Page 35 of Ashes

A la mierda.

Hesitantly, I climbed onto his bed and placed a gentle hand on his arm, shocked by the heat of his skin through his long-sleeved shirt. He was burning up.

He cried out again and the vice grip around my heart squeezed tighter at seeing my husband in this state. I shouldn’t care, but I’d rather have him angry at me for being in his room than leave him like this.

I slowly reached for his hands, loosening his grip on the silk sheets. His body tensed, but I kept repeating “you’re safe, I’m here” until I found myself next to him, my back resting against his headboard.

The idea of how often this happened to him and who took care of him when it did crowded my thoughts.

I brushed my hand back over his silk head wrap repeatedly, whispering, “Te tengo.”

My heart was beating so fast.

With every minute that passed, his body relaxed further, his strained muscles loosening under the brush of my fingertips. He eventually nuzzled his head under the crookof my arm and one of his arms shifted across my lap, his fingers splaying across my thigh.

His body stirred and my name left his lips in a small murmur, causing my breath to halt. I glanced down and watched his features, waiting on bated breath for him to wake up.

He never did, his breathing evening out.

I watched over him thoughtfully, studying him closely. Every part of me wanted to reach out and trace the sharpness of his cheekbones, the slope of his straight nose, the curvature of his chiseled jaw.

But I fought the urge to trace the lines of his face, instead settling on brushing the fingertips of my right hand over his shoulder.

Although I wouldn’t admit it to myself, I was enjoying being able to look at him—soaking in this moment—without him knowing. There wasn’t a single wrinkle on his face as he slept.

A shocking fact especially with the amount of frowning he did. I’d expected at least a few frown lines.

More moonlight poured in from the window, illuminating the rest of his bedroom and distracting me from my perusal. I didn’t know whether his space was bigger than the room I stayed in because of how empty it was or because itactuallywas larger.

His bed sat in the middle of the room, a large crystal chandelier hanging right above us. The only other furniture I could make out were the nightstands on either side of thebed and the small armoire in the left corner of his room, right next to the large window.

The en suite bathroom door was ajar and the only thing I could make out from where I was sitting was the outline of a clawfoot bathtub and the beginning of a vanity sink, a mirror sitting right above.

My thumb was still idly drawing circles on his shoulder when I traced the edge of something raised under his shirt. I narrowed my eyes and looked closer, only to find a jagged scar peeking through at the edge of his shirt.

It seemed to travel farther down, but what I saw was so small, it was hard to notice until you were this close to him. My fingers itched to trace over it. To wake him up and find out what it was from, but I once again refrained.

Instead, I watched his chest rise softly, up and down, his expression much softer than when I’d walked in, however long ago.

Eventually, my adrenaline faded and the exhaustion from earlier took over. My eyes fell closed, the steady beat of his heart lulling me closer to sleep.

A few minutes later, I fell into a slumbered sleep.

CHAPTER 9

JAMAL

Why is it so warm?

I knew it wasn’t one ofthosenights because I would’ve woken up feeling the opposite, my body shivering from the cold sweats.

I could also feel the early morning rays of sunlight brushing my skin through the cotton shirt I wore to bed last night, but this was a different type of warm.

It was nice.

I knew I should probably wake up and get ready for work, but I wanted to bask in this comfortable nest for a few more moments.

Yesterday, Kai, Valentina, and I spent over eighteen hours in the basement running through simulations of how we’d interrupt Barrera and Bianchi’s meeting in three weeks. We were almost there, but our timing was still not efficient enough to avoid being seen.