AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Least someone is actually smart enough to listen to me around here,” Morelli quips. “She could be good for you, Elio. Really fucking good. As long as you stop getting shot and beaten and God knows what else on her behalf.”
I send a sweaty, pain-addled grin his way as I slowly release the back of Deirdre’s sweater. I don’t let go of her hand, though. I rub my thumb back and forth, slowly, across her skin.
“Eh,” I say, a nonchalant reply. “Worth it.”
Chapter 17
Deirdre
If I thought Elio was demanding at the best of times, it’s nothing compared to him now. Because now, he’s got the severity of his injuries hanging over both of our heads. Instead of threatening me with a spanking, now he threatens me in other ways. Like when we first get back to his room, and he tells me that if I don’t come with him into the shower then who will make sure he doesn’t collapse and die in there?
I never should have let him see how scared I was. I never should have let him see me worry. But I don’t know how I would have hidden it. The mere mention that he could have died sent me into a tailspin.
And does he ever know it.
“You’re supposed to be on bedrest,” I tell him stoutly as he limps to the bathroom. “That means, like, a sponge bath or something.”
“That’s fine then. Long as you’re the one holding the sponge,” he tosses back. Heat creeps up my neck at the thought of having him lying in bed completely naked as I stroke over him with a damp cloth.
“Fine,” I squeak. “A shower. But you have to sit down in there. And you can’t have the water too hot. And-”
“So many rules,” Elio interrupts. “You gonna come in here and make sure I follow them all? Plus, Doc said I shouldn’t get the splint wet.” He holds up his right hand, which currently has a thick black band around the wrist that connects upward with a protective casing over his pinkie and ring finger. His thumb and other two fingers are exposed.
As much as getting into the shower with Elio Titone sounds like an incredibly dangerous proposition, I actually am a bit worried about leaving him alone for any length of time. And I highly doubt he’s going to let anybody else babysit him in the shower.
“Alright. You just… stay there,” I say, heading for the closet in my room. Once there, I strip off the cashmere sweater, looking for something to replace it. Something that I can wear in the shower. The leggings I have on should be OK. I tug on a stretchy racerback tank top – the kind you’d wear to work out – then hurry back to Elio’s bathroom.
“OK. I’m ready. Get undressed,” I say, raising my chin and giving him my best bossy nurse voice.
“You first.”
“No,” I say, frowning. “I’m wearing this. And don’t argue, because you just need to quickly get clean and then rest. You don’t need any… distractions.”
“You’d be a distraction in a fucking potato sac,” he grumbles, but at least he doesn’t seem to want to press the issue. He’s not an idiot. He has to know I’m right. Me with him in a hot, wet, enclosed space wearing no clothes is definitely not a part of his treatment plan.
And maybe it isn’t even just that he knows I’m right. There’s a sickly grey pallor beneath his naturally tan complexion, and I think that he’s probably too tired, and in too much pain, to put up much of a fight. And that makes me nervous. Scared all over again.
I cover it up with huffy efficiency, moving past him to get into the shower and turn it on. I hold my fingers beneath the spray until I’m satisfied with the temperature.
I look up just as Elio, in all his naked glory, steps into the glass enclosure with me.
I can’t help the instant reaction that blooms in my belly. It’s a hissing frisson of nervous anticipation mingled with near-fearful awe at the sight of him. He’s so fucking big as he steps into the stream of water, so close to me that the tips of my breasts brush his chest on my next inhale. He leans his right elbow against the wall, keeping his splinted hand up and out of the water while the rest of him gets doused. His hair is slick with moisture, the thick locks shaping against his skull and causing heavy strands to fall forward. Just like I did downstairs, I don’t try to stop myself from reaching for his face. I smooth the soaked hair back, away from his forehead, then let my hands slide down his jaw. I literally feel his jaw go hard as he looks at me, the muscles tensing along the bones beneath my palms.
I don’t say anything for a moment, and neither does he. He doesn’t even move to touch me with his left hand. Just stands there beneath the water, letting my hands cradle his scarred face.
There’s no sound but the water falling around us like rain. I watch the glimmering rivulets the shower creates on his magnificent, broken body, tracking the moisture as it rolls down his neck, flattening the dark hair of his chest, then down, down, down. Down through the carved lines of his abdomen. Down into the thick thatch of black hair at his groin. Even relaxed and soft, he’s huge down there. I can’t believe he was inside me. My heart patters when I notice the dried, rust-red smears on his shaft, getting wetter now, being rinsed away like old water colour paint. It’s my blood.
“You should sit down,” I tell him, moving my hands from his face to his shoulders and exerting light pressure. I blink up at him through the mist. I’m not directly under the shower spray, but I can feel the moisture pinging off of him and splattering onto my face and chest. My bare feet are warmed by the water swirling around them before it goes down the drain.
“Not until you tell me something,” he says cryptically.
“Fine. What is it?”
He needs to sit down and rest as soon as possible, so I’ll tell him whatever it is.
“What did you say to me before? Down in the med room?”
I feel the place between my eyebrows crinkle with confusion.
