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And then she drew up her knees and shifted to the side so that she was curled into him. “Thank you, Sir,” she said, her voice no more than a rasp.
He kissed her hair and lifted her limp body into his arms. “You were perfect, Kenna.” In the adjoining lounge, he laid her in the middle of the couch, and then he grabbed water and a blanket and shot off a quick text to Master Leo at the bar to have some food sent to them.
After he covered her, he settled into the corner cushion and placed a pillow on his lap, and then he encouraged her to lay against him. Her movements were sluggish and halting, but she managed to settle herself on him with her face snuggling in against his stomach. She was close enough to touch, so he gave into the need to stroke and caress her arm while she drifted in and out of consciousness.
When the knock came, Griffin gave the low command to enter. The female submissive saw Kenna dozing and gently placed the tray on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” he mouthed. She nodded and ducked back out.
As he stroked Kenna’s hair, he studied the arm that’d been injured. Her skin above the prosthetic was marked by scars, some that appeared surgical and others that appeared more haphazard and jagged. In fact, the closer he looked, the more little scars her saw—on her neck, on the side of her breast just visible underneath the blanket, even on the side of her face. And now that he thought of it, there’s been pale white marks on her right leg as well, as if something had impacted the whole side of her body.
What the hell?
Suddenly, Kenna stretched and arched, and she looked up at him with a small smile. “Sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. You achieving subspace fucking rocks my world.”
She rolled onto her back, looking away just a little, but not enough to hide that his comment had made her smile even more.
“How is your arm feeling?” he asked, still concerned from earlier.
“Pretty good,” she said, but there was a hedge in her tone that nagged at him.
“But not all the way good?”
She sighed and peered up at him. “Master Griffin, I feel phenomenal, which is why I seem to be boneless right now.”
He gave her a little smile. “I’m glad to hear that, Kenna, but I need to know about your arm so that I don’t hurt you. Because it would kill me to do so. So I need you to tell me.”
Her expression seemed to debate for a moment. “The suction of the socket acts as a kind of compression sock, so mostly, being upside down didn’t impact my arm too much. But the pins and needles sensation from the blood returning now that I’m right-side-up again is kinda intense. Honestly, though, knowing that sensation is actually real makes it much more manageable than the phantom pain I still have where my arm and hand used to be, so I don’t mind.”
She had phantom pain? In the forty-eight hours since he’d last seen her, he’d tried to educate himself on amputations, treatments, and any other special considerations, so he’d done enough reading to know that phantom pain was one of amputees’ most frequent—and troubling—complaints.
His gut dropped, and all those questions came rushing back. “Kenna, will you finally tell me what happened? Because it’s killing me not to know.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Okay,” Kenna said, sitting up. She supposed they had a lot of things to lay out on the table, and there was no sense putting it off. She shifted to sit up, and Master Griffin allowed her, although he kept her on his lap.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I got us some snacks.”
She gazed at the tray—and her heart squeezed. It was all her old favorites. The chocolate chip cookies for which someone in the kitchen should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, a bowl of ripe berries, mini-cheeseburger sliders, and a glass of orange juice thick with pulp. “You remembered,” she whispered.
“Everything, Kenna.”
She turned to him.
“I remember everything.” His expression was a mask of emotion, only she didn’t trust herself to read what was there. It looked like things she might once have wanted—only she wasn’t sure she could have them now. Or deserved them anymore.
