“Use a wheelchair!” I beg. “Remember the broken ribs? And your back must be killing you. Please!”
“It’ll upset my father.” He stands up, groaning. “I need pants. Pants and a drink.”
“You’re still coming down from the morphine, so no.” I find him a pair of scrubs to put on, and we start the long process of unhitching him from everything.
Alastair is sitting up in bed, arguing with Sorcha about going to see Wallace. When we walk into his room, his faceglows.
“Son.” He stops, choking back a sob.
“I’m okay, Dad.” Wallace grits his teeth into a smile. Liar, he hurts like hell.
Father and son grip each other’s shoulders in the best hug that a man in a hospital bed and a man covered in bandages can manage. They’re both grimacing in pain, though only Sorcha and I can see it.
“Kholodov was nothing but a bag of blood and bones by the time Scarlett finished him off,” Wallace says with enormous satisfaction.
“Could we move on to the key elements here?” Alastair growls. “The kidnapping, the rescue?” He looks at me with a smile and I see why Sorcha melted for this guy. He’s almost as handsome as his son.
Almost.
“By the way, it’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Scarlett.”
“You as well.” I can’t stop grinning, we’re all grinning. This room can barely hold all the happiness, the relief we’ve all been waiting to share.
So, Wallace tells the story. I don’t add in the part where Kholodov was ready to carve me up. He doesn’t need to know what Kholodov said to me. I’m never going to think about it again.
Besides, I carved him up first.
Now that Alastair is awake, he’s exhausting. He’s constantly demanding reports from the legitimate side of the business, and insisting it’s time for him to go home.
“I am begging you to remain here for another few days so we can monitor your progress and makesure there’s no internal bleeding,” Dr. Greenwood says with the expression of a man who knows that his many decades of medical experience will be ignored.
After his father is released and sent off in a motorcade of five armored vehicles, Wallace and I finally return home, Murder Mittens wrapped around my husband’s neck like a scarf.
“This can’t be good for you to be carrying around an extra seven pounds of cat,” I fret.
“After she saved your life?” he laughs, wincing as his broken ribs creak. “I may never set the wee beast down again.”
James opens the door with such a look of existential despair that it kind of cheers me up. “Welcome home, Sir, Madam,” he intones.
I wish it felt like home.
Zasranets - asshole in Russian
Chapter Forty-Three
In which duty and destiny can sometimes be the same thing.
Scarlett…
The next day…
Trying to keep Wallace in bed is impossible, mainly because he wants me in there with him.
“I swear to god I’ll sleep on the couch if you don’t take your hand out of my undies.”
He’s kissing down my neck while his fingers stroke through my center, circling around my clitoris. I’m wet. It’s like everything below my waist is choosing to forget that my husband was seriously injured.
“No, ye won’t.” He pushes two fingers inside me and I bite back a moan.
