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His glare told me he expected an acknowledgment, so I just nodded glumly, feeling sorry for myself more than I cared to admit. Without a word, he whipped the wet towel off of me, sending it flying, landing with a wet plop in the bathroom across the way. My wet bra was next, making me gasp and rush to move my arm from around my ribs to my breasts. Bones didn't even pause as he took the fresh towel and began to dry me off, starting with my legs and working his way up to my hair.
When he rubbed much of the dripping water out of the soaked strands, he went back down, shoving my arm out of the way to dry me there, too. Before I could do more than squeak in protest at the feel of his cloth covered hands rubbing over my nipples, he began to unwrap the soaked bandage.
"Lift your arms out to your sides," he commanded me in a stern tone that I pictured him using on his motorcycle club members. With a face flaming as red as my hair, I did what he commanded. I couldn't tell if he was taking in the view of my puckered nipples as he knelt beside me on the floor. I could lie and say that it was from the cold, but that would be a damn lie. The man had just been rubbing my breasts. No matter how much pain I was in, I couldn't deny that it was enough to make me want more. Maybe later, when I wasn't shivering and my ribs were healed, though.
He stood up, taking the wet bandage with him. I immediately brought my arms back around to conceal my nakedness and blinked up at him as he pointed a finger in my face. "Don't. Move." I jerked a nod up and down, wishing I could use my hair as a shield, too.
He was as quick as always, returning to the room with a long strip of cloth that looked like it had once been a bed sheet. "Up," he commanded again in his rough tone. With a sigh, I lifted my arms back out to my sides. He knelt back down in front of me, right between my legs. I watched his face, trying to see if he was looking at my stained panties or taking glances at my puckered nipples, but he never took his eyes off the new bandage. He wrapped it tight around my torso quickly and efficiently. By the time he was done, I felt a million times better, the support helping me feel like I wasn't about to fall to pieces.
I glanced down to survey his handiwork. "It looks like you've done this before," I said, impressed.
He grunted and sat back on his heels. "Once or twice." His tone suggested he was bored with the situation, but as I glanced down at him, I couldn't miss the hard outline of his cock pressing firmly against his leg. More than a little thrill went through me at knowing I actually did affect him after all.
He stood up again, not even bothering to conceal his erection. Once again, he strode out of the room, only to return mere seconds later. He held up my nightgown and frowned. It had been attacked by the water after I had dropped the shower wand, along with the rest of the bathroom. I grimaced, glancing over to my suitcase, still open a couple of feet away from me on the bed. Instead of reaching for a dry nightshirt, he stalked out of the room again.
I stared after him, dumbfounded. I had no idea what he was going to do next. I shook my head and reached over toward the suitcase with one hand extended, trying not to use my core muscles to lean over. With a grimace, I had to stop. My clothes were just a smidgen too far out of reach. As I sat there contemplating my next move, he strode back in, holding a black T-shirt.
In deft moves, he had the shirt over my head, guiding my arms through as if I were a doll. I blinked up at him as he pulled my wet hair out of the neck hole. I glanced down at myself to confirm that he had, indeed, dressed me in one of his shirts instead of just using one of my own. I ran a hand over the fabric, feeling how soft the material was from being well-worn. It had to be one of his favorite shirts. I wanted to ask so many questions about his actions from the entire night, starting with why he had shown up in that alley when I needed help the most, but I knew I wouldn't get any answers from him.
He surprised me further when he pulled out my brush and sat on the bed behind me. He slowly ran the brush through my hair, carefully detangling every strand. By the time he was done, my eyes could barely stay open, and I had yawned more times than I could remember. The last thing I knew, he was lifting me carefully and placing me between the warm, dry sheets. I didn't even have the energy to blush when he slid my wet panties down my legs so I wouldn't get the sheets wet.
I wished he would hold me in his arms. I couldn’t remember my parents offering me comfort when I’d been hurt or ill. Bones had shown more concern for me and had taken care of me more than I could remember receiving during my entire childhood. It made me feel warm inside, causing my infatuation with him to grow stronger. If only he would lie next to me, whisper that everything would be alright. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned to my side carefully, mindful of my injuries, and wished for sleep to take me quickly.
I could have sworn I felt him place a kiss on my forehead as I was falling asleep, but I was too far gone to know for sure. But my heart warmed at the thought.
ChapterSeventeen
THE NIGHTMARE KING
The woman was driving me insane.
I tried to stay away, to spend most of my time in the President's office at the club, but she kept drawing me back. I knew I could trust the club girls I had assigned to watch over her, but over the last four weeks, more and more every day, I wanted it to be me who took care of her needs. If she was hungry, I wanted to be the one to feed her. When she needed to bathe, I wanted to be there to help her. Well, I still did that. No one else was allowed to see the woman naked but me.
She had somehow burrowed under my skin. In the beginning, I thought it was just attraction that had me going back night after night, watching her from the shadows until I couldn't hold back anymore. The two times I had all but forced her to suck my cock, I thought it was just because no one else had ever done it before. I knew even then that I was a fucking liar. I could tell myself all I wanted that it was just the experience of having it done, that any woman would do, but it was her. Only her.
Now that I had spent the last few weeks with her under my roof, watching her cuddle with my dog, brushing out her blood-red hair every night…
She was driving me insane.
And now I was sitting here in church hearing that the motherfuckin' Boogeymen were looking for her. Like fuck they were going to get anywhere near my woman. I slammed my fist down on top of the wooden table, making the gavel clatter next to me.
"I want their fuckin' heads. Whoever broke into her motel room, whoever is asking questions. I want them strung up in the shed. It's fuckin' bullshit that this has been going on for weeks, and no one has seen anyone lurking in town."
Barrel sat back in his chair with a long sigh. "Prez, we all like the girl. But this is a lot of manpower when we should be planning the next weapon run."
I slowly turned my head, showing him exactly what I thought about his opinion. Like the intelligent man he tried to pretend he wasn't, he quickly held up both hands in surrender. I glared around the table with a dare. "Anyone else have anything to say about the matter? Am I taking up too many mother fuckin' resources trying to hunt down our enemies that have been successfully infiltrating our territory? They are making us look like fuckin' morons holding our dicks while they run circles around us." I stood from my chair slowly and leaned over the table, bracing my tattooed knuckles on the polished wood. At the silence in the room, I nodded. "This has gone on too long already. I'm hearing more shit about drugs being passed around at the high school, and last week our warehouse, which no one is even supposed to fuckin' know about, got raided. Double the patrols. Triple 'em. Find these fuckers!"
I stood back up straight. Grabbing the gavel, I slammed it down on the table. "Church dismissed!"
I strode out of the room, my anger at the entire situation making a red haze fall over my vision. Pumpkin Patch was a fuckin' ridiculous town, but it was my town. I'd be damned if these lowlife assholes were going to run drugs through it and destroy everything I had worked so hard for. The cops were worthless hicks, too drunk on their coffee and donuts to protect it the way it needed to be protected. That was where the Devil's Nightmares came in. The mayor couldn't do jack-shit to keep the Boogeymen from infiltrating the high school with drugs. But I could. I was the motherfuckin' Pumpkin King, and Pumpkin Patch belonged to me.
A commotion from the front of the building drew my attention just as I was about to head out the backdoor. I was eager to head back to my house to check on the woman that made my brain itch, but I detoured to the common room to see what the fuck was going on. Just knowing that whatever was going on was probably bullshit had my anger ratcheting up another degree.
"What the fuck is going on in here?" I demanded as I entered the large room we used for parties and general gatherings. There were several club girls huddled together, raising a ruckus, shouting and upset. I glanced at a couple that looked like they were crying, dismissing them instead for someone who had half a brain who could explain without giving me a migraine.
The girls parted, revealing a blonde huddled in on herself, crying almost violently. At my voice, she looked up with relief. I stumbled back a step as she ran over, throwing her arms around me, soaking my T-shirt with her tears, and getting her makeup all over me. I was going to have to throw the goddamn shirt away.
"Bones! Thank god. I need you!" She burst into a fresh wave of tears and buried her head in my neck. I grimaced at the feel of the wetness but more so at feeling any woman's arms around me but Sally's. It was like fighting with an octopus, trying to get her off me.
