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Waking up alone doesn’t make me feel like I’ve been abandoned, especially with the hastily scribbled note on the table.
He’s awake, he’s talking. He’ll want to see you as soon as you’re able. J- x
I tuck the paper into the back pocket of my jeans, then walk back to the house shirtless as the cool air feels like tiny pinpricks of needles across my welts. I can smell breakfast, and I know I need to eat something more than the protein bars that James kept shoving down my gullet, but I want a shower first and a change of clothes. I know I still have blood under my nails from those fuckers we took out and from cradling Kane in the car, and I’d like to wash off that evidence.
It’s time to start fresh.
Halfway down the hall, I hear the click of a door and then a sharp gasp, which tells me it’s not one of the boys.
It’s the first time Alice will have seen me like this, and I know that no matter how any of them might have explained it to her, she wouldn’t get the full scope until she was able to face down the brutal evidence of what I need. I pause, and I wait for her to approach.
I want to tell her she can touch me, but I know her signing lessons are still rudimentary at best, so I turn to face her, grab her wrist, and splay her hand over my abused pec. There are teeth marks from James surrounding the areola, and she gently digs her nails into the divots.
“Who did this?”
I laugh and shake my head before I make James’ sign name. She seems to understand that.
“You asked for it?”
I nod, taking her by the chin, then swiping my thumb over her lower lip. I want to be able to tell her that someday, she’ll have her turn. Whether it’s wielding a flogger or on her knees for me remains to be seen. But I know there’s a line she’s going to cross, and it’s not far off in the distance.
She holds my gaze a few seconds longer, and then she goes onto her toes and pecks me sweetly on the lips. It shakes me harder than anything that’s been done to me in the last couple of days.
I take a step back, and she just stares until I turn around and hurry off. I have no strength against her dismantling any of my walls right now.
Pressing my fingers to my lips, I make my way into my bedroom, snagging a towel from the linen closet before I head into the bathroom. By the time I’m under the hot spray, the ghost of her kiss has faded some, and I’m settled again.
Or as settled as I will ever be.
Getting dressed, I step out into the hallway and listen, and I can hear Phoenix muttering to himself in his office, and from a little further away, I can hear music coming from James’ room. It means that Alice is either with him or she’s with Kane, and I’m going to take the risk of seeing her because I need to be with him. It’s a violent itch under my skin. I need him to dig his nails into me and let the pain bring me the rest of the way back down to earth.
Our little makeshift hospital is in the basement, on the opposite sides of the dungeon rooms, and I head down. I take the stairs two at a time and pass a couple of housekeepers who give me a wide berth because I know they know it’s better to not ever catch my attention.
I wouldn’t hurt them, of course. But once or twice, one of them has crossed my path during a bad day, and, well…there’s a reason we don’t keep staff for the long haul.
I feel no guilt, though, not that I expect to. There’s only anxiety, buzzing under my skin as I make my way through the corridor and to the single room we have in place for any of us that needs to recover.
The door’s cracked open, and I listen for any of the nursing staff, but the only sound is Kane’s heavy breathing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was jerking himself off, but I know that’s not the case. I push the door all the way in, then come to a stop when I find him holding the railing on his bed, bent over, heaving into a puke bucket.
Vomit doesn’t faze me, so I quickly walk over and take the bucket from his hands and hold it steady so he can finish purging. There’s not much in there—some yellow bile and whatever sort of liquidy shit they’ve been feeding him since he got back. I can see the IV in his arm is gone, and his color is better, but when he looks up at me, I see the pain in his face.
It hurts, because I know it. I know what he’s feeling. More than just physical, though it’s obvious his leg is killing him right now. But everything that comes along with this kind of injury is…a lot.
“Who sent you?” he grumbles, flopping back, covering his eyes with one hand.
I grab the wet washcloth from the table that tells me he’s been this way for a while, and I swipe it over his neck as my other hand taps on his shoulder. ‘No one.’
He drops his hand from his eyes and looks at me, and once he’s satisfied, he closes them. “James took care of you.”
One tap on the arm. ‘Yes.’
He hums softly, and then his fingers find mine, and they twist through them. His palms are cool but clammy, and my thumb slips through the sweat as I run it over his skin. I wish I could go back and make those men suffer a little more, but I’ll have to settle for taking it out on the next Romano jackass who’s foolish enough to cross us.
“Come up here,” he says after a beat, and while I’m hesitant because he seems like he’s in so much pain, I also know how it feels to have someone wrap around you. Kane and Phoenix both gave it to me, in spite of the fact that in the beginning, neither of them was interested in touching me.
I climb onto the other side of the bed, and despite how much it obviously hurts to move his leg, he shuffles down until his head is pillowed in my lap. It’s an odd position for us. I don’t know that he’s ever been so tender with me. I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but it’s easy to push my fingers into his hair and watch his face for reactions.
I’m not great with emotions—feeling them, reading them—but I’m an expert at learning a person from the most subtle way they respond. Kane seems to relax the more I circle my thumb along the coarse grey hair of his temple, and when I move my hand down and gently put pressure on his pulse point, he groans.
