I couldn’t wait to get her home. My home. My care. My love and attention being all she would need.
Chapter Sixteen
Raychel
Anthony stayed in my room during my examinations—not that I was going to object really. I just wasn’t used to having someone in the room with me while I was being poked and prodded. He didn’t just sit there like a bump on a log, either. He asked better questions than I did.
I was worried about how much all of this was going to cost, and the anxiety nearly made me ill. I certainly didn’t have any medical insurance, and with the emergency room and all the tests and three days in the hospital, I was going to owe my life. It didn’t strike me until I had been there for a day or two, but I was in a private room, too! There was no way I could afford a ward bed, which I didn’t think they even had anymore, much less a private room.
Although I desperately wanted to get home and lick my wounds, I wasn’t in any hurry to be handed the bill for my stay in this lovely white hotel. When that time came, Anthony was there, of course. The nurses’ aide handed me all sorts of paperwork to sign before I left, which I did while he gathered up all the stuff he’d already packed for me that morning.
I scanned all the paperwork that was put in front of me, needing to see that astronomical figure just to justify the dread in my heart. But there was nothing there. It was all aftercare stuff about taking it easy and watching for signs of this and that. But nothing that said what I owed.
Maybe they ran out of ink while printing the number. That was a distinct possibility, I thought, depression lying over me like a wet blanket. I would never be able to dig myself out from under this bill.
I was so absorbed in feeling horrid about owing a tremendous amount to the hospital, that I didn’t notice where Anthony was driving me to until the car stopped, and I looked up to find myself at the entrance of his estate.
“Anthony! You were supposed to take me home!”
He continued to drive up to the house. “This is your home,” he growled, “at least until you’re fully recovered. I’m not about to let you go home all by yourself. I’ve been to your apartment, remember? Church mice have it better in comparison.” He came around and lifted me into his arms once he stopped the car.
“I can walk,” I protested. I had made sure that the doctor had given me a walking cast on my ankle so that I could be mobile.
Anthony didn’t answer until he reached the bedroom with me in his arms whether I liked it or not. “You don’t need to.” He set me down on the bed with infinite care and turned to go back and close up the car, then stopped a few paces away. “In fact, you’re expressly forbidden from getting up for any reason other than an emergency or the bathroom. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”
Feeling bolder than usual and figuring it was the good drugs I was on, I snapped back, “What are you going to do, spank me?”
Anthony began to step slowly back toward the bed—and me, his eyes holding my stare, his expression one of unwavering intent. “I don’t need to spank you.” I could barely hear him, he was speaking so low and soft. “Although I will when you’re better for leaving me when you shouldn’t have. But all I need to do is slip up your nightgown and latch my lips onto your nipple, then slip my finger down the folds between your legs until it comes upon that lovely little bundle of nerves you have hidden there.”
He laid down next to me, and as if to prove his point, my body began to respond to him, slickening for his potential invasion, wetting my panties in his honor.
“I’ll touch you, tongue you, tug, suck, and rub until you’re begging me, seconds away from coming as you scream my name.” Suddenly, he was halfway across the room already, reaching for the door knob. “Then I’ll stop, just like that.”
I couldn’t writhe very well, but I was doing my damnedest. Dear God, he’d left me hanging, the prick! “Hey, that’s not fair!” I wailed.
“Then you’d better be good, hadn’t you?” he replied without a trace of remorse.
And he was gone, leaving me to swell and throb in my own juices.
But he didn’t. Not for long anyway. He got all of my things out of the car and brought them into his room, putting my nightshirts away and setting my toiletries in the bathroom.
“Are you hungry?” he asked when he was done.