Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I t is a little after three in the morning before I’m striding toward the automatic double doors of the hospital. I’m beat—both mentally and physically. Ryan was in surgery for a little over three hours. After spending the next four hours in recovery, he was wheeled into a double private suite in the Intensive Care Unit. Although he was awake, he was barely lucid. But, thankfully, even with his words slurred worse than the weekend Chris and I spiked his cans of Coke with vodka, his doctor assured me he will have a full recovery.
Even being informed Ryan will have no long-term health issues from his bullet wound, the sick, twisted feeling in my stomach hasn’t lessened in the slightest. I haven’t been able to shake off the guilt I feel for hurting Clara. I spent the last forty-eight hours renewing the spark of life her eyes lost when she was mugged all to snuff it out by lying to her face. I know stepping back is the best thing I can do for her, but it doesn’t make it any easier to do. It took all my strength— and then some —to keep my feet planted on the floor when she bolted out of the hospital waiting room. If it weren’t for a uniformed officer arriving to take my statement, I have no doubt my fight would have been lost.
My brows become lost in my hairline when I stride out of the double doors of the hospital to discover my bike is still parked in the emergency vehicle only bay I had left it in hours ago. I already have my cell in my hand, prepared to call a taxi as I had expected it to be towed by now.
Shrugging off my confusion, I make my way to my bike.
I ’m walking into my apartment twenty minutes later. The heaviness that has been sitting on my chest for the past eight hours amplifies when my eyes zoom in on the puddle of blood in my entryway. Just seeing how much blood Ryan lost makes the reality of the situation crash into me.
I nearly lost him today.
He almost died protecting the woman I love, and I thank him by pushing her away from me.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Call me a pussy, a soft-cock, or any other derogative name you like, but I’m not going to lie, tears are inundating my eyes and threatening to spill down my face at any moment. Ryan is the closest thing to a brother I have. He’s my family. That is why it is even more devastating that his own brother shot him.
I don’t know what is going on in Damon’s life, but it must be pretty fucked-up if he thought his only way out was to harm his brother. And if all that wasn’t already enough to have my mood hitting an all-time-low, knowing the gun that shot Ryan was pointed at Clara’s head only seconds earlier utterly destroys me. Her frightened face when Damon held his gun to her head will forever haunt my dreams .
Ignoring the pit forming in my gut, I drag a bucket and mop out of my laundry room to clean up Ryan’s blood that’s soaking into my wooden floor. I run the back of my hand over my cheek, angrily removing a stupid tear that escaped my overfilled eyes before clearing away the mess.
Just as I’ve finished mopping up Ryan’s blood, tiny feet padding down my staircase jingles through my ears. When I crank my neck to the stairs, I recoil and take a step backward.
“Princess?” I ask, certain I’m seeing things. I haven’t slept, eaten, or had a clear thought in well over ten hours, so a stint of insanity could be surfacing.
Clara glides across the living area wearing nothing but one of my plain white short-sleeved T-shirts. Her hair is damp and hanging loosely, her eyes are brimming with tears, and her face is void of makeup. The only difference between the Clara who left the hospital hours ago and the one standing before me is this Clara’s eyes are sparked with the gleam I thought I snuffed. They’re bright, determined, and one hundred percent relaying she’s not leaving this apartment until she gets what she came here for.
“What are you doing here, Princess?”
The smell of freshly shampooed hair overtakes the ghastly scent of blood when Clara stops to stand in front of me. “I wanted to clean that up before you came home, but, in all honesty, I didn’t know how.” Her nose screws up, and she looks genuinely mortified that she doesn’t know how to use a mop and bucket.
The most inappropriately timed chuckle escapes from my lips. Yes, I’ve definitely hit the insanity stage of my anguish. I can’t help it, though. Clara’s statement abundantly proves she’s a real-life princess. No fucking doubt.
Ignoring my erratic behavior, Clara removes the mop from my hand, places it into the bucket, and stores it back in the laundry room. Not speaking a peep, she encloses her hand over mine and guides me to the staircase to my loft bedroom.
“What are you doing here, Princess?” I ask again, my voice relaying my disbelief.
Clara continues walking while muttering, “You’re in shock.” She stops pacing when we reach the base of the stairs. “You’re shaking and shit. So, unless you can give me the address of a family member or friend I can take you to, I’m staying with you. I’m going to take care of you.”
I arch my brow. “You want to take care of me? That’s why you’re here?”
She nods without hesitation before locking her determined eyes with mine.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what a woman does for the man she’s falling in love with. You look out for them, even when they don’t want you to,” she answers, her truth-bearing eyes adding strength to her statement.
The massive weight sitting on my chest vanishes in an instant. She has no idea how much I needed to hear that right now. I was barely hanging on by a thread, and she just lassoed a rope around my waist and pulled me back in.
I knew I wasn’t the only one falling.
“I want you here, Princess, more than anything, but what about your silver spoon?”
She shrugs. “What about it? I have food in my belly, a roof over my head, and clothes on my back. What more do I need than that?” She rakes her eyes over the length of my body. “Well, there’s one other thing I need. But, lucky for me, it’s free.” Her arctic-blue eyes stare into mine as she climbs the spiral staircase. “And lucky for you, I don’t have any concerns about messing with a member of my crew while they’re in shock. ”
Keeping my eyes locked on her, I shadow her into my bedroom. My heart is beating a million miles an hour, but my mind is the clearest it’s ever been.
Her gorgeous scent filters through my nose when her hands move to the hem of my blood-stained shirt to yank it over my head. She works on the belt of my jeans as she guides us across the room. Once the fastener has been unbuckled, she slides my jeans down my thighs. My cock twitches when she lifts her hankering gaze to me. Her eyes relay her intentions without a word needing to seep from her lips.
“Princesses don’t kneel for no one,” I mutter, my deep tone conveying my wavering constraint.
She sighs softly. “I want to take care of you, Brax, to make you forget the image you should have never seen.”
Who the fuck is this woman? She just saw straight through me. Only one other woman has been able to do that. My grandma.
I cup the edge of Clara’s jaw and peer into her shimmering eyes. “Just you being here is already doing that, Princess. You don’t need to kneel before me.”
My cock leaps in my briefs when I catch sight of the determination brewing in her gaze. “Get on the bed, Brax,” she demands, her voice throaty and ball-tingling sweet.
I arch my brow, feigning shock, but in reality, I’m loving the feisty spark brightening her eyes. There’s nothing as captivating as a princess in battle.
Clara watches my every move as I make my way to the bed and sit on top.
“Do you have any objections to me kneeling above you?”
The thickness of my cock grows as does the vibrancy in her gaze when I shake my head. My eyes drink her in as she slowly prances my way, her hips swinging, her chest panting. A brief chuckle rumbles from my mouth when she pushes on my bare torso, sending me toppling onto the mattress.
My laughter comes to a screaming halt when she climbs onto the bed and frees my cock from the tight restraints of my briefs in one quick motion like a woman starved of my taste, then time comes to a standstill when her lips hover over the glistening crown of my rock-hard cock.
After rolling her tongue over the crest of my stiffened shaft—gathering a drop of pre-cum beading on the end—she bores her full-of-life eyes into mine. Tonight, they’re so readable. They not only expose fragments of her personality I’ve yet to witness they also reveal she isn’t just offering me her body she’s offering me her heart.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t as happy as a pig in mud to accept her offer.