TouchStone for giving (The Story of Us Trilogy) by Sydney Jamesson

wince.
    “I’ll get them. Keep still.” He drags one away, allowing our arms to touch.
    “Why are they here? Were you afraid I might sneak up on you?” I flutter my eyelashes.
    He sniggers. “The doctor put them there to stop you from rolling onto your back.” He brushes his
    fingers along my arm. “My little genie has got some nasty bruises.” I watch his face reshape and form
    into a sympathetic frown. “That was a close call Beth. I don’t want you to ever have to go through
    anything like that again. I can’t afford to lose you.” The anguish in his voice is perceptible. “You’re
    irreplaceable.”
    “It’s okay Ayden. I’m alright now. You saved me.”
    He is shaking his head. “No. I didn’t. It was my fault the security wasn’t on duty. I left early, I was
    more concerned about the fucking merger and I forgot to tell the guys to cover you on Sunday night. I
    fucked up Beth.” His guilt ridden eyes lock into mine with more emotion than I can handle right now.
    I try to speak but he looks away and cannot hear my words.
    “You see, I was planning on staying with you and flying out this morning. I wanted us to have the
    weekend together, you know, after Rome.” I nod and continue to offer a patient ear. “How could I have
    missed that …?”
    “Ayden, I made you leave early, remember?” I try to lean over to wrap my hand around his face but
    the feeling of tightness and discomfort in my back prevents me. “Remember, you had a bolt put on my
    bedroom door and the bars on the window. Those things saved me Ayden.”
    “Don’t Beth. Don’t let me off so lightly. I deserve to feel bad about this. Look at you. You’re
    bruised and bandaged.” With his hand on his neck in that visible display of anxiety I’ve come to
    recognise, he inspects my body from top to toe. “Fuck! Look at you!”
    “Calm down. You feel like you’ve let me down, I get it. But you’re wrong, you haven’t. This is my
    past, it’s come back to haunt me. I knew it would one day.” I offer a smile of resignation but it’s not
    enough to banish his guilt.
    “He wouldn’t have found you if I hadn’t been so eager to show you off. For all those years you were
    safe and then I come along and … this!” As if embracing a small child, he softly wraps his arms
    around me, keeping clear of my back, resting his hands in my hair. “If anything had happened to you
    …” Harrowing notions cause a mask of pure anguish to obscure his beautiful features. He is a man
    tormented by dark thoughts of what could have been.
    “It didn’t and it won’t. I’ll heal.”
    “I want you to stay here until you’re well, so I can take care of you.”
    I smile inside and out at the prospect of being waited on hand and foot by this gorgeous man. “Have
    you any nursing experience?” I enquire playfully.
    “No but I’m a fast learner.” In that simple declaration, all shame and fear begins to dissipate. The
    muted hues of green begin to fade as that wondrous sparkle returns.
    “You do know that you’ll have to attend to my every need?” I purposely put my thumb nail to my
    mouth, faking innocence, waiting for the reaction. I’m not disappointed. He takes a lingering look that
    has me forgetting all about bandages and bruises; I see the sizzling intensity of his stare and it occurs
    to me I have not touched him, I mean really touched him for two whole days.
    He’s tutting. “Are you going to be a difficult patient?”
    “Not difficult but very demanding.” I lick my lips.
    “In that case I think I might contact the doctor and have him increase your medication. You’ll be
    less trouble, sedated.”
    I fake surprise. “I thought you liked trouble?”
    “Oh, as a rule I do but I think your body has been through enough. The last thing you need right
    now is any …” He stops to consider his next word. “ … exercise.”
    He means sex - I hope he means sex. There’s no way we can simply lie here together and