Chapter 3 #2
I surged up, only to sway and fall back to my hands and knees. Nausea roiled my stomach, and I took a few deep breaths, trying to stop the world from spinning.
“Are you okay?” a deep voice rasped above me, the sound more effective than anything I’d been trying to do to steady myself.
Still on hands and knees, I lifted my face, ignoring the stabbing pain the movement caused to crane my chin back far enough to see the owner of that voice.
My Adam’s apple bobbed as my stare climbed up a set of long legs covered in black trousers.
His button-up shirt was the same midnight color and was tucked into his pants, which were secured with a black belt.
My eyes kept climbing all the way up past the open collar at his throat, over the golden skin there, and to the neatly trimmed midnight scruff covering his jaw.
His looming presence was a dark embrace just like the long trench coat shrouding him in shadows. From his voice to every stitch of clothing on him, his beard, and hair. Except for his eyes.
They were blue.
A piercing bright blue that seemed to fight against the darkness this man wore like armor. The kind of blue that stopped you in your tracks and distracted you from… well, everything.
The second our stares connected, those bright-blue eyes narrowed as if looking at me wasn’t near as pleasurable as it was to look at him.
You just nearly ran him down! a voice inside me screamed.
But I’m the one on my knees.
The thought had me sucking in a breath and something hot pooling in my belly. It was a nice replacement for the nausea.
Sitting back so I was just on my knees and not my hands, I continued to stare up at this dark stranger without a word.
I should say something to him. Apologize.
“I like being on my knees for you.”
There was a brief moment of charged silence, and then those blue eyes flared in surprise.
Oh my God.
Mortification seeped over me, turning my face and ears hot. Wheezing, I scrambled to my feet, pitching to the side. Thankfully, the wall was there and offered something solid for me to lean against.
“I have a head injury!” I burst out, not exactly an apology but an explanation for my wild behavior.
The elevator across from us dinged and started to slide open.
Still red hot with shame, I lunged for it, hoping it would just swallow me whole. I almost made it. I saw salvation in the form of a small, claustrophobic box. It was so close that I whimpered.
And then I was snatched back, left to gape as the doors closed, abandoning me to the hell I’d created. I tried one last time, putting every last bit of energy I could muster into diving toward escape.
Again, I was yanked back, my entire back colliding with something much more formidable. I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping it wasn’t the dark man with the bright eyes even as the heat from his hand collared the back of my neck.
“D-doctor?” I asked, frail hope filling my tone.
“No.”
It was that voice again, even closer than before. The single word gusted against my ear and set off an earthquake beneath my skin.
Trembling, I turned to look over my shoulder, but the hand collaring my neck tightened so I couldn’t.
“You’re hurting me,” I whimpered.
“The real hazard here is you.”
The insult seemed to give some clarity, and I started to struggle, twisting and fighting against the steady hold. “Let me go,” I demanded, stomping my bare foot down on his shoe-covered one.
I could have sworn he laughed, but before I could figure out for sure, my doctor appeared.
“Oh, Mr. Maddox. There you are.”
I tensed, my entire body screaming in pain and exhaustion.
“I was wondering where you went. I was concerned you left after we strongly cautioned against it.”
I slumped, feeling defeated.
“Who’s this?” the doctor asked, shifting his attention to the man still gripping my neck.
I opened my mouth to tell him I had no idea and that he should call security, but the hold on my nape tightened in warning.
“Kieran Vaughn,” the man with the midnight voice supplied as though he had every right to be there. “I was at work when I got the call.”
What?
Surprise flashed over the doctor’s face as he looked between us. Eyes settling on my face, he said, “This is the boyfriend you told me about?”
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the man standing so close. God, he smells good. Some guys have it all. Sexy voice, height, and good-looking.
Feeling my stare, the man who called himself Kieran nodded once.
I glanced back at the doctor. “The one you didn’t believe existed,” I said.
The second the words left my mouth, my stomach knotted and guilt assailed me. Under normal circumstances, I never would have said that. I was just so tired and in incredible pain.
At my shoulder, the man tensed, his entire body turning to granite. The hand holding me hostage suddenly let go, and I swayed, realizing he’d been the only thing holding me up.
Almost as if he realized it too, his arm slid around my waist, tugging me into his side. I glanced up at him, confusion and awe warring within me. I knew he felt my eyes, but his remained on the doctor.
“He didn’t believe you?” Kieran spoke to me but still stared ahead. His voice was gruff with a hint of warning beneath it. I wasn’t sure if that warning was for me or the doctor, but as I pressed closer into the long black trench coat he wore, I forgot to care.
“He was very confused.” The doctor defended himself. “He has a serious concussion.”
Weighted silence blanketed the hall as both the doctor and I waited to see what Kieran would say. He was the newcomer here, but it was clear he was in charge.
This time, I felt his attention when he spoke. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach, and without the weight, I felt like a balloon that might float up to the ceiling. Maybe my head injury was more serious than I realized. Maybe I was hallucinating.
Maybe I am dead and this is heaven.
I always hoped there would be someone to care about me in heaven.
“What happened to your IV?” the doctor asked, completely ruining my fantasy of being dead.
I winced and looked down at my arm, which was striped with rivulets of blood, some dry and some fresh.
Against me, Kieran tensed. Shifting around, he grabbed my red-painted arm, his lips folding into a harsh line. “Why are you bleeding?” he asked, eyes flicking up to the doctor. “Why is he bleeding?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that as well,” the doctor retorted.
Two sets of eyes moved to me, the weight of their expectations and disappointment making me shrink.
“Hazard,” he warned, and I whimpered.
The hand not clutching my bloody arm slid beneath my chin to push my face up, but it was the sound of that deep voice becoming cajoling and almost gentle that would be my undoing. “Tell me.”
That place where my stomach used to be filled with butterflies, their wings razor sharp. It was both pleasure and pain.
“I-it was an accident,” I told him. Please don’t be mad.
There was a beat of silence. And then two.
The hand around my arm let go. The body so close to mine shifted away.
The cuts from all those butterfly wings started to burn. Heavy tears pushed at the backs of my eyes. Sniffling, I dipped my chin.
All at once, the world tipped, and I sucked in a breath.
My feet left the floor, and I was lifted into a set of strong arms. My eyes flashed up, disbelief on full display.
He didn’t return the gaze, instead pulling me against his broad chest. The urge to wrap my arms around his neck was strong, so strong that I lifted them to do it.
But then I saw the blood. Remembered that this was a stranger and that I was at the hospital. My arms dropped into my lap.
Kieran slid a brief glance in my direction, but I ducked my head against his chest.
“I want this cleaned up,” he told the doctor, no room for argument in his tone.
“Of course. Take him back to his room. I’ll get the nurse,” the doctor replied, starting ahead. When we stepped into the hall where my room was, the doctor looked over his shoulder. “He’s in room—”
“Four-oh-four.” Kieran cut him off.
My body, which had melted into his, went tight, and I lifted my cheek from his chest.
Kieran strode past the doctor who stopped at the nurse’s station. I felt the eyes of every person we left behind, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone but him.
“How did you know my room number?” I asked.
“You invited me.”
My mouth dropped open. Closed. Opened again. “Midnight hookup?” I whispered.
“Kieran.”
“But you’re him? The guy from the Heart2Heart app?”
“Unless you gave out your room number to someone else,” he said, his eyes whipping to mine like a dare.
I wanted to call his bluff. I wanted to tell him I definitely had. That I’d found three men to accept what he’d denied. But I couldn’t get the words out. In fact, I practically choked on them.
He stepped into my room, stopping beside the bed to scowl down at the IV line. “You do this?”
I ducked my head into his chest.
Instead of putting me in the bed, he just stood there beside it, letting me hide in his chest.
“Are you okay?”
Kieran stiffened, and I looked up to see my roommate peering around the curtain.
“Who are you?” Kieran demanded.
He pointed to his hospital gown. “The roommate.”
Kieran grunted and stared at him until he slinked back behind the curtain.
When we were alone, he continued to hold me. A moment later, his midnight voice filled the quiet. “Is anyone else coming?”
My fingers curled around the lapel of his coat. “No.”
He put me down on the bed then, and I started to tremble, eyes clinging to him because I just knew he was going to leave.
But he didn’t, instead pulling up a chair and sitting right beside the bed.