I feel myself falling asleep, so I sit up and grab my phone.
“Who are you calling?” Titus asks.
“Phone nurse from the hospital. Just to go over your symptoms.”
“Hmm,” he says with a sigh, then yawns as I dial the number.
I update the nurse on Titus’s progress.
“Check his pupils. If they look normal, he should be okay to go to sleep by now. Is he making sense or talking and acting chaotic?”
This shouldn’t make me smirk, but it does. I look over at the tall, tightly muscled man sprawled out on the bed, making faces at me.
I roll my eyes. “Uh, no more than usual.”
The nurse assures me he’s okay but emphasizes that it would be a good idea for me to stay.
“I’ll do that, thanks.”
When I hang up, he cuts his eyes toward me. “What’s the prognosis?”
“You’re doing great, and you can sleep if you want. But I need to stay.”
Titus shifts his head on the pillow and faces me. “I paid her to say that.”
“Such an idiot,” I snort, tossing a pillow at his chest.”
“Ow! Cassandra!” He grips his head, and his face transforms into a mask of agony.
For a brief second, my stomach flips over. “Oh, sorry! What did I do?”
Titus laughs. “Gotcha.”
I’m relieved that he’s joking, of course. But still. Idiot. “Ugh! Why are you like this?”
I know it’s childish, but I lean forward and flick his earlobe.
His hand snatches mine before I can draw it back, and he tugs me roughly in a burst of force. I shriek, not knowing what’s happening until I’m on top of him on the bed.
I try to wiggle free, but his arms cage around my middle.
“Do you have somewhere to be?”
I reply, “Yes, I need to get away from a scoundrel.”
My body jerks, but he’s much stronger than me and holds me to him. Heat pools in my core. Titus’s breath wafts over my collarbone, and he plants a kiss on my shoulder. Electricity arcs between us, sending waves of pleasure down my spine at the touch of his lips to my skin.
“Say more old-fashioned words, Cass.”
Titus’s eyes droop in exhaustion, yet his hold on me is still like a steel cage.
I watch him slide into sleep, his body fighting against it all the way down.
“Go to sleep, you absolute jackanape.”
Eyes closed, barely conscious, he smiles.
EIGHT