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Unless he was just one of those people who felt their empathy so deeply that someone else’s pain may as well have been his own.
“Howareyou?” he asked again, voice a little sad.
“I’m alright. They said the shoulder went right through. And that it’s lucky I have thick hips.”
“Say that again?” he asked, brows pinching.
“That bullet bypassed my organs and my intestines, and lodged in some hip fat,” I told him.
“I see,” he said, that slice of pain going through his eyes again. “I am so sorry this happened to you, sweetheart,” he said, and his little pet name made my belly do a flip-flop.
“Hey, now, it wasn’t your fault!” I said, trying to keep things light because it suddenly looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“I owe my life to you,” he said, reaching down to take my hand in his big one, and I was momentarily focused on the way his hand positively swallowed mine up. And while I was distracted, he went on. “I am going to do everything in my power to make it up to you.”
“You’ve already done more than enough,” I told him. “This is all so lovely.”
“This is nothing,” he told me, releasing my hand, then reaching into the bag, producing lilac purple fuzzy socks. “Forgot about these,” he said.
“My feet arefreezing,” I admitted.
“May I?” he asked, pulling the tag off of them, then gesturing toward the foot of the bed.
I would like to reiterate that I was in a hospital bed, that I’d been shot twice, that I’d lost a lot of blood.
Because, somehow, despite all of that, I felt a tightening of my sex at the idea of his hands on me. Reminding me of all the steamy things that had been crossing my mind while he’d been in the restaurant the day before.
Suddenly, the memory of him holding me as I bled all over him came back to me as well.
“Please,” I invited, hearing a husky edge to my voice. But he, luckily, didn’t seem to notice as he moved toward my feet, lifting the blanket off of them, then reaching out.
“They’re like ice,” he said, taking one of them in both of his hands, and rubbing it, trying to coax the blood back into it.
Me?
I was pretty sure I died and went to heaven as he not only got the blood flow back, but then started to press his thumbs into the arches, easing the aches that were chronically found there, thanks to long hours on my feet at work.
He worked one foot for several long minutes as I tried to tamp down the desire that was building in my system. Then he slipped on the sock before going to work on the next foot.
When he was done with both, tucking the blanket back around my feet, I had to cough to try to hide the husky edge to my voice.
“You really know how to spoil a girl in the hospital,” I declared.
“Anytime you want a foot rub, you can call me up,” he said, and it would have seemed like a joke, some throwaway comment, but he sounded so dang serious when he said it.
“Careful, I might take advantage of that. You’re on call day and night, right?” I teased.
“Yes,” he said. And, again, he was so… genuine. “In fact,” he said, reaching into his pocket to produce a card, pressing it down on the tray beside my edible bouquet. “You can call or text me anytime you need anything,” he said. My brows must have furrowed, because he reached for my hand again, giving it a squeeze. “I mean it,” he said. “You saved me. I owe you everything.”
“Nino…” I tried, wanting to tell him that was not necessary, that I was okay, that none of this was his fault, so he had nothing to try to atone for or anything like that.
But the doctor chose that exact moment to come into the room.
“I will give you some privacy,” Nino said, stepping away from the bed. “Will you let me visit again?” he asked.
“Of course you can,” I said, surprised at the hint of vulnerability in his tone. “You don’t have to ask,” I added, getting a grateful nod from him before he made his way out of the room.
“Was that who I think that was?” the doctor, a young woman with dark hair and eyes with deep skin, and a petite frame, asked.
