She dropped her arms to arch back further, riding him now as he took her, her fingers curling around his thighs.

“That’s it, poppy,” he rumbled, his one hand holding her steady, his other thumb circling deeper. “Take me.”

“Lo.”

He bucked harder.

“God! Lo!” she exclaimed, her sex convulsing around his shaft with her cl**ax, her cries short and low but sharp.

“Keep taking me,” he grunted, driving his h*ps up into her beautiful bucking body.

“Yes, Lo, yes. Forever, baby. I’ll take you forever,” she gasped, still cl**axing, and he exploded.

He pressed his head into the mattress. The muscles of his neck straining, he moved his thumb so that he could clamp both his hands on her h*ps to hold her tight to his cock. Thus, he shot his seed inside her on a grunt followed by a low rumbling groan that shook through him. And, at her whimper, he knew it shook through her.

He was barely recovered before he ordered brusquely. “Come here.”

Instantly, she dropped forward, her weight landing on him, her hot, wet sex still enveloping him. When she got close, she shoved her face in his neck.

Apollo wrapped his arms around her and turned his head so he had her ear.

“This is us. That was us. We’re here my poppy. We’re alive. We’re together, my dove.”

He felt her body still on his for a brief moment before she pressed it into his, pushing her face deeper into his neck.

“They will not take you from me,” he vowed and she slid her hand up his chest to curl her fingers around his neck and held on tight.

He memorized that too, everything, burning all that was Madeleine at that moment into his brain before he slowly sat up, taking her with him, reveling in the noise that was part surprise, part pleasure that glided up her throat.

He found his feet, holding her to him. She wrapped her legs around him and he moved through the room. He stopped by the pitcher of water left for them. He lifted her gently, sliding her off his c**k and setting her on her feet. Holding her in his arm, carefully, he cleaned her as she leaned against him.

“Stay close, dove,” he murmured as he let her go.

She did as asked and he disrobed, dropping his boots and clothes to the floor where they stood. He then moved his attention to her, unhooking the stays at her back and dropping her bustier to the floor.

Apollo then lifted her and carried her to the bed. Bending low, he threw back the covers, still holding her close. He placed her in the bed, joining her there the minute her back hit the mattress, covering her. He pulled the bedclothes over them and shifted his weight into a forearm.

He then looked down at her to see her gazing up at him. Her eyes warm and sleepy.

And trusting.

His chest warmed as he lifted a hand and brushed a lock of hair from her face.

“I will ask one thing more of you before I let you sleep,” he whispered.

She slid her arms around him as she replied, “Anything, Lo.”

“I wish you to listen to me.”

She nodded, her head moving on the pillow, her eyes never leaving his. “Of course, honey.”

He cupped her cheek and dipped his face close before he began, “At first, we missed it.”

He watched her blink in confusion but he went on.

“The time she carried Élan, like with Christophe, was uneventful.”

When understanding dawned, Apollo felt Maddie’s body tighten under his but he continued.

“The birth, however, was complicated. Christophe slid easily into this world. Élan gave Ilsa more difficulty.”

“Apollo—” she whispered and he pressed the pads of his finger in.

“Listen,” he whispered back.

She closed her mouth and nodded again.

“Looking back, due to the birth, we both missed it. Even she, a physician. We thought her body was taking its time recovering from bringing Élan into this world. The extreme fatigue. The constant lethargy. Though, even if we caught it, there was nothing to be done.”

“All right,” Maddie whispered when he didn’t go on.

“And then it happened fast,” he told her softly. “She just started wasting away.”

She closed her eyes.

Apollo slid his hand to her neck and she opened them again.

“We disagreed about Christophe, Ilsa and I,” he shared. “She thought like a physician, sometimes clinically. Thus, she felt that life was life and, even for children, it was not wise to shelter them from it too much. He was only four. So very young. I did not want him to see his mother that way. To remember her that way. She was energetic. Lively, in her way. Not like Élan, the way she had was all Ilsa’s. I didn’t want him to see her thin, gaunt, in pain. I didn’t want him to remember her that way. She wished to see her son, but I denied her. I did this for Christophe. I struggle still if I made the right decision.”

“You did,” she said gently, her arms around him tightening.

His Maddie, so loyal, telling him what he wanted to hear.

“I will never know if you speak true, my Maddie,” he murmured. “They had a bond, much like what he has with me. And if it were me abed, my power stripped, sickness eating away at me, pain crippling me, I would wish him not to see me like that. I would wish him to remember his father as vital. Jovial. Whole.”

“So you did the right thing,” she replied.

“He did not see her at all the three months before she passed. I robbed them both of each other to protect my son.”

Maddie swallowed but said nothing.

“It was torture,” he whispered.

She pulled her arms from around him so she could slide them up his chest, his neck, to frame his face as she murmured an aching, “Honey.”

“All of it was, Madeleine, watching her waste away, watching the pain consume her, keeping our son from her. Torture. Every moment.”

Her hands on him lightly squeezed.

“Tonight, the black mist took you, and I felt all that torture, months of it, condensed in an instant,” he declared and her eyes grew wide. “It was the most excruciating moment of my life.”

At that, he watched her eyes fill with tears.

“Baby,” she breathed.

Suddenly, he found his fingers shoving up into her hair, the pads digging into her scalp and he brought his face to a breath from hers. “Tonight we learned we must hold tight to happiness, my dove. Every day…every moment…is a gift. We must hold tight to that, Madeleine, and never let go.”

“Yes,” she whispered.