Always (Spiral of Bliss #5) - Nina Lane Page 0,108

me.” I press a hand to my chest, my heart that beats in rhythm with hers. “Everywhere. You are the key to every part of me.”

“Except when you build walls that have no doors or locks.” She lifts her head, her eyes warm and gentle. “I can’t force my way in, Dean. You have to let me in.”

I have to keep her in, this woman who has all the power in the world over my pain. She’s my fire and my freedom. She’ll always be the girl who saved me.

“I will.” My voice is hoarse. “I promise.”

I tighten my arms around my wife. Sleep washes over me, heavy and unbroken.

Chapter 38

Olivia

Star Wars Band-Aids cover the scrapes and cuts on Dean’s hands. His knuckles are bruised and swollen. Sorrow pulses alongside my heartbeat. I’d known he wouldn’t react well to what I told him, but I hadn’t expected this level of destruction, both to his tower and to himself.

And yet, I had to tell him. Though his reaction makes me ache, I’m relieved I was finally able to confess what I’ve been thinking for a while now. And I’d given him the unvarnished truth.

Dean will always have all of me—every warm patch of sunlight and every cold, dark corner. And while he has never flinched from any of the monsters lurking in those corners, he’s never had to battle the only one strong enough to destroy him. The acknowledgment that someday, he might have to live without me.

As we stand at the kitchen counter—Dean buttering toast, and me making sandwiches for the kids’ lunches—I reach out to touch his bruised hand.

“I love you like a shoe loves a sock,” I say.

“That’s why we’re sole-mates.”

He winks at me, and we exchange smiles. A pleasurable flutter of warmth goes through me, settling into my core. Momentarily surprised, I finish packing the lunches and go to join Bella and Nicholas at the table.

As we finish breakfast and head upstairs to get ready for the day, I covertly watch Dean, taking note of all the things about him that I’ve always found so wildly sexy.

Which is to say…everything.

The way he lifts his coffee to his mouth by wrapping his hand around the mug rather than the handle. The way his watch encircles his strong wrist. The deft flick of his fingers as he fastens his cuffs. The perfect knot of his tie nestled into the hollow of his throat. The way he rests his palm on the back of my neck when he kisses me goodbye.

I keep the resurgence of arousal to myself for a couple of days, content to simply enjoy feeling it again. Dean and I have done a great deal of touching and hugging since I started chemo, but we haven’t had sex.

We haven’t done anything sexual, even. I wonder if he’s actively been restraining himself from instigating sex, or if he hasn’t wanted to.

Definitely the former, I think.

Aside from the fact that Dean has never not wanted to have sex, if that’s the case now, that would mean he’s turned off by this illness, by stress and worry, by the battle we’re in, even by…me.

No. Not going there. If anything, he doesn’t want to put any undue pressure on me, since he knows very well sex hasn’t exactly been the first thing on my mind.

It is, however, one of the things on my mind now.

I’m in a stretch of time before my next treatment when I feel good—more energetic and more like myself. While feeling sexy still seems utterly elusive, I know I need to enjoy how I do feel rather than how I don’t.

Before bed, I slather thick lotion all over my skin to combat the never-ending dryness. I’m still not interested in wearing lingerie or anything that will show too much of my body, but I put on a tea-length, pink nightgown with decorative floral lacing on the bodice. With a pink scarf around my head and an application of makeup, I’m as attractive as I’m going to get right now.

I’m also nervous. Because while Dean and I have certainly had issues over the years, our sex life has always been powerful and intense. Even during our rough times and dry spells, sexual tension has always simmered between us, and I’d never doubted that our explosive heat would return full force once we sparked it back to life.

And it has. Every single time.

But now? For the first time in all our years together, the prospect of sex is yet