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My ears perked at that, and I started tracing the path to the door again. “All right, but it can wait unless this DA is coming here. I’m not fucking leaving Bou to deal with this alone.”
Dead air.
“Quit holding shit back, Angel.”
“DA’s a little hellcat. Hot as fuck, but she’s got some balls. Wants your number.”
“Well, fucking give her my number,” I said, pivoting on a heel when I reached the door. “I don’t have my goddamn phone anymore, so nothin’ lost there.”
“Too late,” Angel grumbled again, so low I wondered if I heard him right. “I gave her this one and asked her to give you two days before she called.”
I sighed and ran a hand over my head. It felt good to have my hair trimmed back to the skull-cut. “The fuck, Angel?”
“Think she’s got our backs. Just talk to her. Name’s Melanie Flemming.”
I had made it back into the waiting area. As I tapped the screen to end the call, Bou exited the ICU. I forgot all about Melanie Flemming, the sterile surroundings, and about Angel. I rushed over and took her in my arms.
Her shoulders shook. She took a halting, deep breath and pushed back. “It’s not good.”
I picked up a box of tissues that had been conveniently left in the waiting room.
Bou took one and dabbed at her eyes. “Doctor Carson says he’ll need surgery for the broken collar bone and for a couple of the ribs that are broken so badly they won’t heal on their own.
I ran a hand over Bou’s upper arm. “I think those are pretty standard procedures. What else?”
Bou blew her nose and took a deep breath before continuing. “They’re putting him in traction, so he doesn’t hurt himself further. Then they’re going to keep him sedated. He was barely coherent when I saw him, and he’s ripped up pretty bad inside from what Rex did to him with that goddamn police baton. They’re going to have to do some other procedure for that.” Anger flashed in Bou’s eyes before she lost her composure again.
I had no words, so I just pulled her into my arms and let her cry
“Celt’s a strong man,” I said again with certainty, running a hand down Bou’s back. “They’re doing the right things. It’ll be a long road for him, but he’ll be okay.” I fucking hoped so. Bou had lost enough already.
She nodded without lifting her head from my shoulder.
* * *
Because Celt had been sedated and would sleep soundly all night, we headed back to the hotel I’d booked when Bou had been discharged. I helped Bou undress, not wanting to push her too hard after all the trauma she’d experienced. We showered together. Neither of us wanted to be separated from the other for any time. It wasn’t about sex to start. It was about mutual safety and comfort. We both needed life to slow down, and we decided to pretend the rest of the world didn’t fucking exist. Even if that would only last one night.
With her standing under the water, rivulets running over her amazingly gorgeous curves, I gently laid my hand over the Saran-Wrapped bandage covering the wound on her breast. She looked down and covered my hand with hers. Her long, delicate fingers laced between mine.
“It’s some kind of flower,” she said, though it couldn’t be clearly discerned yet with the angry red skin puckered around the knife marks. “He was one sick motherfucker, but I think it’s going to be . . .” She winced and squinted up at me. “pretty when it’s all said and done. That sounds weird, yeah?”
“So many people get tats to cover up scars. You won’t need that shit. This one will be a harsh and beautiful reminder of how strong you are.” I chuckled awkwardly, wondering who the fuck I was and where this tender shit came from.
Bou lifted her other hand and slid it around the back of my neck. Our hands still entwined over her heart, she pulled me to her for the sweetest, tenderest, most soul-scorching kiss.
When she pulled away, I felt words I’d never even considered possible in my life bubble up from my chest. My eyes shifted over her face, committing every detail of her little pointed chin, kiss-reddened lips, and suntanned skin to memory. My voice sounded raspy to my ears when I started, “Bou, I lo—”
She placed her fingers over my lips. “Shh. I know.”
45
Bou
Yes, I knew. I didn’t need Wilde to say the words that seemed so foreign to him—and me. I knew, because I felt love growing between us, and I didn’t need any announcement to be sure. The word—that goddamn cliché—didn’t need to be voiced to make it real. What we were finding in each other was last thing I’d expected to rise out of the hell we’d just been through, but it was more alive than anything I’d ever felt. Though I was still a wreck over how my brother would be after all this, the man standing before me in the shower filled and soothed my heart. He made me want things I’d ruled out after that first rape. And though I now knew the culprit, I wasn’t about to dwell on it. One day, Celt would have his revenge. I’d make sure of it.
Wilde had helped me heal after Luke, and I needed him now for the comfort of his touch. Somehow, he understood when to keep his mouth shut and let me work things out in my own way. And he stayed silent then after I put my hand over his mouth. He knew how and when to touch me without my asking, and the feel of him made my skin light up with fire everywhere his hands, arms, and mouth landed. Our bodies had a connection I couldn’t explain, a language that belonged to us, alone.
I reached behind me and turned off the water.
