Page 35 of Rogue Survivor
Easing onto the bed next to her, I touch the cold pack to the bruise, using my other hand to hold her head still. The position has us face to face, close enough I can smell the hospital soap and something else. A light floral scent I could live in.
“The first few days with a cast, you bang it on everything,” I say quietly. “Hurts like hell too.”
“What happened to you?” she asks. I look away, and she takes over holding the ice pack, wriggling under the covers. “I know you were injured. But you never said how. Turn off the light and lie down. But tell me. Please?”
I’d relive the beating a thousand times if she asked me to, so I flick the switch and stretch out on my side facing her. With the light from the hall, I can still see her watching me, and I blow out a long, deep breath. “My brother’s ex was crazier than…well, let’s just say he’s a couple of sandwiches shy of a picnic. Quinton tried to tell me, but I didn’t see it. Couple of years ago, he fell down the stairs. His ex’s fault. Alec—the sombitch—started drugging him after that. Kept him locked away in a condo downtown and had him convinced he’d suffered permanent brain damage in the fall.”
“Oh, God. Some people really are evil,” Isabel whispers.
“Damn straight.” My knee starts throbbing in this position, so I roll onto my back. “I think I told you I broke his door and punched him to get Quinton out of there?”
“Still wish I could have seen that.” Her laugh shakes the mattress slightly, and I wonder if I could ever get used to this—to pillow talk. For Isabel? I think I could do anything.
“Quinton was so fucked up—mentally and physically—he needed professional help. I got him into a facility, helped him change his name, move out to Seattle, start over. And then, I did somethin’ so low, I had to look up to see hell.”
Isabel scoots closer and rests her hand on my chest, right over my heart. “I doubt that.”
“I left him. Went back to work—barely talked to him for over a year. Not until Alec started sendin’ mail to his place in Seattle.”
Neither of us say a word, and the silence is a physical weight pinning me down, clogging my throat and stopping my lungs from expanding. If I could take it all back—what I did to Quintonandwhat I just admitted to Isabel, I would. Take it back and hightail it out of here like my ass is on fire. But I can’t, and after I touch my fingers to the permanent divot in my skull from that damn baseball bat, I find the strength to breathe again.
“I set surveillance on the asshole. But when I showed up to relieve them, he was gone. I was spittin’ mad. And alone. Not watchin’ my back. Alec had friends. They got the drop on me and I woke up half naked in Flash Flood Alley with a storm rollin’ in and the two shitheads standin’ over me with baseball bats.”
Isabel draws in a sharp breath, and I can’t tell her the rest. Not in any detail. She’s too raw. Too worried about Veronica and Mitzi to hear it.
“I’m only alive because my brother had started dating a member of a mercenary group out in Seattle. The guy got in touch with Austin Pritchard—Zephyr’s boss—and he called in AJ and his brother Jasper.”
“And your injuries?” Isabel asks. Shit. Her lips are so close to my ear, her breath tickles my neck.
“Concussion, fractured skull, separated shoulder, shattered kneecap, three breaks in my right arm, couple of fingers, more than one rib, nerve damage—”
Her kiss stops me, one arm draping over my torso, and she molds her body to mine. “You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met, Connor. To survive all that and be…who you are? Makes me feel like…Veronica might be okay too. Someday.”
Cupping her ass, I pull her closer, her curves so fucking hot I may never fall asleep tonight. I’ll just replay this moment—imagining what she looks like under that tank top and shorts—on repeat until the sun comes up.
Her skin flushes hot, but she doesn’t make a move to retreat. Hip to hip now, I can’t hide how much I want her. How hard I am for her. If we don’t stop soon, we’ll both regret it, and though my balls are gonna ache for hours, I break off the kiss. “Promise me something?” I ask, almost panting with need.
“Anything.” Her voice cracks, and I think she’s as turned on as I am.
“When this is all over, we’ll do that again. Only we won’t stop.”
Isabel flops onto her back, and the absence of her heat, of her soft curves, leaves me cold until she links her fingers with mine. “Promise.”
Chapter Fourteen
Isabel
The scentof coffee tries to pull me from a dream I don’t want to end. Connor’s hands slide over my body, his thumbs hooking in my panties and dragging them down my hips. He groans my name inches from the apex of my thighs, but just as he’s about to taste me, the mattress depresses, and the moment shatters into reality. A reality where my jaw and cheek ache, my eyes are dry as the heart of a haystack, and all I want to do is hide under the blankets all day.
“Mornin’, darlin’.” Connor’s deep voice does what the motion and the aroma of coffee couldn’t, and I open my eyes. “It’s not a cappuccino, but it’s strong and hot.”
Like you.
Despite my exhaustion, I manage not to say the words aloud. His black t-shirt stretches across his sculpted chest and he’s smiling, but when he hands me the cup, his right arm trembles slightly. I reach out and trace the thick scars running from just above his wrist to his elbow.
“Does it still hurt?” I ask.
“Here and there. Nerve damage. My fingers go numb sometimes.” He shrugs. “Veronica’s break was simpler. Three months, it’ll be like nothing ever happened. Physically, anyway.”
