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“A shame, really, given your keen aptitude for reading me.” Rolling her hips into mine, she arches her back and sits straight up, dislodging my arm to place my hand on her heart, just over her breast. I don’t know if she can feel me growing hard under her, but fuck if I’m not ready to make good on my threat to fuck her right here. “You feel that?”
My fingers flex around her tit, her nipple piercing hard against my palm, and I jerk my hips up into her. “Doyoufeelthat?”
She rolls her eyes. “Focus,daddy, and maybe I’ll let you punish me later for slapping you.”
I groan, my cock twitching. “Like you have a choice, kitten.”
“Anyway, you fucking caveman,” she snaps, her attitude making my chest swell, “if you could stop being a pervert for two seconds, you’d feel the way my heart speeds up at your touch. And maybe then I’d be able to tell you that yeah, I do.”
“Do what?”
“Love you!” She whisper-shouts, the sound seeming to quiet the rest of the area for a moment. A deep blush pinkens her cheeks, and we both freeze, waiting to see if anyone comes and peeks in. When they don’t, she smacks my pec, sending a wave of pain through me.
“Christ.” My head swims as the burning sensation swirls inside my chest. “What the fuck was in that bullet?”
“Normal bullet, but it nicked your brachial plexus, and we had to extract the bullet from your shoulder through surgery.”
We both jump at the added voice, Juliet scrambling off my lap and nearly toppling over in the process. She settles into her chair as Kal yanks back the curtain, a wide and rare smile plastered on his chiseled face. He scrubs a hand through his dark hair, adjusting the lapels of his white lab coat, and steps inside quickly.
“So, what? Am I okay?” I point at my injured arm with my good hand. “Why can’t I feel anything?”
He inhales deeply, letting it whoosh from him slowly. “To be honest, we can’t be sure at this point. It looked as if the nerves were only stretched, but given this is the first you’ve been awake post-op and the blocker we gave you pre-op, it’s difficult to tell the full extent of the injury. Sometimes, these injuries can take months to show up, and years to heal fully.”
“But Imighthave nerve damage? In my good arm?”
“Mightbeing the operative word, Ivers. If it’s just a good stretch, you’ll heal up without further treatment. If it’s more severe, or if the injury gets embedded in scar tissue over time, there are avenues we can take to restore function. We’ll know more when your block wears off and we can run some tests.” He tilts his head, studying me. “So, maybe you won’t be able to pursue the same career path. Is that really such a bad thing?”
Crossing my good arm over my chest, I remain silent, glowering.
He shrugs, moving on. Like it’s so easy to take a made man out of the grasp of the mafia. I’ll never get out from under Finn and Elia, and frankly, after experiencing the loyalty I thought only myself capable of during the whole investigation, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to.
“Most people only take a few hours to recover from the kind of anesthetic we gave you, but given the amount of trauma your body suffered, we were all hopeful it’d take a natural course and let you rest awhile longer.”
I slide my gaze between the two of them. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Approximately fifteen hours.”
Juliet cringes as my head whips to her. “Were you gonna mention that? Jesus Christ, what have I missed out on? Where’s your mom and Father O’Leary? How bad was the damage to St. Francis’s basement?”
“We had other things to discuss.” She shrugs, unbothered by my outburst. “You didn’t actually blow anything up; apparently the pipes you shot at were just regular old sewage, so all it did was make them burst and flood the cellar some. Mom made the mistake of sticking around to collect all her files, so when Boyd and Elia went back to check on you, there she was. It didn’t help that she was practically bleeding out from when I bashed her head in the wall.”
Kal smirks, pulling the clipboard from the end of the hospital bed and scanning it. “You Harrison sisters aren’t to be trifled with.”
She shrugs. “I guess. Only took my whole life to stand up to her, but whatever.” She picks at the corner of the white knit blanket draped over me, but I don’t miss the small smile playing at her lips. “Elia hauled her ass off to the detention center, where she’s awaiting arraignment for a myriad of crimes, including, but not limited to: aggravated sex trafficking, deceptive business practices, fraud, bribery, and trafficking contraband. Mom’s got a very colorful rap sheet.”
“Does that… bother you?”
She glances at Kal, swallowing. He gets the hint, slipping the clipboard back in its holster and nodding at me. “Right. Well, since you’re up, I’ll send in a nurse to do a full panel on your post-op condition, and they’ll probably want you to eat, walk, and be merry. Depending on what the tests show once you’re able to move from recovery, I may be ordering you physical therapy, as well, to keep your joints from getting stiff or locking up.” He gives Juliet a warm smile, then juts his chin in my direction. “Glad you’re not dead, kid.”
I nod back, focusing on my girl. “So?”
Blowing out a long breath, she rests her head against my thigh. “I guess you’re not really asking if my mom’s criminal charges bother me?”
“Nope.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, her face softens as she seems to drift off in thought. “You know, I was a soft shell of a person before I met you. Sad and lonely, letting guilt consume me. Being abused by the people who claimed to care about me and who were supposed to love me. If that’s what I get from living a normal life, that emptiness that comes from being without you, I don’t want any part of it. And if my sister can come to terms with being married to a mafia boss, I can get down with a little torture in my lover.”
“I’m not a good guy, Juliet.”
