Page 58 of Last Destination

“Umm… would you both be able to give me some space? I just need to breathe for a second.”

He immediately rolled off the bed to the other side and stood. He wore only a pair of black boxer briefs and I blinked in rapid succession, absorbing the pure masculine beauty of the man clean and out of tattered clothing.

He’d lost weight — we all had — but it made his lean muscles stand out against his taut skin. The scars across his chest spoke to his bravery against the jaguar, and my gaze lingered on every marking telling the story of our escape. But the massive dragon tattoo across his thigh captured my attention the most, the intricate colorful design a sharp contrast to his rigidity.

Ambrose was beautiful, attractive and intensely intelligent. But my feelings for him didn’t feel real anymore. The emotion felt hazy on my periphery, like our connection was as real as Charlie.

Nikki rose with more reluctance. The gold flecks in his eyes shined back at me without his glasses to mute their bright shine. He reached toward the bedside table, and surprise filled me when he put them on. They were the same style and shape, but had been completely repaired. His black boxers matched Ambrose’s, like they were sharing a bulk pack, and every defined line of Nikki’s muscles glinted bronze in the morning sun. He’d shaved the dark stubble that had grown out in the rainforest and his ringlet curls had been washed and moisturized.

I’d had a crush on this man from the first moment I met him, and he’d told me he loved me while filling me with every part of his body and soul. I thought I loved him, too … But how could I have? Could you actually know love when you were losing your mind? The twinge in my heart felt like a phantom — like I’d dreamed my love for him and could just barely grasp what it felt like now that we were so far away from it.

What if none of it was real?

“Do you think it was real?”

Shit. Apparently, I’d said the words out loud. Ambrose cocked his head like he always did when he was challenging me, but his expression was calm and his warm eyes alight with compassion.

“There is nothing about this that isn’t real, baby girl.” Nikki’s eyes were far more frantic than Ambrose’s, but his voice maintained the smooth, British baritone that always calmed me in my worst moments. “You can’t fake this kind of connection.”

Swallowing the boulder clogging my throat, I stared into his eyes. “Charlie felt real, too. I’ve always cared for you, Nikki, but I’m not sure I can trust this. How would this even work? Three men?”

I blew out a shuddering breath, hating to admit this aloud, but it was an important factor. “Hell, on risperidone, I’m lucky enough to have a sex drive enough for one man, let alone three. I’d never be able to keep you all happy.”

As if on cue, the third man walked into the room. Madman halted at the doorway when he saw the three of us awake in what was sure to look like a weird bedside standoff.

“What is this?”

He took a step in, then another, until he was standing at the end of the bed next to the other two. At least he was fully clothed, dressed in a plain blue T-shirt with a colorful surfboard logo and a simple pair of gray sweatpants that did nothing to hide his ... endowment. He’d opted to keep his hair growing, and the spiky golden-brown strands gleamed in the daylight now that he’d had a proper shower. His penetrating blue eyes roamed over me as if he was conducting a medical assessment.

Three men. Three men whom I wouldn’t have survived without. They’d physically protected me, got me back on my meds when I couldn’t tell what was real or imagined. They cared, but enough to commit their lives to?

It didn’t make any sense.

“Marley is just telling us she doesn’t believe we care for her.”

“I never said that, Nikki, and you know it.” I scrunched my hands into fists and shoved them against my eyes in frustration. “I’m saying how do we know this” — I waved in a circle between the four of us — “isn’t the result of trauma and nothing else? I was seeing my dead sister for days. Days. If I could see a fucking ghost, how can I trust I didn’t just glom onto you three because I knew it was the only way to get us all to safety? If I’d crashed alone, I would have put the bullet in my brain myself. Maybe you were just a convenient way to meet a biological imperative. I don’t know!”

“I’ve loved you for years, baby girl, so no, I do know.” Nikki’s response froze me in place, my secondary tirade stuck to my tongue as I absorbed the words. “I want nothing else but this” — he gestured between the four of us like I had a moment ago — “and I’m willing to stick around to figure it out.”

His gaze paused on Ambrose, who refused to meet it and continued to stare at me instead.

Well, that was a hard declaration to ignore. How could he be so sure? I envied his resolve and loathed it at the same time. If only it were that easy.

“Nik, I just — I don’t know how to answer that right now.” My hands folded and unfolded in my lap, and I dropped my gaze to their chapped, rough appearance.

“Ambrose, you left a big life. Aren’t you returning to it?”

I thought I’d dreamed the whispered words he and Nikki exchanged over my head while I was in and out of sleep. As I kept talking, the muddled sentences became clearer, convincing me the conversation was real. Ambrose was leaving to go home by ship. Sometime this week. With no return date.

“You’re really telling me you’re willing to fit us into it? How? We don’t even live in the same country. I am so grateful for your quick-thinking and your commitment to getting us home — but this …” I trailed off, stumbling over my words. They hung in the air like a suffocating cloud, and when I looked up to meet Ambrose’s gaze, his eyes were cast downward and he looked equally at a loss.

My heart splintered when I realized I was giving a voice to all the words no one wanted to say, but they had to be said. This was a hell of a way to come back to life, but waiting for my full recovery would not make the loss any easier.

I turned to the stoic in the room. Madman, who hadn’t moved an inch, slid his hands casually into his pockets like none of my arguments meant anything to him.

“Madman, you are the most loyal person I’ve ever met. Whatever past you have, I don’t care, because you’ve shown us all the man you are. But what kind of future could we have? Why would you even want one with me?” My heart skipped in angry rhythms as I said the words, but they were true. “You have an entire world to explore now — one that you never imagined possible. Don’t you want to see it?”

I stared into his eyes, hoping I’d get a single flicker of emotion, but he was so good at hiding everything. “I’m one woman, literally your first. There are a hundred thousand out there that might be a better match. Why would you settle for me?”