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When she’d rolled over on top of him, warm and sleepy, he’d thought maybe she wanted to cuddle. He would have been perfectly content with that since she’d felt a little skittish for the past few days. Then she’d started kissing her way down his body until her head was under the covers. She’d teased him for a while and then sucked him off. He’d come hard and likely too loud, and then she’d climbed back up his body, smiling and still half-covered by the sheet and duvet.

“Thank you,” he managed to say, trying to catch his breath in the wake of the release. “Thank you, angel.”

“You’re welcome.” She beamed at him, looking quite pleased with herself. Her cheeks were pink, and her long hair was tousled around her face and small body. She wore one of the simple, comfortable nightgowns she preferred in a soft, stretchy material with thin straps. One of the straps was falling down her shoulder, skewing the neckline so he could see most of one breast.

Nothing he’d ever known had been sweeter or sexier than she was at the moment. He pulled her into his arms so that she was lying on top of him, their legs intertwined.

He loved her. Never wanted to let her go. And somehow a miracle had happened. The universe had granted him an inexplicable gift. A longer life with her.

But she hadn’t said anything about forever since the appointment with the doctor. She hadn’t even told him she loved him.

He’d believed her when she said the words before, but circumstances had been different then.

Maybe her love had been shaped by grief and pity. Maybe it had been the urgency of the abbreviated timeline that had intensified her emotional response to him.

Maybe her heart had shifted with his diagnosis.

She still acted like she wanted to be his wife. She’d gone with him to the legal meeting about the settlement and to another doctor’s appointment yesterday to work out a plan for treating his migraines. She’d suggested he make an eye appointment in case changes in his vision were giving him the tension headaches when he worked. She’d appeared to want to spend a lot of time with him.

But she hadn’t opened up to him about how she was feeling, and anytime he tried to discreetly bring up the topic, she shifted the conversation. As much as he wanted to talk to her about it, he was determined not to put her on the spot. If she needed time to adjust and then make a decision, he was going to give her that.

But it was hard, holding himself back from grabbing her and demanding she tell him that she still loved him.

“You feeling okay this morning?” she asked him after a minute, pressing a couple of unfocused kisses against his shoulder.

He chuckled, soft and breathy. He ran a hand down the length of her hair and back. “I feel pretty damn good at the moment.”

He felt rather than saw her smiling in response.

“No headache?” she asked after a few seconds.

“No headache. Of course, I haven’t been working for the past couple of days.”

“I know. If there’s nothing wrong with your vision, we can try to experiment with some other things. Maybe your posture or position while you work. Some people swear that those standing desks are the way to go. Or maybe taking more breaks or something. I’m sure we can figure out something to keep you from getting a headache every time you write.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t even all that concerned about it at the moment. Those headaches hadn’t been full-blown migraines, sothe thought of dealing with them didn’t bother him all that much.

Especially when compared to dying from a brain tumor.

“And we’ve got the new medication to hopefully stop the migraines before they get bad, and if that doesn’t work, there’s a bunch of those alternate treatments we can try.”

“I know.”

“And you’re never going to drink red wine again.”

His mind wasn’t yet working at full capacity after his orgasm, so it took him a minute to process what she’d said. “What? Red wine?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking, and you had red wine with dinner the night before every single major migraine you’ve had since we got married.”

He frowned, trying to recall back. “I did?”

“Yes. I didn’t put it together until the doctor said they were migraines. But red wine is evidently a major trigger for a lot of people.”

His hand grew still in her hair. “Huh. Maybe so.”

She raised her head to gaze down at him. “And if there are other triggers, we’ll work those out too. So in conclusion, I think we can get the migraines under control so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life as miserable as these past few months have been.”

His chest swelled with a soft feeling. She was so earnest and anxious and gentle. Three months ago, he’d had no idea about the depths of tenderness in her heart. “The past few months haven’t all been miserable.”

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