Page 55 of His to Protect

His hands burned my skin, his fingertips pressing against my lower back where my shirt had ridden up. Yet I didn’t enjoy it. The pain was increasing, throbbing from my toes up to my knee.

“We’ll get a cab and get to a hotel. I’ve got a friend we can call.” He set me down and pulled me to his side, keeping one arm fully wrapped around my back to support me. With his other hand, he gestured in the air for a cab.

“You have a friend in Chicago?”

“Yup.” He nodded as a cab pulled over. He reached for the rear door and helped me in, as I hopped on one foot, looking ridiculous. Once we were seated, he explained. “David. He was one of my roommates all through Central. He’s just finishing up his residency at Chicago General.”

“Wow,” I murmured, cringing from the pain. It explained how he was so familiar with Chicago. He must have visited David often, based on how well he knew the city.

I listened halfheartedly as Declan rattled off the name of a hotel, a Radisson down on Michigan Avenue, and then he sat back and reached for my hand, giving it a squeeze to get my attention. “You doing okay?”

My mind swirled for a moment. The pain burned, but it was the mention of a hotel room that made my head spin.

“We’re supposed to go to Milwaukee tonight,” I reminded him.

“We’ll go to tomorrow, Trina.”

“But the car…”

“Will still be at the dealership in the morning.” He reached out with his hand and brushed strands of my hair behind my ear. I expected him to let go, but then his thumb grazed the side of my neck and stroked my collarbone.

The grazing touch sent a cascade of emotions through me, along with creating a gentle throbbing between my thighs.

As if he understood what he was doing to me, his lips tilted into a grin and his eyes went to my lips. “We’ll get you checked out tonight if David can get away from the hospital for an hour or so.” His brows knit with concern. “He works all the time, basically. I didn’t think of that.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, reaching up to his hand, still brushing along my skin at the top of my shoulders. His touch was distracting. “It’s not a big deal.”

“We’ll still have David come look at you.”

Decision made, without any input from me. I fought not to scowl. I wasn’t pleased that he wasn’t taking me seriously, that I was being dismissed, but then his hand squeezed mine and he leaned forward, brushing his lips over my cheek. “I’m just trying to take care of you. I don’t like the idea of seeing you hurt, and I don’t want to take off, in case it’s something major. For my peace of mind, let’s wait until David can look at it. We can spend the night here, take the train early tomorrow morning, and we’re still home tomorrow night, just on a later ferry.”

Something knit itself back together inside my chest while I stared into his large, dark orbs.

It felt as if he were healing me, from the inside out. I knew not all men were like Kevin.

Not all men beat their wives for the smallest infraction. I also knew some were worse than Kevin. He preferred to use his hands. I knew some men did more damage to women than Kevin ever did to me.

What I had never realized until this moment was, regardless of how intimidating Declan sometimes seemed, with his muscles and his size and his obvious physical strength, underneath all that was a good man. A man who was better and kinder than anything I had ever imagined.

He wanted to look after me.

I decided to let him.

I exhaled, letting the stress from the last several minutes out into the air, and my shoulders relaxed, along with the tension in my jaw. “Okay. Like I said, I trust you. Your friend can check me out.”

He scowled. “He can check out your ankle…not check you out.”

I rolled my eyes playfully. “You know what I meant.”

“Yup.” Declan nodded and then grinned. “I meant what I said, too.”

I laughed and looked out the window, watching as we flew through the streets of downtown Chicago. Passing between the tallest buildings I’d ever seen in my life, it felt like we were traveling through a tunnel. As we neared Lake Shore Drive, traffic almost came to a standstill. While other drivers honked their horns and shouted obscenities, I watched the waves of Lake Michigan lap against the shoreline.

My thoughts drifted like the waves, pushing and pulling in conflict with one another.

Because while Declan seemed bossy and gruff, sometimes harsh and demanding, he was the most protective person I’d ever met.

No one, not a single person, ever cared enough to have me seen and looked over when I’d been hurt.

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