A Tempting Arrangement (Twisted Vows Book 1)

56. Misty

Damon’s staringat me with soft gray eyes when I look up from my phone. “When did you wake up?”

“A few minutes ago. What time is it?” he asks, voice groggy. It’s been a rough few days, but now that we’re closing in on a week at the hospital, we’re mostly on the mend. The hospital staff were not happy about us both staying in the same room, beds pressed against each other, but considering Damon donated enough money to fund a new wing, they stayed quiet about it.

“Ten.” I roll to my good side and brush a stray strand of hair off Damon’s face, revealing the impression from his pillow on his cheek. I can’t help but smile.

“What?” He lifts my injured hand, wrapped in a fluorescent green cast, and kisses my knuckles.

“I just can’t get over how adorable you are—” I say, laughing as he lifts me toward him, careful not to hurt either of us, and adjusts me on his bed beside him.

He buries his nose into my neck, stubble scrapping the delicate skin, and his voice rumbles against me. “Adorable, am I?”

“Would you prefer burly? Mean? Scary?”

He raises an unimpressed brow.

“How about gorgeous, hot, sexy?”

He kisses along my jaw before resting his forehead on mine. “We need to get out of this hospital, or the nurses are going to get a show when I fuck you right here.”

I laugh. “I don’t know if you realized this, but you have several gunshot wounds healing right now.” I trace fingers over the gauze wrapped around his shoulder where a bullet had pierced clean through. He’d been lucky. The tactical vest he’d been wearing blocked the shot that should have pierced his heart, leaving him with a six-inch bruise over his chest, but it did nothing to stop the next one from embedding itself into his thigh.

His expression grows serious. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” And it’s not a lie. Turns out the location of my gunshot wound isn’t that painful once the initial hole scabbed over. Something about how internal organs don’t signal pain the same way. Or…they’ve just given me really good painkillers.

I huff out a breath. “Still probably too strenuous to have sex yet.”

A crooked smile twists his lips. “You don’t have to move?—”

“Knock it off, you two. I did not spend all that time trying to keep you alive just to have you fuck it up now,” Bash says cheerfully from the doorway. Xander and Matthias follow after him. There wasn’t a single time I woke up in those first few days that at least one of the Everette brothers wasn’t present. It made my heart twist that I couldn’t tell my friends, but there was no way I was explaining all of this to Piper.

Matthias crosses his arms and lets out a long sigh. “You scared the shit out of us. The two of you are going to be the literal death of me.”

“Oh, come on. Barely a scratch.” I raise my wrist, my fingers a green that rivals my cast, and all four boys wince.

“We should’ve killed them slower” is Matthias’s only reply.

Bash spreads his hands out, lifting one and then the other. “I have good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

I groan, not sure I can handle bad news, and Damon strokes his fingers along my arm.

Slow breath in, slow breath out. “Let’s go with the bad first.”

Bash winces. “The Ricci family went into hiding before we could get to them. Looks like Anthony tipped them off that there might be trouble coming their way.”

“Fuck,” Damon says, and he looks like he’s ready to explode when Bash cuts him off.

There’s a glint in his eyes when he says, “I’m happy to report no one made it out of that warehouse with their life.”

“Well, that’s good.” I start to relax when a new worry slams into me. “My parents might sit tight for a while, but they’ll cause trouble.”

“I’d like to see them try, Little Nymph.”

Damon’s words calm a part deep inside me. Safe. Even after everything that’s happened, he makes me feel safe.

Bash claps his hands together. “Alright, enough of that. We’re breaking you out of here.”

My eyes widen. “I’m not sure busting out of anywhere is a great idea for either of us right now.”

Xander grips Bash’s shoulder. “What he means to say is now that you are no longer on the brink of dying. We’ve got the go-ahead to transfer you home. A doctor and a nurse are all set up to keep you pumped full of painkillers and whatever else they do.”

Matthias rubs his hand over his face and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Although, after what we just walked in on, it might be better not to leave the two of you alone.”

“I’d never hurt her.” There’s no playfulness in Damon’s voice, and his three younger brothers seem to sense the danger.

“Yeah, we know. I’m just going to wait outside for the doctor,” Bash says as he flees out of the room, Xander close on his heels.

Matthias is the only one brave enough to stay. “You better fucking not,” he says before walking out.

I expect Damon to laugh, be mad, something when I look at him, but I didn’t expect the way his eyes soften with sadness.

“All of this happened because of me.”

“That’s not true?—”

“I shouldn’t be another one of your captors.” He spins my wedding ring, looking entirely too serious.

The monitor beeps as my heart rate climbs. “Hey, now?—”

“But you are mine, Little Nymph. And I’m never letting go.”

I lift up so that my lips brush against his, ignoring the soreness in my stomach. “I love you.”

“I’ve loved you longer.” He smiles against me. “We need to get you another tracker.”