If I had his lips on mine, that would be all that mattered.
At least, until the blood started to get everywhere, then it’d just be really freakin’ awkward.
“As long as you don’t press down too hard,” I whispered, heart thumping hard against my rib cage. “I’ll be perfectly fine.”
He studied me so long that I started to feel self-conscious.
“You don’t have to kiss me,” I blurted. “I know I look rough.”
His eyes flicked up to mine.
“It’s not that I don’t think you look beautiful, or that I don’t want to kiss you. I just don’t want to fuckin’ hurt you. Seeing you the last week hurt has really fuckin’ kicked my heart’s ass,” he told me. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I know that I will.”
“You won’t,” I lied.
He grinned, then leaned forward until he could press his lips to the corner of my mouth, on the opposite side of where my lip was split.
He stayed there for a few seconds longer than I expected, making me moan slightly when things that I’d thought would never function again started to burst to life.
He laughed when I leaned forward a bit more than intended, and the pain in my ribs and my lip stopped me.
His eyes searched my face when he was far enough away, and that was when I realized I would do just about anything to feel those lips against mine.
“When you kissed me before my accident,” I told him, breathing a bit heavier than I expected to be. “I could feel the press of your beard against my chin and lips for the rest of the night. I liked it a lot.”
His eyes were dancing when he winked and turned back to the road. “So no more lip about coming to my place?”
I thought about that for a second and then said, “Only if you let me stay in your room.”
His eyes were heated when he put the truck into drive and said, “There was nowhere else you were ever going to stay.”
CHAPTER 17
Even though I’m not from your sack, I know you still have my back.
-text from Haggard to Easton
HAGGARD
She was asleep for an entire hour before I pulled away from her sleeping body and twisted on the bed so I could lean over and reach for my boots.
I hadn’t intended to go tonight, but I’d forced Sophia to take a sleeping pill since she was no longer on hospital-grade pain medication.
The reason she’d been in longer than intended was the fever that she’d gotten the first night she was there.
The next week was spent trying to figure out where the infection was at in her body and giving her IV meds that eventually kicked the infection.
After getting her settled at my house, I’d fed her, watched a movie with her, and then coaxed a sleeping pill into her, all the while anticipating leaving and going somewhere I hadn’t been able to get as of yet.
But tonight was the night.
I’d been patient.
I’d bided my time.
But, unfortunately for Blakely, it’d also given me ample opportunity to stew in my anger.
Being careful not to wake her, I jerked my chin up at Shine.
He was sitting on my couch with a bottle of beer already in his hand.
“Don’t kill her,” he ordered as he saw me appear. “Smart people would put together that two times now, someone has offed the person that put her in harm’s way.”
The first ‘her’ being Blakely. The second being Sophia.
“Find Madden yet?”
The lie that Madden was at a conference sat sourly in my stomach.
I hadn’t wanted to lie to Sophia, but she’d been so damn worried about her dad that the lie had just slipped out.
The relief I’d seen on her face made the lie completely worth it.
“Actually,” he hesitated, his eyes hitting me, letting me know that the news wasn’t good. “Yeah. At a bar in Frisco, hooking up with some lady in the corner, so drunk he couldn’t even see that we were on him until we were carrying him outside.”
My eye twitched.
“You bring him home to dry out?” I asked.
“Yes,” Shine confirmed. “He’s back at his place with a prospect on him.”
My eye twitched all over again. “A prospect?”
Shine grinned.
“Well…” Shine put his feet up onto my coffee table, which he knew I fuckin’ hated. Because boots should be taken off at the door, not left on to traipse bacteria throughout my house. “Since you brought in Easton, I thought I’d bring in my own guy. But don’t worry, I didn’t just make him a part of the club like you did. I allowed him to become a prospect, so if he pisses us off, he’s gone.”
I rolled my eyes.
The thing was, I trusted my brothers’ judgment implicitly. I may not like the added member to our MC, but he had a reason, and I trusted that reason was a good one.