96

96
ARTEMIS

It was something new every day with Kieran and Artemis as they fell deeper in love. It wasn’t just their habits that changed. Sleeping had also changed for them, and as ridiculous as it sounded, it was true.

If you asked Artemis, she wouldn’t be able to explain it without sounding like a fool. She was foolishly in love if you asked anyone who saw the way she acted around her husband.

Sleep was no longer something that was necessary for her to be able to wake up the next day feeling refreshed. It had become a place of reassurance for her. It had become a ritual for her to wake up multiple times in the night just to confirm that Kieran was beside her and he hadn’t gone to the guest room because he wanted to be away from her.

She would wake up in the middle of the night without any reason just to make sure he was still beside her. It was always the same, reaching for him, tapping the space between them whenever there was one.

Her body would always move before anything else as she reached across their bed in the night whenever Kieran wasn’t pressed behind her body.

She always found him. Every single time.

That night, Kieran lay beside her, breathing slow and steady when she reached for him. When she touched him, her body relaxed and she shuffled closer, not wanting to be apart from him.

It was a coping mechanism that she didn’t know when she developed, but she wasn’t complaining.

Her fingers brushed his arms as she turned to face him. She pressed her palms against his chest while the other hand traced the curves of his face.

She still didn’t like the space between them, so she entangled their legs and pressed her head against his forehead. She wanted to climb over him like she did so many times because she knew he would not complain, but she decided to let him sleep tonight.

Kieran had never complained once. Not when her hands pried or invaded his space or when she pulled him and forced him to wrap his hands around her.

She remembered the first time she did it. She thought he would be angry when he woke up, so she hurried to mutter an apology and moved back to give him space since the air was a little humid that night, but Kieran had pulled her back, wrapped his arms around her and pressed his nose to her neck.

“Don’t move away,” he murmured into her neck. “I like knowing you want me close,” he had told her, and she had relaxed, breathing out a sigh of relief.

She had held on to him tightly till the next morning. Artemis didn’t think she slept after that. Her stomach was warm and fuzzy because of his words, and the butterflies wouldn’t let her sleep, not even if she tried, so she lay awake the rest of the night and basked in the feeling of his warmth.

“You, okay?” Kieran murmured; his voice rough with sleep. She hadn’t realised that he had woken up. “Did you have a nightmare?” He asked with a gentle voice.

“No.” She answered with a smile and snuggled deeper into his embrace. “I just needed to touch you,” she said.

Kieran’s arms tightened around her immediately, pulling her flush against him as he pressed a kiss to her hair and then her lips. “I’m here. Go to sleep,” he said, not questioning her further because he was used to this.

She tried as she always did, but her thoughts would not let her. Everything was different now that she had stopped lying to herself. She didn’t have to pretend with Kieran again, and loving him felt so peaceful and serene. It was as though her feelings were so wide that they could swallow her whole if she let them.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she said into the darkness after a while.

“With what?” Kieran asked softly, half asleep.

“With all of this” She said, finding it hard to get the right words to describe what she wanted to tell him, but she tried. “Sometimes, my feelings scare me. It feels like I would burst with how much they are growing.”

She felt him smile against her hair before kissing her again. “I feel the same, but I am not scared.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I’ve felt this way for a long time. I’ve had to make peace with how much I love you even though you may never become mine.” He confessed, and the confession made her feel warm. And better.

“I hated watching you from afar when I didn’t have you, and now that I do, I hate being apart from you,” he continued. “I miss you all the time, even when you are in front of me.”

She laughed, feeling better. “That sounds unhealthy.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “Which is why I’ve been thinking…”

“Nope,” she interrupted him. Anytime they were having discussions like this and Kieran suddenly had an idea, it was never good.

“What? You haven’t even heard what I want to say,” he exclaimed with a grin.

“I know it’s going to be no good.” She sassed.

“Hear me out,” he insisted. “What if you quit your work as CEO of Silver Exports and come and work with me? You can take my seat if you want as long as I get to stare at your gorgeous face all day.” He proposed, and Artemis rolled her eyes, a grin on her lips because she was right. His ideas were never any good.

She smacked him lightly. “That would not happen.”

He laughed. “Well, it was worth asking.”

“I did not fight my way back to get it back just to leave it all so I could be a decoration in my husband’s office because he misses me every minute of the day,” she teased.

“You’d be a very expensive and beautiful decoration in my office if you ask me,” he mused. “I would stare at you all day without blinking.”

She laughed and pressed her face into his chest. “You are so silly.”

“It’s just for you,” he countered with a grin.

Eventually their laughter faded, leaving them in a peaceful quiet. Her fingers drifted to his hand, and she traced patterns along the length of his arms.

“I love you, Kieran.” She confessed into the darkness, and he froze.

It didn’t matter how much and how often he heard her say those words, he would never get tired of hearing her say those words.

“I love you more, Mrs Archibald,” he confessed as well.

He noticed she had gone quiet, so he nudged her. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” He asked, and she smiled.

“I don’t ever want this to end,” she whispered. Her voice was so fragile.

He didn’t hesitate to cup her jaw and lift it so she was facing him. “It won’t,” he said firmly with confidence.

She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his neck, breathing him in. She wanted to believe him, but the worries she wouldn’t voice out loomed above her.

Something with a C sitting at the bottom of her drawer glaring at her and warning her that there were just about three months left. What would happen after that?