard part, making them stronger … that’s the part we have forever for. You’re perfect.” This was perfect. Everything was perfect.
She mischievously bit her bottom lip and my lower half whose blood supply was abruptly cut off with her first step sprung to life. “Forever sounds perfect. But if I recall, before I interrupted your male mission with my little walking escapade, I think you were looking for this.” Her long fingers disappeared into the miniscule triangle of fabric covering her right breast, revealing enough skin to drive me wild before magically whipping out a credit card sized key card.
“Well, that was one hell of a perfect interruption. But if I recall, you promised me clothes with pockets.” I raised my brows to see if she remembered.
She chuckled. “Yoga pants and hash brown morning.”
“Yup. And now that I have you back in my arms, let me tell you something else. The next time you decide to wear this, I better be there, or I can’t make any promises on what might happen to the assholes’ jaws I’m picking up off the ground. You hear me, Tal? I’m serious. This bathing suit is for when my ass is on the chair next to you.”
She ran her tongue across her bottom lip. “Fine. I won’t wear the suit … without you. Promise. Besides I bet you’d like it best on the floor anyway.”
“Ah, Tal. Fuck. We aren’t even gonna make it to the bedroom if you keep that sassy mouth up.” We had some serious celebrating to do.
In one swoop the door was thrown open and she pointed in the direction of what I could only assume was the master. Her suite seemed more like a penthouse. She could have been in a closet, it wouldn’t have mattered—I wanted these bits of fabric gone.
I lay her down on top of the bed, and she was a sight to behold. Her bronzed skin was a sharp contrast to the crisp white comforter beneath her. And her blonde hair looked just like the sun. I kicked off my shoes and crawled on top of the bed. I watched in awe as she bent her knee with the help of her hand to scoot back. It was like she had been maneuvering herself like this forever. And as crazed as I was to have skin on skin I needed to know, “When? How long?” I asked as I continued up and over her, supporting my weight on my arms. We were mere inches apart and just where I wanted to be. Well, almost where I wanted to be, other parts wanted to be closer.
“It was kind of all of a sudden.” She looked up at me and scanned my face, landing on my eyes. She pushed some hair from my forehead and I smiled. She loved my hair. “I bent over and picked up the weight ball Julius and I were tossing back and forth, and I lost my balance in the chair. It had happened a dozen other times before then and my first instinct was always to put my foot down, but it never moved. That day it just did.” She wiggled her legs beneath me. It was the way it should be. The way it should have always been.
I peppered her face with soft kisses, I was so happy for her. For us. And I was torn between wanting to hear every last detail of her recovery or wanting to hear every last detail after I stripped us bare and made love to her. I found the sweet spot on her neck and trailed my tongue along her jaw, sucking her soft earlobe into my mouth. When her back arched off the bed needing more contact and my pelvis returned the favor, I decided after was the way to go. And since I was unable to really think or compute with the majority of my blood perfusing the wrong head, I simply asked, “Julius?” Mentioning another man was not usually part of my foreplay, but to my knowledge Tal hadn’t worked out with Julius since before she left.
The calm in her eyes turned to a slight panic. I hated and instantly regretted saying anything. “Please don’t be mad, I wanted to tell you ... I did. But I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I knew it was a good sign, but we were excited before, and I couldn’t bare for my recovery to monopolize any more of your life.”
I lightly brushed her lips before I set her straight. “First of all, you’re my life, get used to it.” This time my tongue sought to taste, there was nothing quick about my second kiss. When I spoke again, our breathing was labored. “Second of all, I’m done with being mad or hurt or any other useless waste of our time. All I care about is here and now and the fact you can do more than feel those beautiful legs. I’m so happy for you, Teeps.” It was true, forget the how, it was irrelevant.
“Me too,” she whispered with genuine elation. Her electric smile set fireworks off in my spine. “But we still have a long way to go, I won’t be skiing black diamonds anytime soon.”
I loved that she said we. We were perfect and I used my mouth to show her just how perfect we were. Slow and soft was done and it was way past time for hard and hungry. This time when my tongue sought entrance to dominate our dance, Tal beautifully submitted, allowing me to find our passionate rhythm. She writhed under me, feeding fuel to my already scorching fire. I pulled at her hair tie, releasing her ponytail. Digging my fingers through her blonde silk and massaging her head, she let out the most erotic moan.
Starved for air, I pulled away mumbling, “Fuck the diamonds, they’re overrated.”
“What, no gentleman?” she panted. Her sass made my rock hard cock twitch.