Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Right.”
CHAPTER SIX
Cinna
“I say this with a lot of love and only a small bit of disgust,” Dav said two days later, standing in the doorway of the bedroom after taking away my partially eaten tray of soft foods, “you need a bath. Or a shower. Generally speaking, water and soap need to run over you.”
Wrinkling my nose at the comment, I took a whiff of myself. And, yeah, I had that stagnant sweat smell, but I wasn’t ripe or anything.
“I’m all for rotting in bed for days on end. But you brought a lot of ick in that bed with you that you still need to wash off.”
At that, even through the way the pain meds blanketed my brain, making it hard for too many worried thoughts to sink in, the memories came flooding back.
The warehouse. The footsteps. The taunting words. The pain.
“I will help you wash your hair,” Dav went on, pulling me out of the memories that threatened to pull me under and keep me there, choking on the fear and desperation.
“I don’t need help,” I insisted, even as I winced and hissed my way through swinging my legs off of the side of the bed and moving to stand. I was drenched with sweat just from the effort.
“Sure sure. But when you try to raise your hands over your head and start howling in pain, I will be in to help you wash your hair, you stubborn ass.”
I’d always thought of Dav as, well, a kind of selfish man. He definitely sought out the fun, frivolous things in life.
But I had to admit that he’d been completely unselfish since I’d shown up at his door. Bringing me meds around the clock, forcing me to eat so my stomach didn’t hurt, keeping ice packs cold for when I needed them, and changing bandages. And having a good attitude during it all. Even when I was, well, a raging bitch.
“I’ll grab you a new shirt and towels,” he told me as I made frustratingly slow progress toward the bathroom.
Dav’s caretaking skills were top-tier.
My patient skills, though, needed work.
I was out of my mind at how slowly my body was recovering. My eye was still almost completely swollen shut. The bruises seemed to get worse by the day instead of better. Everything was still swollen. The only wounds doing better were the cuts on my feet. Likely because I’d been off of them pretty much all the time.
I didn’t want to even talk about my wrist and ribs. At this rate, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to move without pain for months.
And I needed to get the hell back out there, find these pricks, and make them pay for this.
I needed my crew to know I was still around and in charge.
Sure, I’d covered my ass by lying to the boss and telling him I was fine, just working on shit behind the scenes. And I was keeping tabs on everyone under me via text. But that wasn’t how I ran things. Eventually, people were going to wonder why they hadn’t seen me, why I wasn’t out on the streets like usual.
I had to heal and get back out there.
Maybe the first step to feeling more human was taking a shower.
“Need any help?” Dav asked, placing the towels on the rack and the shirt and panties on the sink counter.
Panties he’d clearly bought me, I might add.
There was a whole pile of them on the dresser in the bedroom, tags still attached. And we were not going to talk about the strange little thrill that moved through me at realizing he’d been the one to pick them out. Especially when he’d chosen simple, not fussy ones. A part of me thought that, given the chance, he’d buy something ridiculous like silk or lace or all strappy for no good reason.
He’d picked out what he thought I would like, not what he liked.
You had to appreciate that.
“The day I need your help taking off my shirt and underwear is the day you can just take me out back and shoot me,” I grumbled.
“I have to admit, I like the idea of taking your panties off for the first time in a much more mutually exciting way,” he said, giving me that damn playboy grin.
“That’s never going to happen.”
“Sure sure,” he agreed, heading toward the door. “I’ll be a couple feet away when you realize you’re being a stubborn-ass and need help with your hair,” he said. “Though, if you need help scrubbing any other are—“
“Out,” I snapped, but there wasn’t much bite to the word.
Alone, I stripped, removed my wrist brace, and moved into the shower niche, just letting the water run over me for a while, finding some relief in the sensation.
Until, of course, I reached for the bottle of body wash. That smelled just like Davide when he would sneak into my room right after his shower, shirtless, hair wet, still glistening a bit.