Page 50 of Never Too Late

“Wow! I didn’t realize I was abnormal.”

“You know what I mean. We’ve already discussed the fact that you get up at some ungodly hour in the morning.” I glanced at my watch, laughing when I saw it was a few minutes past five. I angled my wrist so Cillian could see it. “There you go. Time to get up.”

Somehow, and I hadn’t even seen him lift a hand, so I had no clue how he’d done it, Cillian hailed a passing cab and bundled us both into the back of it. His suitcase had appeared from nowhere as well.

“Magic case,” I said. “Do you click your fingers and it appears?” I lay my head back against the seat and tried not to fall asleep there and then. I didn’t try that hard, though, my eyes still closing. “Are you a leprechaun? Should I follow you to your pot of gold?”

“If you want,” Cillian said with a smile in his voice. “I think you’ll be disappointed, though, when you arrive and find it’s a building you hated so much that you ran away from it the last time you were there.”

“I didn’t run away from the building,” I mumbled. “I ran away from you.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright then.” There was a slight pause before Cillian said, “I left it with the lady at reception. The idea didn’t appeal to her initially, but—”

“But you convinced her,” I said with a smile. “You turned on the charm and she caved to the inevitability of doing whatever you wanted.”

“Something like that.” There was a slight lull in conversation, and then, “You make it sound like it’s a crime.”

“It’s fine,” I said, my eyes still squeezed tightly shut. “As long as you only use your powers for good and not evil.”

I must have dozed off then because the next thing I knew, the cab had come to a stop and Cillian was tugging me from the back of it. He supported more of my body weight than I did, propping me against a lamppost while he paid the driver. He kept casting furtive glances back at me, like he expected me to topple over if he left me alone for too long.

“Unlike me,” he said as he retrieved me from the lamppost and did a stellar job of maneuvering both me and the suitcase toward the entrance to my building, “you definitely need your eight hours of sleep.”

“I’ve been getting less than that,” I said dreamily as Cillian delved his hands into my pockets rather than ask for the key. He found it in the left pocket of my jeans, the way his hand brushed against my cock, making me rethink my earlier assertion that I wasn’t capable of anything sexual. Maybe if it was quick, and stimulating enough to keep me awake. “Some man has been appearing on my computer screen and keeping me up at night with his delectable dick.”

Cillian’s snort as he fitted the key in the lock and we tumbled inside the building said he’d be teasing me for that description later when I was more compos mentis. I roused enough when faced with the stairs to be more help than the typical sack of potatoes with getting up them. Cillian was still in possession of my keys, so he unlocked the door of my flat when we reached it. I’d left all the lights blazing and the heating on in my haste to get to the hospital.

“Toasty,” Cillian said. “You could grow tomatoes in here. Where’s the control for it?”

“Kitchen,” I said, happy to let him deal with it. A soft, padding noise on the carpet heralded Quasimodo coming to find out what was going on. I got a few moments of his attention before he clocked Cillian’s presence and headed for him. Bending over to stroke the cat, Cillian peered up at me through his fringe. “Where am I sleeping?” He jerked his head toward the couch. “Because I’ll be fine there, if that works better?”

“Bed,” I said, my vocabulary apparently reduced to only one-word answers. I headed that way, shedding clothes as I went and not caring where they fell. That could be a problem for tomorrow. Anything but getting a couple of hours’ sleep could be a problem for tomorrow. I didn’t even bother with a visit to the bathroom before climbing into bed in just my underwear. I dimly sensed Cillian’s presence in the room and the rustle of his clothes coming off, but my eyes remained firmly shut, and I couldn’t muster the energy to open them.

“I switched the heating off,” he said as the mattress gave beneath his weight. “And switched all the lights off.”

“Thanks.” I burrowed further into the pillow. “I need to be up soon to call work and let them know I won’t be in, and what happened to Laurent.”

“I’ll set an alarm.” Cool lips pressed to my temple. “Night Finn.”

I might have answered, or I might have fallen asleep and left Cillian hanging. There was no way of knowing.

Chapter Eighteen

I’d like to say that lucidity came in several slow stages when I awoke, but in reality it came with a cold, wet nose and a face full of whiskers being pushed into mine. “I’m not dead,” I mumbled.

Speech seemed to satisfy Quasimodo enough for him to jump off the bed and leave me blinking myself awake. The other side of the bed was empty, the momentary thought occurring that the previous night had been nothing but a bizarre dream. And them someone—Cillian—cleared his throat in the living room and I realized the entire thing, Laurent’s accident, my night spent at the hospital, and Cillian rushing to Paris to be by my side, had all been real.

I turned my wrist and stared at my watch, the sight that greeted me sending a flare of panic through my system just as effective as any cold shower for shedding the last strands of sleep. I narrowly avoided getting tangled in the duvet as I leaped out of bed, not stopping for clothes before bursting into the living room. “I thought you were going to set an alarm.”

Cillian looked up from the screen of his laptop, his air of serenity a startling contrast to my wild-eyed panic. “I did set an alarm.”

“You were supposed to wake me. I needed to call work.” I ran a hand through my hair, most of it plastered to my head. “I was supposed to be there at nine. That wasfourhours ago.”

Cillian gestured to the seat at the other side of the table. “Sit down.”

“Ican’tsit down. I need to find my phone. I’ve only worked there for a few months. Jules is gong to think I’m a complete flake.”

“Finn,sit down.” The stern voice did nothing for me. Him holding my phone up so I didn’t have to search for it, had me sinking into the seat, though. When I stuck my hand out for it, Cillian didn’t pass it across.

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