Chapter Fourteen
Now
It’s nearly two hours later when they decide Kev can come off the respirator. In that time, he’s drifted in and out of consciousness, but seeming a little morethereevery time he opens his eyes and looks at me.
I squeeze his hand every time he comes back to me, letting him know I’m there and not leaving him.
While the medical personnel tend to him, Istand back and closely watch despite them asking me to leave the room.
Yeah, having four Secret Service special agents at my beck and call has its perks. Telling a doctor to get to work and forget about me leaving Kev’s side is one of them.
They’ve held off giving him his next dose of pain medication, and they pump a little something into his IV to help wake him up. I guess they need to checkhis breathing without the machine helping him first before they actually pull the tube. Then he’s coughing, and they’re telling him to breathe, and those sounds are some of the best I’ve ever heard in my life.
The doctor steps aside while the nurses finish doing whatever it is they’re doing. “He’ll probably go back to sleep when we give him his next dose of pain meds,” the doctor says. “You shouldgo home and sleep, sir.”
“I’ll go home when I’m ready.” Impatiently, I stand there watching. They place an oxygen cannula on Kev and get him settled again, with the head of his bed raised a little more than it was before.
Finally, they finish fucking around with him, the nurse adds a syringe of medicine to Kev’s IV pump, they check his vitals one last time, and then they all leave the room.
Back at his side, I lean in to press another kiss to his forehead, which this time earns me a strange look from him. “Love you,” I whisper.
“Chris—”
“Shh.” I sit in my chair and take his hand, stroking my thumb over the backs of his fingers. “Squeeze my hand.”
He does, weakly, while watching me.
I smile. “You remember waking up a little bit ago?”
He frowns. “I… Something about Queen?”
Reliefsweeps through me. “Close enough.”
“What happened?”
“You earned yourself a spanking,” I whisper. “That’s what. You’re not allowed to scare me like that.”
His eyes flutter closed, then snap open again, like he’s fighting the effects of whatever they’re dosing him with. “What?”
I squeeze his hand again. “Go back to sleep. We’ll talk later.”
He does.
I take out my phone and snap a picture ofhim before I turn on the playlist again, bumping the volume down a little.
He smiles, even in sleep, and I want to believe this means we’re out of the woods. I lay my head against the bed and reach over with one hand to rub his forehead with my thumb the way I know he loves.
My boy.
Mine.
At just before nine that morning, Kev’s drifted in and out a few times, and my detail and I are workingon over twenty-four hours without sleep, when Jack is notified that Portia is inbound.
I’m certain there’s a media firestorm whirling outside the hospital, but ask me if I care.
Because I don’t.
That woman is going to get a spanking for disobeying me, though. She’s at least an hour earlier than she should be, but Igetit.
