19
Rose
I didn’t expect to see him here.
Yet he was.
My throat felt like the Sahara Desert, dry and sandy but also swollen and tight. It was that feeling that woke me from deep sleep. Well, that and the dream I’d been having.
I had a feeling I’d be dreaming about chains and duct tape for a long time.
Those images and gut-tightening fear didn’t last, though, because when I opened my eyes, it was him I saw. Derek wasn’t a small man. He wasn’t so huge he was intimidating either. He was just the right size.
You know. A size that carried presence. A size that inspired confidence and strength. Even though he wasn’t my doctor, I knew he had a really good bedside manner.
Crap, he made me feel better just by being here, even slumped in an uncomfortable-looking chair with his feet propped up on the end of my bed. He wasn’t wearing the ripped-up T-shirt anymore or the sweats. Those ruined clothes were switched out for a set of green hospital scrubs.
The messy way his hair looked the last I saw him was also fixed, like he’d combed it or run his hands through it so much it was lying down, tamed.
The bruise on the side of his face seemed darker now, the skin around it puffy. His wrist was bandaged just like mine, and up until this point, I hadn’t noticed the cuts and scrapes on his knuckles from the fighting he’d done.
But even with his injuries, he still looked strong.
My heart swelled. Not at his injuries, the sight of his chin resting against his chest, or the way his arms wrapped across his middle while he slept. It was the sight of his bare feet atop my scratchy blankets.
No, I don’t have a weird foot fetish.
But there was intimacy in waking up to find him here, to find his naked feet on my bed. I liked it. I liked it so much everything else seemed to be forgotten for long, blissful seconds.
There was a large no-nonsense clock hanging on the wall across from the bed, the kind with a white face, black numbers and hands, and a cheap-looking plastic frame. It was already morning. I’d slept through the night.
The IV was still in the back of my hand. The needle and tape tugged and pulled, but I barely noticed.
“Derek,” I whispered, but it came out as more of a croak.
His body jolted, arms flew out, and those bare toes hit the ground. The chair beneath him skidded backward with the force of how quickly he stood. “What’s the matter?”
“Everything’s fine.” I assured him. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
His large exhale filled my ears. “Guess I’m still kinda on red alert,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing up at me from beneath lowered lashes.
His eyes were sheepish, and the dark length of his hair fell, creating a short waterfall over his forehead and part of his brow. He was completely adorable, but not in a cutesy way. In a knight in shining armor way.
“That’s understandable.”
Both his hands dropped to his sides when he came closer. I couldn’t help but notice there was something wary about the way he approached me. Almost as if he were apprehensive. “How you feeling, fairy?”
Derek had never been very apprehensive around me.
Well. Wait.
I guess he’d always been a little cautious around me, up until we’d been kidnapped. He always hesitated to ask me out, even though he said wanted to. He always tried to just keep things friendly instead of going a little further.
Was there a difference between hesitation and apprehension?
Sure felt like it.
It seemed like whatever held him back before was a lot different than the guilt I read in his eyes now.
I made a split-second decision right then and there. I am going to go more with my gut and less with my head.
If I’d gone with my gut the night at the bar, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.
But then you wouldn’t be here with Derek.
I pushed away that little nugget of a thought. Getting kidnapped, shot, and almost dissected was never going to be classified as okay steps to getting a date.
Desperate much?
Following my gut had yet to lead me astray. In fact, I had a successful business because of it.
“What’s the matter, doc?” I pressed.
His dark eyes flashed up to mine. The shield he’d held between us crumbled, and amusement lit up his face. “Doc?”
I shrugged and rebutted. “You call me fairy.”
One dark brow arched up his forehead. It totally made my stomach flip. “I can stop.”
“I hope you won’t.” Damn my breathless voice. I totally loved that he called me fairy. Made me feel special. I had a feeling there were lots of women that would line up just for a chance to be special to him.
The way his full lips pulled taut into a satisfied, arrogant smile just might be my undoing. His arrogance made me curious. Curious because someone like Derek was only arrogant when he knew he could back up whatever he was feeling smug about.
Clearly, in this moment, that something was me.
“Doc it is,” he drawled.
Southern charm. He wore it better than those scrubs.
He was distracting me. Again. I forced my brain back to the matter at hand. “You were sleeping beside my bed.”
“Thought it was too soon to climb in with you.” He winked.
Don’t get distracted.
“Why didn’t you go home?” Why aren’t you with your nephew?
The playfulness in his presence left the building. “Came in to check on you. It was just too hard to walk back out.”
Oh, I liked that.
I liked it way more than I should have.
“How’s Rocco? The surgery?” I pushed hesitantly.
A bitter, almost livid expression crossed his features. It transformed him into someone I almost didn’t recognize. It was as if my question drained him completely, as if energy bled right out of his pores.
“They weren’t lying,” I surmised.
It was what I’d been afraid of, and really, Derek had been afraid of it, too. I recalled the way he looked when he drove the taxi to the hospital. God, had that only been last night? Felt like years ago. Time dragged so slowly since I was first taken. I felt like I’d lived a couple lives in the span of a couple days.
Derek had been solemn and intense as he swerved through the streets, bringing us to the ER. We weren’t euphoric from escaping with our lives. We weren’t kissing and laughing because the excitement of freedom overshadowed everything else.
“They could have been lying,” I’d whispered. Those were the only words I’d said in the cab.
His hands clenched the steering wheel. He didn’t glance at me at all. “They have to be.” The words were an ominous prayer.
But…
It hadn’t stopped him from hoping.
And now his hope was crushed.
A feeling of someone snapping a giant rubber band inside me seemed to give me a jolt. Beneath my skin, my insides stung.
Derek was here.
In this room.
What if he regretted what happened? What if now that he knew his nephew didn’t get the kidney he desperately needed, Derek was sorely sorry he hadn’t done what the men wanted and cut me up?
“Derek,” I whispered, his name so heavy it lay in the room like a gigantic rock.
He shifted from one bare foot to the other. “Rose. We need to talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Oh.
So that’s why it was so hard to walk out when he first arrived. It wasn’t me he felt connected to. Not me who made him want to say.
Just a piece of me.
My kidney.
20
Derek
Her face was beautiful.
Even in exhaustion, Rose had a luminosity about her I rarely saw in patients lying in hospital beds. She was one of those truly beautiful people, her outside made stunning by the heart held captive in h
er chest.
The long, light-red strands of her hair waved down her back. One lone strand looped over her shoulder to fall incongruously across her chest. Freckles spattered lightly over her cheeks and nose. Despite the dark circles beneath her eyes, she appeared alert. The injuries inflicted upon her turned my stomach and made me even angrier with my sister.
The whole one side of her face was black and blue from being hit, and there was a swollen cut at her hairline with a butterfly bandage pulling it together. I was pretty sure it was from being hit with the butt of the gun. Around her wrist was a thick bandage. The way it rested against her lap told me it was painful. The makeshift bandages I’d used on her hands were gone. All the red cuts, torn skin, and scrapes were exposed. The sheen across them indicated they were cleaned, medicated, and probably had some sort of liquid bandage coating them. That was good; it would protect them for a while.
I couldn’t see the leg where she took the bullet, but I knew it was likely well covered and taken care of. She seemed fragile to me, not really in spirit, but in the flesh. How vulnerable she’d been to those men—to my sister—it made me sick.
But even with all her injuries, the stark reminders of her own mortality, she was still beautiful. Her face was flawless to me.
Natural. Not pretend.
Real.
God, as much as I craved her from the minute I heard her laugh and tasted her magical brew, I craved her even more now.
Nothing felt real anymore.
Except for the way she looked at me.
How would I do it?
How would I tell her she was kidnapped because of me? How could I explain the twisted place we found ourselves in?
“You don’t have to explain.” Her voice was hollow and far away. The stoic way she watched me stirred a gust of wind through my middle. In its wake, a feeling forlornness hunkered down like a storm that planned to stay a while. “I understand.”
“You can’t possibly,” I rasped.
Her eyes turned to stare down at the blanket covering her lower half. God, how small she looked lying in that bed. Barely a lump beneath the covers.
I’d come in here to confess what I learned. The resolve I’d known dissolved like sugar in a glass of warm water, instantly, as if it hadn’t even been there at all.
How could such a small woman with a mop of red hair and pale cheeks offer me such solace? How did I not know it was solace I was seeking, rather than to spill my guts?
I was used to cutting up people for a living. I was trained in how to sew them back together. I always left them in better condition than when I found them.
I couldn’t do that this time.
I didn’t know how to fix this. If I spilled my guts to her, here, now… I was very afraid I wouldn’t be able to sew myself up again. Or her.
“You regret it.”
My eyes snapped up. “What?”
She still stared down, fiddling with an invisible thread on the damn blanket. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted her green eyes on mine.
“If you’d done what they wanted, your nephew would be whole again.” She elaborated.
Rose thought I regretted saving her life. The realization was almost as hard as knowing my nephew didn’t have a kidney.
I rushed forward. She still refused to look at me. My hand covered both of hers where she worried with the string. Guess it wasn’t invisible after all, but apparently, some other things were.
Her entire body stilled beneath my touch, and she stared at our connection. Without an invite or a word, I sat on the mattress and rotated so I was facing her and my feet were flat on the floor.
The side of my hip brushed against her leg when I moved. She didn’t pull away.
That was something.
“When you called my name just a minute ago, did you see my reaction?” I asked, keeping my voice low and even.
I felt her look up, but she didn’t lift her head.
I had her attention.
Her head bobbed once.
“I thought there was a threat, and I literally jumped up out of sleep. Granted, it wasn’t the best sleep. Those chairs belong in hell,” I muttered.
She giggled.
It was almost silent, but her shoulders shook.
My heart dented a little. Tenderness consumed me.
How she thought I could ever regret not hurting her was the biggest mystery I’d ever know. Seriously. I’d figure out how the pyramids were built before I unraveled a woman’s brain.
“It wasn’t a threat to me that had me up and moving, sweetheart.” I went on. “It was danger to you.”
That got me the green eyes.
Just feeling the brush of her stare loosened some of the tightness in my body.
“I’d been kidnapped by a fucking taxi driver,” I muttered offensively. “Hit with a tranquilizer and dumped in a silo. The second my eyes found you, thoughts of my well-being ceased. You were there. You know. I went into full-on protection mode.”
Frankly, it kind of shocked the shit out of me. I was still processing it.
“You’re a doctor,” she said like that was the answer to it all.
I laughed. “Even doctors have a sense of self-preservation, fairy.”
Her wide eyes regarded me, prompting me to go on.
“I went upstairs. I saw my nephew. I found out some things… bad things. Facts that shake me more than what happened in those silos ever could. Know the first place I came? Here. To you. Just sitting in that lumpy, godforsaken chair and propping my feet on your bed made me feel a little better.”
“What happened?” Concern darkened her face, her frown pronounced.
She did it, too. She forgot to be upset even though she suspected I was sorry she was still alive. She forgot about herself the instant I said I was shaken.
I was going to fall in love with her.
Hard.
Fast.
Deep.
I cupped her face, letting my thumbs brush across her cheeks. “I don’t regret not hurting you, Rose. There are a ton of reasons I would never have done what those criminals wanted. One, because it was morally depraved and sick. But that’s not the main reason.”
“No?” Her bandaged hands came up to grip my wrists. The pressure of her fingers on my skin was delicious. A bite of desire pierced me. Sexual arousal swirled upward.
Now was not the time, but really, I wasn’t surprised.
It didn’t seem to matter with Rose. With her, I was always capable of want.
I shook my head. “Can you feel it between us?” I whispered. “I tried to avoid it. My hours as a surgeon aren’t very conducive to a relationship. But you, Rose, you bring out something in me. I want you. I want you in so many ways. Most of all, I want you safe.”
“Derek…” Her body swayed toward mine.
The distance between us evaporated. My mouth fused to hers like a flame to a wick. I was fierce and hungry. Where I once held back, I couldn’t anymore. Suddenly, the urge to make up for lost time with her hammered through my veins so hard it replaced my heartbeat. Our lips met again and again. The sound of my ragged breathing as I sucked in air only when absolutely necessary filled the quiet room.
When I started to draw back, her fingers slid into my hair and pulled me close again. With a groan, I surrendered and glided my tongue across the fullness of her lower lip. She opened. Our tongues tangled even as our lips remained in motion. Her body fidgeted, trying to get closer, like she too was suddenly impatient with need. My hands shot out so I could lift her into my lap, but instantly, I was distracted.
One hand brushed over the thin fabric of the hospital gown, the hardened pebble of her nipple was unmistakable. The accidental touch caused a shiver to work its way up her spine, so I did it again.
With both hands.
The pad of my thumbs slid over her nipples at the same time. Her mouth ripped free of mine with a gasp, and her forehead hit my shoulder. Her nipples tightened even more, so much I knew it probably hurt,
so I gave them both a gentle pinch.
An incoherent sound ripped from deep in her throat. I clutched her body, fiercely yanking her against my chest.
Her nails clutched at my back, and the length of the IV tube in her hand brushed against the back of my arm.
“I won’t ever hurt you,” I vowed against her hair.
The promise cut me like a knife. The moment was broken, like a dog with its tail between his legs, running into a corner.
I shot up off the bed instantly. So fast she fell forward without my body to lean on. I reached down to steady her before pulling away again.
“Fuck,” I growled.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
I swung on her, anger propelling me. “What’s wrong is I can only partially keep that promise. I hate it. I hate this. I won’t hurt you physically. I swear to God.”
“Just say it.” Her voice was anxious yet also frustrated. She wanted out of her misery.
Jesus, so did I.
“My sister is the one who had you kidnapped. She’s the reason you almost died.”
21
Rose
I would not be playing the lottery anytime soon.
Know why?
The odds were not in my favor.
In fact, I was beginning to suspect the universe had it in for me.
How much more out there could this situation get?
Maybe I should put in a call to CSI and offer them the storyline.
No. I would never want to relive this twice, even if it were on some TV show I watched from my living room.
Derek was clearly distraught, the way he paced back and forth. Back and forth. The conflict in his eyes flashed every time he glanced my way. He felt guilty, embarrassed, hurt…
Torn.
How I honestly could have ever thought he regretted not stealing my organs I just might never know.
I could call it a lapse in judgement. Temporary insanity. A brain fart.
Whatever it was, it was long gone.
His kiss annihilated those thoughts. But his actions… his actions right now—that’s what convinced me wholeheartedly.
Even now, he was concerned what this news would do to me, how hurt I would feel.
Maybe I was messed up in the head, but honestly, it didn’t matter to me the details of why and how I was kidnapped.
Taxi (Take It Off #11) Page 15