Page 318 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Siena almost felt like a sludge hammer had come and beat her right in the chest. “A whole day?”

“Your surgery took about five hours. There was a lung to repair, and a small piece of heart. Once in there, I found fragments from the bullet had embedded into different places. I didn’t want to leave those in, so what should have been three hours turned into five. I suspected six—sometimes we all win.”

Siena coughed, and pain followed all over again. Blinding, aching pain deep in her chest cavity that then spread throughout her entire nervous system. As though it was her body’s way of trying to numb the pain a bit by spreading it out.

Still, it fucking hurt.

She pulled back the hospital gown to see the bandages wrapped around her chest. She suspected there was going to be a mighty scar left behind, but it was only details in the background of far bigger thoughts.

She had survived.

She was alive.

“How long is it going to feel like this?” she asked.

“Hmm, like what, sweetheart?”

“If he doesn’t like it, then you probably shouldn’t call me that.”

The doctor grinned, saying, “You’re probably right.”

“It feels like I am breathing in acid.”

“Ah. Well, until the wound in the lung heals, I imagine. You’re breathing without a respirator, and came out of surgery like that, so it won’t be long. You are young, and healthy. All good things. I suspect you will be discharged in a couple of weeks, and by then, you probably won’t need the bandages. Your nurses will be in twice a day to check the surgery incision, and change the bandages when needed.”

The doctor shrugged, adding, “You were incredibly lucky. Had the bullet been even a couple of millimeters to the left, your heart would have been useless. You’ll need to take it easy for a month or so. No strenuous activity—nothing more than walking from one room to the next.”

That sounded fun.

“I will make sure she rests,” John said from the doorway.

John gave Siena a sexy wink, and crossed the room with a cup of ice water in his hand. The doctor gave her one last order to get some sleep, and keep the excitement to a minimum for the first couple of days, and then he left.

The sliding ICU doors closed shut behind him. It was only her and John left, then. The curtains covering the glass windows blocked out the outside world. John used a dial behind her head to turn down the lights in the room.

Another button quieted the machines.

Silently, John climbed into the bed with Siena. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask him to do that—he already knew what she wanted.

The second he was there with her, and she was wrapped in his embrace, nothing else mattered. She cried because she was sad, and she was happy, and she was terrified. She was all of those things at once, and it was overwhelming.

John rocked her while his lips pressed against her forehead with a soft kiss—comfort, affection, and assurance all rolled into one. Next to the heartbeats between them, she couldn’t hear anything else.

She didn’t want to.

John tipped her head back, and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the tears from her cheeks. He quickly pressed one kiss, and then another just as fast to her smiling lips. All the worry he had shown earlier was gone for the moment. Sure, there was still a bit of concern flashing in his eyes, but nothing like before.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

John’s brow furrowed. “For what, amore?”

“Between us, I’m always the calm, levelheaded one. I know this probably upsets you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t upset me. Ever.”

His statement was so small, and yet firm and sure at the same time. As though it wasn’t at all up for argument, and he didn’t want to entertain it further. She chose to let it go because it didn’t really matter.

John kissed her again—lingering longer the second time, and letting his tongue tease at the seam of her lips. It was not nearly as innocent or sweet as his first kisses. Siena’s heart picked up the pace.