Page 48 of Hero: Claimed

Then I get it.Shit.That thought never occurred to me. “Could she really have been violated?”

Caity shakes her head. “I don’t know yet. I need to check to know for sure. Please. Go.”

I bend down to kiss Brin. “Don’t know if you can hear me, baby. But I’m gonna be just in the other room.”

But when it comes down to it, I can’t leave, even to let Caity examine my woman. I close my eyes when she gets to the personal business. Otherwise, I watch every move Caity makes, ask more questions than a med student, and annoy Caity to the point she threatens to call Duke to come extract me. Though finally she sighs, realizing that I need to be near Brin. Need it as much as air in my lungs and she ceases arguing.

Two days pass and Brinley hasn’t exactly been the ideal patient. Never met a woman so disinclined to have a man wait on her. She hadn’t been violated, but she did have the shit beat out of her. The torture Crush put her through—I want to kill him myself. Brin has been on the good doc’s house call rotation. Caity buzzes around the place changing bandages, checking for infections, and giving her shots of antibiotics because Brin has a broken jaw.

“Just tell me what to do,” I order Caity for the probably thousandth time since Brin was injured. “I can do it. You got other patients to care for.” It’s uncool for me to lose my temper when she’s only doing her job, but I want Brinley alone. I want to take care of her the way only I can take care of her.

“I can train you to change a dressing,” she says, and in a move of exasperation, blows a piece of hair out of her face. “but people need actual training to give shots. And what if her temperature spikes? Do you know what to do for that? What if her blood pressure spikes or plummets? What then?”

“I’ll call you.” I mean, she lives across the forecourt. It’s not like she has to travel in from Timbuktu.

“Yeah, well… consider this me cutting out the middle man.”

“Fine.” I sigh, shaking my head and leave her to it. Brin needs breakfast, anyway.

Chaos gave me as much time off as necessary to take care of Brin, the same way I’d stepped up to temporarily run the day to day operations back when Liv was going through her shit. It’s not a marker thing—you don’t take markers from family and these men are my brothers. It’s a family thing. Family steps up for family.

Once Caity’s done checking on Brin, I walk her to the door and give her a hug and quick cheek kiss to make up for being an ass.

“I get it,” she says, patting my hand, then she heads out into the cold to treat other patients.

Before heading back into the room, I fill the stove with more pellets in order to get the place nice and warm. Brin’s not accustomed to the cold yet. Then I move back inside the bedroom. As it’s early, I threw sweats over my boxer briefs when Caity got here, so I’m good to slide back in bed. Rolling onto my side, I pull Brin in close without touching the worst of the injuries, propping my pillow and my head up on a bent arm.

“How you feeling today, bird?” I ask, picking up a tendril of her long, silky hair to wrap around my finger. Might as well wrap her hair as the rest of her is already there.

“My head sort of hurts,” she replies through clenched teeth and wires because she’s not supposed to move her jaw. We thought it was only bruised but after a day of intense pain, Caity had me bring Brin down for x-rays. She has a small fracture near the hinge of her lower jaw, not bad enough to require surgery. It’ll just take time to heal. “Not so much here.” She gestures to her forehead. “Or here.” She circles the back of her head. “Pretty much right here.” And the goof circles the front of her face, where the worst of the damage from that asshole’s fist is located, made to look all the worse by the broken nose she sustained by Blaze’s hand. “Is there a mark?” she asks and I throw my head back, laughing.

“Fuck, bird…”

“Yes, please,” she says, though it’ll be a while before we can go there.

“When you get the okay, I promise to jump you on the spot. Unfortunately, that’s gonna have to wait a while.”

“I know. I’m sorry…”

“Baby, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. I’m just glad to have you back alive.”

“And I’m happy to be alive.” Her wide, brown eyes stare dead into the heart of me. “But, um… Shoot, this is hard…”

“But um, what? Just say it.”

“I’m not meaning to sound ungrateful for your care, it’s just that, well, I don’t want to be your consolation. I don’t want to be the woman you settle for. Having you turn cold killed.” She swallows down saliva. “I won’t go through it again.” Then she swallows a second time. “You have to decide what you want. Do you… know what you want?” Brinley lightly dances her finger through my sparse chest hair and I bite down on my bottom lip because her hands on me feel so fucking good.

I pick her hand up from my chest and kiss the knuckles, keeping hold of it as I lay it out for her. Everything I should’ve already told her. “When I found you missing—fuck. Never been so scared in my life. Not even when I was tracking Elise and Liv. I needed to find them before they got hurt, but Duke always said it’s different when they’re taking your dick.” I laugh under my breath. “And dammit, if he wasn’t right about that. When the woman you love is on the line—”

Brinley gasps, tugging at her hand. I clasp it tighter, trapping it flat against my chest, rubbing my thumb over the juncture between her thumb and finger.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you that I’m in love with you?” I ask, smirking.

“What? When did this happen?”

“About the time we went out for pancakes, I think. I didn’t even realize it because we hadn’t known each other very long.”

“Then why’d you leave me stuck at work, no call, no text, and you didn’t come home? Why would you do that?”

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