Page 98 of Stoker's Serenity

I wasn’t about that. I liked my freedom.

Now, it was just me, Linny, and my woman, and she was hurting. She’d stiffened up something awful and was moving around slower and worse than Mrs. Sedgwick, stooped and carefully shuffling her way out the Emergency Department on my arm, while Linny pulled up at the ER’s main entrance. She would drive her back to Orchid’s and I would follow, hopefully without incident this time.

I’d already called in to work around eleven o’clock at night – much to my foreman’s irritation, waking him up like I did. He’d pretty much lost all his irritation when I told him what happened and told me to take Monday too, if I needed it. I told him I’d keep him in the loop. I had to see what happened.

She looked so frail going up the steps to her apartment, and I rushed to catch up. Linny had to go and felt awful about it, and to be honest, even though I’d deny it, and would never in a million years would I say it out loud, I wanted her gone. I know it was selfish as hell, but I needed to be a little selfish right now. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold my shit together.

Fuck. I felt like I’d nearly lost her. Way too close, far too close for comfort. It’d be a millennia before my butthole unpuckered from this one.

When I shut the door behind Linny and turned around, Serenity was sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap. She looked exhausted, in pain, and she looked up at me with a mixture of fear and anguish in her eyes that clashed like oil and water. I sank down onto the bed beside her and searched her face.

“You scared the shit out of me,” I said.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Her voice warbled and her eyes crested with tears, and all I could do was shake my head.

“It’s alright. You saved my ass back there, dude was tenacious.”

“I couldn’t let him hurt you. Not when I could stop him. I didn’t know what else to do. He was going to hurt you and the police never would have gotten there in time. I knew I had better chances in a cage than you did on a bike.”

I smiled at her natural use of MC terminology, and her face filled with a gentle confused wonder that was likely a byproduct of the good drugs she was on.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You, talking like one of us. It’s nice. You’re assimilating nicely.”

She went to nod and stopped. I brushed some of the stray wetness off her cheek.

“Come on, into a hot shower, let’s relax those muscles, get you into bed and you can sleep.”

“Okay,” she murmured.

I stood up and held my hands down to her.

“Wish you had a bathtub,” I said, as she took them and I helped her to stand. She toed off her simple black ballet flats and I led her into the bathroom, letting her go ahead of me so I could stand in the doorway. It was far too small for the both of us to be in there at the same time.

I couldn’t wait to get her home, to my – to our place – and into a bathroom with some size to it. I wanted to back her into the corner, like I had our first time. I wanted to taste her, hold her up against my shower wall and make her come against my mouth over and over again. I helped her undress and went back out into the main room to put her clothes away while she showered.

There was never a time I didn’t want her. Even now, with as hurt as she was, she was painfully beautiful to me. I wanted to kiss away her tears, love her until there was no more pain and only the good remained. Logically, I knew the sentiment was trash, that it didn’t work that way; but it was still what I wanted to do – the urge so strong it drew me back to my feet from the edge of her bed, like I was a damn puppet on a string, when the shower’s water cut off.

I reached out to take her hands in mine and help her step over the low lip of her shower. I wrapped her carefully in one of her big towels and ran my hands gently and carefully over the rough material to soak up the water beading on her skin. I leaned down and kissed her gently, carefully. I didn’t want to aggravate anything.

She swooned into me slightly, and I backed off with an overabundance of caution and sighed with light frustration.

“What is it?” she asked, and I guided her hand to the front of my jeans. She laughed, blushing slightly and said, “Oh.”

“Come on, baby. Let’s get you into bed,” I whispered, guiding her gently to her bed, lifting the blankets. She ditched her towel, unclipped her long hair from where she had it messily piled atop her head. The artless tumble it made against her smooth skin, the sweeping gentle line of her back was so beautiful, so sexy, and I wanted so badly to do something about it, but there was just no way right now.

She got beneath the covers and I tucked her in gently. Straightening, she looked up at me with wide, startled dark eyes.

“You’re not coming to bed?”

I smiled tenderly and murmured, “Not yet, I got a couple calls to make.”

“At this hour?”

“Won’t take me but a couple of seconds. I’ll be right out on the porch.” She pouted beautifully and I admonished her playfully, “Stop that. Get some sleep. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“Okay,” she sighed, disappointed, and it tore at me a little. Still, I needed to check in and see what was what with Radar.

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