Angel leaned over Tommy. “Please open your eyes.”
Tommy moaned once more and turned his head from side to side, but never opened his eyes. “Angel? Jessi?”
“We’re here,” Jessi’s voice squeaked.
Angel was too choked up to speak, but his quivering lips smiled across his face.
Then Tommy was still.
Chapter Six
There was a rapid fire machine going off inside Tommy’s head. A spotlight blared down at him and blocked his vision. He shielded his eyes with his forearm and turned his head to the side. He moaned at the pain. He was disoriented, unsure why he was on the floor of the stage and why his head felt like it was about to split open. The arena was strangely quiet. The only voices he heard were Jessi’s and Angel’s. Why wouldn’t the techs turn off that damn spotlight?
He moved his arm from his eyes a few inches, and white, blinding light glared down at him with a prismatic glow. He squinted from its brightness and suddenly both Jessi and Angel blocked its path. He could see clearly now. Something was wrong. He wasn’t on stage. He was outside on the ground, and the stench of smoke scorched his senses.
Jessi had a small bruise under her eye. Angel’s face and forearms were covered in soot, as if he had been fighting a fire. They both had tears streaming down their cheeks, but they wore broad smiles. It was bizarre. He tried to move, but a sledgehammer knocked on the inside of his head.
“Don’t try to get up yet.” Angel’s hand on Tommy’s chest was a lead weight. “You have a head injury.”
That explained why it felt like someone was trying to kick their way out of his skull. The shoulder of Jessi’s top was ripped, and Angel was bare-chested. In the background, smoke billowed up to the sky like a black funnel. It all rushed back to him at once – the turbulence on the plane, spiraling in the air, and then pummeling toward the ground. They were in a plane crash. “Oh my God!” He jolted up at the waist. “Are you two all right?”
The quick movement made his head throb and a bout of dizziness made everything spin. He held his aching head in his hands and slumped forward. Jessi and Angel were on either side of him, simultaneously holding him up and hugging him.
He slowly regained his focus and wrapped his arms around Jessi and Angel. He pulled them close and squeezed them as hard as he could. His lips went to Jessi, then to Angel, and relief washed over him when he realized they weren’t injured. One of them could have been killed. He could have lost one of them – or both of them. The horrific thought made his body tremble, and he held them tighter. He never wanted to let them go. He never wanted to be more than a foot away from either one of them again. “If anything would have happened to either of you . . .” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“We’re fine, baby.” Jessi gazed at him with large tears hanging on her lower lids. “Are you hurt anywhere else, besides your head?”
He paused to assess his pain. There was mild bruising on his arms and legs, but he was otherwise uninjured. “No. I think I just hit my head. What about the crew? Did they make it?”
“They’re fine,” Angel answered. “Everyone made it out of the plane before it exploded.”
“Angel saved you,” Jessi announced. “He ran back into the burning plane to find you, after he carried me out and made the pilot and flight attendant hold me back. I was frantic. I thought I wasn’t going to see either one of you again, and then Angel comes walking out of the smoke carrying you in his arms like a hero.”
Tommy was overwhelmed. “A, you could have been killed.”
“I don’t care,” Angel was quick to reply. “There was no way I was exiting that plane without you, and I needed to make sure Jessi was safe.”
“You risked your life for me? Angel . . . thank you. I can’t believe you did that.”
“What’s not to believe, mi amor? You are my heart and my soul. My love and my life.”
Angel placed the palm of his hand on Tommy’s cheek and leaned closer. His usual possessive and commanding kiss was gentle and tender. It was a slow brush of his lips, followed by a soft twirl of his tongue and a silky caress of his hand on the back of Tommy’s neck. There was such powerful emotion emanating from Angel’s touch that it made Tommy melt into his husband’s arms. He pulled Jessi into their embrace, and he held them both in a tight circle. It was still hard to comprehend everything that had happened, and he needed to feel them under his touch just to confirm that they were still here with him. He would never make it without either one of them.
The pilot and flight attendant returned with a first aid kit. “You’re awake,” the flight attendant said. “There wasn’t much left after the explosion, but at least this was salvaged.” She knelt down and opened the small square case. “The antiseptic will—–”