Chapter 7 #2
Claire shakes her head. “You can shower here.” Still holding on to my hand, she grabs her phone from her back pocket.
“Text someone to go to your room and pack a bag of your stuff. You can stay here until you feel strong enough to stay alone. And you should probably see the doctor today.” Her lips form a small frown.
“I’m so worried you have a fractured rib, Savage. Please.”
I am holding her hand and thinking, but the thoughts are coming too slowly.
She trusted her baby with strangers. Holly and Daisy, Phantom and Poppy’s daughters, are amazing and sweet, smart and kind.
The fact that she trusted her baby to the girls means something more than I’m able to process right now.
“Shower,” I say. “I feel disgusting. I need to freshen up.”
She leaves me and grabs my cell phone from the coffee table. “Text someone,” she says. “Or I’m going to go knocking on doors all the way down this hallway until I find your room.”
One side of my mouth lifts in a smile, and I swear I’d have a full-face grin if my damned jaw didn’t hurt so much.
Maybe this is just her way of paying me back. Maybe this is her caring. Either way, I’m not going to fight it.
“Hand me my phone,” I say, and when I take it from her, I add, “Thank you.”
I call Tank and tell him what to get from my room—towels, toiletries, and clothes. All the pillows from my bed, because even though she’s been sleeping in her bed, I can tell Claire’s been using a rolled-up towel because I had all the pillows on the couch.
Tank drops everything off in about five minutes, while Claire helps me peel off my socks.
Once I kick Tank out, Claire puts my toiletries in her shower and my towels on the bar.
She starts up the water while I brush my teeth, and then I go to take off my shirt, but goddamn, that hurts, and I stop moving entirely.
“Let me help.” Claire gently grabs the hem of my T-shirt and lifts it over my middle. As the fabric moves past my ribs, she sucks in a loud breath. “Savage…” She slowly pulls the shirt over my shoulders and head, and then I look in the mirror at us.
She looks pale and horrified, a stark contrast to the ugly purple, boot-shaped bruises on my rib cage. Tears shimmer in her eyes, and she touches my skin with her fingertips. “Oh my God,” she says. “Savage.”
“I’m all right,” I assure her. “Back when I was training for Ranger school, I fell off a twenty-foot-high wall. Landed right on my side because I wasn’t all the way… Thank fuck. Thought I pierced a lung, but it was just some really screwed-up ribs. This isn’t even that bad.”
“You were in the army?” she asks, her fingers soft and cool against my hot skin.
I nod. “Conversation for another day.”
I unbuckle my belt, but shimmying out of my jeans is another story. Every twist of my torso and bend of my waist sends waves of pain through my body.
“I can do that,” she says quietly.
“I want a woman to want to undress me.” I try to make a joke of it, and she meets my eyes, her lips pressed into a grin.
“Oh, I want to,” she teases.
I chuckle, but then I cough. “If this is what it’s like to grow old with somebody,” I say, “you didn’t sign up for this shit.”
Claire laughs at that and stands between me and the sink, her eyes on my hips. “I’m going to unzip you, okay? Then I will…” Her voice cracks a bit, like she’s scared or at least uncomfortable.
I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Claire, I’ve never had a woman undress me who wasn’t begging to do the job.” I shake my head. “I can handle it from here.”
“So, you want me to beg?” Her voice lilts in an unmistakably flirtatious tone. “Because I’m not about to watch you crack your head open on the sink.”
I groan. “All right, all right. But I’m commando under here, so just…” I plant a hand on the edge of the sink. “Unzip me, shove these down just a bit, and…”
“Savage.” Claire is pinned between me and the sink, and she rests one of her palms against my chest. “I have a baby. I hope you don’t think I’ve never seen a dick before.”
A laugh rumbles low in my chest. “Yeah, but the first time you set eyes on my dick, I want it to be a lot sexier. Now unzip me and skedaddle.”
She mutters “skedaddle” under her breath, but she does as I ask. She works the zipper of my jeans down and then wriggles the waistband onto my hip bones.
“Come running if you hear me drop,” I tell her.
“You going to drop the shampoo on purpose?” she asks. “Because I’m right here, right now, and if you want me to see the goods…”
“No goods.” I take hold of her chin and raise her face to meet my eyes. “Claire,” I say, my voice going serious. “That’s as much of my junk as I’m ready to share. Now get the hell out of here and leave a man with his dignity, will you?”
She purses her pretty lips and shakes her head, but she steps outside of the bathroom. “I’m leaving the door open,” she calls behind her.
I grin and carefully step into the shower. I’m only thirty-seven, but I feel every minute of those years all the way down to my bones as the hot water crashes down on my skin.
My face hurts.
My head hurts.
My neck hurts.
My goddamn everything hurts.
I can’t reach up to shampoo my hair, but I wash the goods, rinse off, and wrap a towel around myself. The second I turn off the water and open the door, I hear Claire’s voice.
“Be careful getting out of the shower.”
I shake my head. “Yes, ma’am.” I feel better being clean, but by no means do I feel okay. I step like my feet are made of lead onto the bathmat, and then I realize I didn’t bring any clean clothes into the bathroom. “Fuck it. Claire?”
She opens the door so fast, it bangs against the bathroom wall. She jumps and her face pales. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t apologize. I need you.” I’m gripping the towel around my hips, but that’s about all I’ve got in me. “I forgot clothes,” I stammer, my words failing me as the pain from the exertion catches up to me. “But I’ve got to sit. I’m…”
“It’s okay. Come on.” Claire tucks herself under my armpit. “Just hang on to your towel. You’re getting in my bed, and I don’t want to hear any arguments.”
I’m not about to fight her on this. I hobble with her help to her bed, lower myself down, and lie back against the pillows, which she’s moved from the couch. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper through gritted teeth. “I should be more of a fucking man than this.”
She covers my legs with the blankets and then, making sure nothing below the waist is exposed, she reaches for the corner of the towel and gently pulls it out from under me. “Savage,” she says gently, wringing the towel between her hands. “Why would you apologize?”
I let my eyes fall closed. “Same reason you did,” I mutter, and then I pass the fuck out again.
I spend the next few hours, or maybe it’s days, in and out of consciousness.
I am vaguely aware of Claire’s presence, of a doctor coming to examine me, of swallowing down stronger pain meds and sips of soup, but most of the time, I’m completely out of it.
It feels like days go by in a blur of stumbling to the bathroom to piss and taking pain meds.
I know days pass only by how many times I wake up when it’s light compared to dark.
When I finally open my eyes for more than a few pain-soaked minutes, again, it’s dark in the room.
I hear the distant whirring of a white noise machine and see the faint light of a laptop coming from across the room.
I shift against the pillows and groan. “Claire?” I keep my voice low in case Aurora is sleeping.
I see the laptop light move and hear rustling from the couch. “I’m here,” she says quietly. “How do you feel?”
I take a minute to really think about that. “Hungry,” I chuckle. “When the fuck did I last eat anything?”
She clicks on a bedside lamp. “It’s been a while,” she says, her lips pulled down into a frown.
As my eyes adjust to the light, I realize I’m still in her room. “Shit,” I mutter. “I’m still in your bed. How long has it been?” I scan the room and don’t see a crib. “Where’s Aurora?”
Claire sits on the edge of the bed beside my legs. I’m still naked under the covers, and I wonder how many times I’ve gotten up to piss and given her a hell of a show. No use worrying about that now.
“Phantom suggested we move Aurora into your room while you’re here,” she says quietly. “I have the monitors set up so I can be there in under five seconds if she wakes up.” She smiles. “I’m just glad you don’t have naked pictures of girls up on the walls.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or curse.
She nods, her eyes locked on mine. “I’ve been so worried,” she says softly. She reaches out and strokes my hair back from my face. “You were talking in your sleep, and it seemed like you were having a nightmare.”
“What did I say?” I ask, staring into her eyes.
“Savage…” She looks away, slowly pulling her hand from my hair.
“Claire.” I grab her wrist lightly and move my fingers to hers. I lock our fingers together and squeeze gently. “Please. Just tell me what I said.”
She looks from my face to our fingers, but she doesn’t move to pull away. Instead, she shocks the shit out of me by pulling my hand to her lips and kissing my knuckles. I feel tears fall from her eyes and drip onto our hands. “Let’s just say I think I understand now why you saved me.”
Neither one of us says anything. We hold hands, her tears wetting my knuckles. I don’t know what to say. Thank you? I’m sorry? Fuck my old man for beating my mother, for beating me? Fuck guys like Anthony and Mad Dog, who use their fists instead of real strength?
“There’s no fucking way on this earth I could have left you like I found you. But you took it, you took the hand I held out to you. Why didn’t she? Why didn’t my mom?”
Claire places her hand on me. “It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. I promise you that, Savage.”
“She feared him more than she loved me,” I spit out. “That’s the fucking truth.”
“No.” Claire cups my face in her hands and squeezes gently, which I appreciate because my jaw is still bruised.
“Listen to me, Savage. Please.” Her eyes are wild when I meet them.
“She loved you more than she loved anything in the world, and that’s why she stayed.
She stayed to protect you. To put herself between him and you.
That’s how much she loved you. Enough to make a deal with the devil. ”
“I hope when he finally meets his maker, he rots in hell,” I grit out, my teeth chattering I’m so enraged. “Right next to Anthony and Mad Dog and all the rest of them.”
Claire lowers her forehead to rest against mine. “You saved me,” she whispers. “You’re my salvation. And every minute of every day, you being alive, you being her son, that’s what saved her. Even if you couldn’t get her out, I promise you on my baby’s life, you’re her salvation too.”
Claire leans forward and plants the softest kiss against my lips. I reach my hands behind her hair and hold her there, her forehead against mine. If I’m her salvation, then she might just be mine too.