Page 74 of Plunge into Obsession

“Go to sleep. I’ll be here to keep all the monsters away,” I said softly, taking in the floral scent of her soft hair.

It took her a moment to stop tensing against me.

Then a few more of calmness before she fully succumbed to sleep. She must have been more exhausted than she let on.

Right before she fell under, she turned, her lips touching my neck. “You’re the monster.”

The words were spoken so softly that I almost didn’t hear her.

I held her tighter.

“True. But who better to protect you than the monster every other fucker out there is scared of?”

12

BIANCA

I wokeup around five o’clock the next morning.

Gabriel was nowhere to be found, but I sensed he was nearby.

There was no mistaking the dark, possessive note in his voice when he’d declared that I was his yesterday—or was it today, still?

I’d probably had less than two hours of sleep, max.

It was hard to sleep in the hospital.

I hadn’t made up the entire conversation in my head, had I?

I shook my head.

I didn’t know, and the sleep deprivation was really messing with my head.

Did he really say those things to me? Was it all real—the glint in his eyes, the seriousness when he said he would never let me go?

Maybe it was nothing more than a bad dream, manifested by my own desperate mind because I had missed him so much.

Because there was no way he could have possibly said those things to me. You couldn’t just go around saying that to another person… right?

I shivered and drew the blanket tighter around me.

Vaguely, his words penetrated my memories. He might have said it just before I fell asleep.

Who better to protect you than the monster every other fucker out there is scared of?

Was Gabriel the monster?

The door to my hospital room opened, and a nurse came in to check on me.

She smiled when she noticed me awake. “How are you feeling, Bianca?”

I shrugged.

She looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. “That’s normal for a woman in your condition. I remember my first one. I barely had the energy to get out of bed, much less go to work.”

I sat upright in bed, and the nurse went up to my chart and read through it as if she hadn’t just confused the hell out of me.

“I’m sorry. What did you just say? Woman in my condition?”

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