Page 17 of Messy AF
“I love you,” he blurted, the confession bursting from his lips in a rush.
“Tobi, I—”
“It’s okay if you don’t love me back yet. I get it. I just needed you to know.”
Flexing my arms, I tugged him forward by his hands, catching him by the shoulders to pull him into a tender kiss. I kept the pressure light, and I didn’t linger, not wanting to trigger one of his symptoms again.
“And I need you to know that it’s not one-sided,” I murmured. “I love you, too. More than anything.”
His lips puckered as he huffed out a breath, but the smile that followed was pure radiance. “But if you change your mind—”
I hooked my arm around his neck and dragged him to my chest to silence him. “Knock it off.”
He chuckled, the sound filled with unrestrained joy. “You’re so demanding.”
“Yes.” I didn’t really see any reason to lie about that. “You don’t seem to mind, though.” Dipping my head, I skimmed my nose up the side of his neck, loving the way he shivered against me. “And you smell happy.”
“Do I?”
“Mm,” I answered. “Are you happy, angel?”
Tobi looked back at me with a smile, his tawny eyes reflecting the fading light.
“Perfectly.”
seven
~ Tobias ~
ThemomentIopenedmy eyes the following morning, I knew something had changed.
Okay, to be fair,everythingin my life had changed, but this felt different.
The low-level exhaustion that had been my constant companion for weeks had vanished. The subtle nausea that always plagued me didn’t exist. For once, movement didn’t feel like wading through soup, and even my limbs felt lighter, no longer weighed down by fatigue.
Sitting up on the side of the bed, I waited for the dizziness to hit, but it never came. I pushed to my feet, bending a couple of times at the knees. My legs didn’t wobble. The muscles in my thighs and calves didn’t cramp.
Even the brain fog had been burned away in the night, that haze of mild confusion lifting, bringing both the outside world and my inner thoughts into sharper focus.
“It’s over,” I whispered out loud. My heart fluttered, and giddy laughter bubbled from my lips as relief rushed over me. “It’s really over.”
Eager to share the news with my mate, I bolted from the room and hurried down the hallway, even the simple act of jogging bringing me a special kind of joy.
While we spent every waking moment together, Warren still insisted on sleeping in the guestroom at night. He had said something about giving me space to recover, but I suspected he did it because he found it hard to be near me, especially in such an intimate way.
We still kissed and held hands. We cuddled on the sofa and embraced every chance we had. Sadly, we had also been forced to limit the extent of our intimacy. Strong emotions triggered more intense episodes of my symptoms, which meant I could barely kiss him without passing out or getting dizzy.
Anything beyond a brush of lips set my heart racing. If we kept going, I ended up either clutching my head or unconscious in his arms. Needless to say, that kind of put a damper on clothing-optional activities.
Until now.
Without knocking or waiting for an invitation, I barged through the door of the guestroom, calling my mate’s name as I leapt onto the bed.
“Wake up! Warren, it’s over. It’s actually over.” I crawled on top of him, straddling his hips through the comforter that blanketed his big frame. “Warren, did you hear me?”
“Kind of hard not to,” he answered, slow and groggy. “You’re so loud the neighbors probably heard you.”
Pushing my knees into the mattress, I bounced on top of him, shaking him, trying to get him to stir. “Warren, you’re not listening! I’m trying to tell you that it’s over. I’m better. All the side effects are gone.”
