Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
He offers me a heavy-lidded pained stare. “I thought that might make you happy.”
“Stop it,” I chide. “You know that’s not true. You can feel it. I know you can because I knew you were injured and weak before I ever came into this room. I have to get your shirt off to see the damage.” I straddle him, arching forward to hold the towel in place in an act that mimics sex. “Don’t say a word.”
His mouth quirks, but there’s a white line above his lip and his skin is ashen. “If I have to die, I want you right there when I do.”
“You’re not going to die. You heal, remember?” I use one free hand and start rolling his shirt upward.
“I got it,” he says, and with a grimace and a groan he pulls it over his head, the act forcing the towel from my hand, and allowing blood to gush.
With anxious hands I replace the towel and the pressure, but not without noting that he is, indeed wearing the state of the art second skin armor Julian’s team created, and my father is dying to get his hands on. It’s supposed to be impermeable to bullets. “Why didn’t it work?”
“Clearly there’s a new weapon in this war,” he replies. “Whatever they hit me with wasn’t standard issue ammo. I need to get it out of me. Cut the suit open. I’ll never get it off.”
“Are you sure it’s still in you?”
“Believe me,” he bites out, strain etching his handsome features and then surprises me by shackling my arm and pulling me on top of him, essentially molding me to his long, hard body. “The sick fuck would fuck you and kill you after. Get the bullet out so I can kill him.”
“Let me go before you hurt yourself,” I protest, his heartbeat slows beneath my palm and I use my position and literally flatten my body to his and slide to his side, to apply pressure. He’s acting irrationally, worried about the wrong things.
“You could have been killed out there tonight,” he growls.
“But I wasn’t,” I reply. “And I needed to follow him. I needed to know who I could trust.”
“Because you don’t trust me,” he challenges, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. “I did what I did that day at Area 51 to protect innocent lives, yours included.”
I catch his face and force him to look at me. “Stop this now. Please. I beg of you. We need Caleb. We need him to send the Renegades doctor. Casey, right? That’s his name? We need him.”
“Not an option,” he breathes out. “He’s on a mission. Hard to—reach.” He glances down at me. “I told you. You have to do it.” His hand literally falls away from me as if he cannot control his own body and I’m instantly on my knees beside him.
“I have no supplies,” I say. “Do you only have one GTECH doctor?”
“Yes.”
“That’s nuts. You’re soldiers. You need doctors. We need a doctor, not me. I don’t know what I’m doing and I have no supplies,” I repeat.
His lashes lower and he murmurs, “Okay.” It’s an illogical, detached reaction, that sets off warning bells, about his worsening condition.
Adrenaline surges inside and I shake him. “Creed. Creed, wake up. Put pressure on the wound so I can call downstairs and get supplies.” He doesn’t answer me, nor does he react at all, and I shake him again, lean over him and pat his face. “Wake up. You owe me the chance to fight this out with you once and for all. You owe me. You hurt me. You left me. You owe me.”
His sea blue eyes snap open and meet mine. “I’m here, Addie.”
“Then stay here,” I plead, and it’s a plea from the depth of my soul and filled with so many different meanings. I grab his hand and press it to his side, firming my voice, as I add, “You’re a soldier. Do your duty and survive. Apply pressure. Do not go to sleep.”
“As long as you promise to show me what a good soldier I am later.”
I glower at him, but I’m secretly relieved that he has such a comment in him. “We’ll talk when you're healed. We will not get naked,” I promise him, and proceed to move away from him.
His laugh is low, weak, pained, and somehow still sexy.
I shake myself and crawl to the bedside phone and call room service, ordering the odd list of things I need including needles, thread, two steak knives, scissors, two bottle of bourbon, and more towels, as if that list doesn’t paint a too obvious picture. I end my request with the promise of a two-hundred-dollar tip if I have the items in ten minutes.
I hang up the phone and breathe out.
How is that call not going to get the wrong attention? But Creed needs help now and Instacart would take too long. I did the right thing, I tell myself.