AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He storms around to the side of the bed and shoves Micah away, then he scoops me up without asking, rough in his movements, and attempts to turn, only for the tubing attached to my arm to stop our progress.
He shoots a look to his sister-in-law and grinds out, “Take them off her, or she wears them into the shower. Your choice.”
“I’ll remove them.” She reaches into her bag and takes out a pair of fresh gloves, then snapping them on, she circles the bed and begins peeling tape away. “I can continue your care even without these.” But then she meets my eyes and flattens her lips. “I’m not sure I can protect you fromhim. I could get you out, though, I suppose, if you really, really wanted.” She pulls one tube from my arm and swaps it with a small Band-Aid that Archer hands her. Then she starts on the next. “I’d rather not have you write shit about us when you get back to the office, though.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” The moment she pulls the second needle from my arm, Felix spins away, forcing me to reach up and circle his neck with my arms, or risk falling. “You’re all welcome to go downstairs and make something for lunch. We’ll be down soon.”
“Lunch?” I tuck my head in to avoid hitting the doorframe as Felix carries me through. “What time is it?”
“Nearly three in the fuckin afternoon.”
His face is redder than usual. His stress levels, a little high. His hands are firm, bruising as always, and his mocking personality, the one I catch sometimes when he thinks he’s being funny, is all but gone. Vanished, and replaced with an anger I’m not sure I’ll evernotbe afraid of.
A few days ago, he was a man I wanted to hold accountable.
Today, he’s the man who holds my life in his hands.
“You were unconscious for almost twenty-four fucking hours, Christabelle.”
He walks through the hall and bursts into his bedroom, the one with the four-poster bed and the Juliet balcony I adore. The one with the office on one end, and the ensuite on the other. He turns left, though my eyes go right, only to emerge in the dark bathroom with floor-to-ceiling tiles and a shower as big as his lake-sized bed.
“I don’t scare easily. Fuck knows, I’m not the guy who panics.” He releases my legs stunningly fast, so they fall and my arms cinch tighter around his neck, my head swimming with dizziness. “But I panicked for you. I thought you were dying. And thoughIdon’t much like the spoiled, rich girl persona, you have the world at your feet and a million brainless idiots waiting to read the drivel you write each day.”
He grabs my chin and pulls my face up. My vision is spotty. My brain, sluggish, like a twenty-year-old computer with too many tabs open. But he’s patient. He waits as I blink my eyes clear and look up to meet his gaze.
“I was scared for you, Cannon. Out of my fucking mindscared. And that never happens.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen.” My voice is coarse. My throat raw, like I spent the night swallowing razorblades. “I was trying to manage it without telling you. I didn’t…” I close my eyes and rest. I could sleep standing up, so long as Felix remained a post to lean on. “I didn’t want you to know.”
“And I feel like an asshole.” He reaffirms his arm around my torso and carries me into the shower stall.
He doesn’t warn me. Doesn’t remove his clothes, or mine. He just flips the tap on and shocks a gasp from deep in my chest when the cold water hits my back and soaks my shirt.
“Shit!” I screech. “Felix!”
“I don’t mind abducting you, Darling. And I get off on arguing with you.” He keeps one arm wrapped around my hip, likely knowing that, if he lets go, I’ll fold like wet cardboard. But he uses the other to work the soaked fabric up my frame and over my head.
I have no bra on. Nothing else but a pair ofhisunderwear. But he bares my body anddoesn’tmake it sexual.
“I love pissing you off. I enjoy watching you blow up. Your bad mood is like cocaine for a man like me. But fuck, I only fight with peoplestrong enough to take a shot back. And you were too weak to hold your own head up. You’restillweak.” He loosens his grip on my hip, only to snort and grab on again when my knees buckle. “I want to win, Darling. But I want to earn my victory. You dying mid-argument isn’t it for me.”
“Do you always have to win?” I rest my cheek on his bare chest. It’s not right. My heart and soul and entire being reject the idea ofrestingon this man. But my brain is too tired. My body, weary. “Must you always fight?”
He chokes out a scoff and pumps soap into his palm, then he starts washing my back. His touch, callused. His fingers, massaging. “Yes, princess. I was born to fight.” He drags his hand along my spine and up to wash the back of my neck. “And in my world, if you don’t win, you’re dead. Take off your underwear.”
My heart stutters, and though I can barely carry my own weight, I pull back and look up into his eyes. “Excuse me?”
He flashes a maniacal grin, drops his hands, and shoves the fabric of my borrowed boxers down until I’m completely and totally naked. Exposed. Vulnerable in a way I haven’t been with a man in a long time.
“I’m not gonna fuck you.Today,” he adds as a teasing afterthought. Then he slides his hand around my neck again and tugs me closer. “I tussle with the strong, Ms. Cannon. I fuck the lioness, not the antelope.”
“Oh. Well…” I allow him to hold me up only because, otherwise, I’d tumble to the tile with an undignifiedsplat. “I would be offended at the metaphor, if not for the fact I don’t fuck Malones. Full stop.”
He chuckles and steps forward, pushing me back so the now-warm spray rinses the soap from my skin. “You won’t be fucking any other Malone,” he qualifies. “They all know where the line is. They won’t cross it.”
“What line?” A long, exhausted yawn crawls along my throat and out to join the noise of the running shower. “Where is it?”
“Wrapped around you, Darling. And everything inside those lines belongs to me.”
