“Oooh, goodie!” She clapped her hands and settled her back against the upholstered headboard. “You’re in forsucha treat,” she added, opening the book.
He closed his eyes against the sight of her next to him. Tried closing his nose to the smell of the expensive lotion that wafted from her skin. But he refused to close his ears to the sound of her soft voice as she began to read.
It wrapped around him. Wound through him. Filled him up until it seemed as if she inhabited him.
Never had he thought he’d like being possessed. Then again, never had he thought his possessor would be the wildly intoxicating Mia Ennis.
“Lazarus Luxido”—her tone infused the vampire’s name with dramatic significance—“had just murdered a man…”
Chapter 11
8:48 AM…
Wolf was being charming.
Too charming.
Again.
The jerk.
He had remained in bed with her all night, lending comfort when the pain meds the nurse administered in the wee hours brought on a drug-induced night terror where she was back in the warehouse, hearing that terrible shot, seeing that look of fatalism contort Winston’s handsome face right before his eyes rolled back in his head.
Wolf had shaken her awake by crooning, “Shh, darlin’. It’s okay. I gotcha. You’re okay.”
And shehadbeen. Because she’d done something she never did. She’d abdicated all her control, and placed all her fear and worry onto his broad shoulder with the thought,Wolf’s here. I’m safe. I don’t have to worry.
And then she’d slept. Slept like the dead. Slept like she hadn’t slept since she was a little girl and knew nothing of the weight of the world.
When she finally opened her eyes hours later, it’d been to see him standing at the window, the rising sun silhouetting his manly form.
The rays of light had made love to his tall, lean body. Streaming past his bold profile. Emphasizing his trim waist. Curling around the plump, hard rise of his ass in those jeans that should definitely come with a warning label.
She’d felt her heart skip a beat—the organ was nothing if not totally cliché. And then he’d gone and made everything so much worse by turning to smile at her. That sweet, hot smile that transformed his normally fierce-looking visage into something almost boyish.
“You’re up early,” she’d complained, picking at a piece of lint on the blue hospital blanket and castigating herself for having been so fragile the night before. Forneedinghim so much.
“I don’t sleep much,” had been his reply as he walked to her bedside. His onyx eyes had swept her from head to toe, examining, scrutinizing every inch until she thought she couldfeelthem moving over her like a gentle, searching touch.
She’d loved it and hated it at the same time.
She blamed that for her acerbic reply, “They say sharks never do.”
One sleek brow had winged up his forehead, making the scar near his temple pucker. “Oh, so now I’m a shark?”
“If the teeth fit.”
Instead of getting offended, he’d playfully snarled at her, displaying his straight, white teeth to full effect.
See? Charming.The jerk.
Then, when the morning shift nurse had come in to check Chrissy’s vitals, Chrissy had asked the woman when she would be released. All she’d wanted then and now was her own bed and a bath—but in reverse order.
The nurse had hemmed and hawed, and Chrissy had been glad the blood pressure cuff had been taken off. She was sure her levels had spiked through the roof.
Wolf had clearly read the situation and stepped in. “Have a heart,” he’d cajoled the nurse. Was it Chrissy’s imagination or had he thickened his aw-shucks accent? “There’s nothin’ more to be done for her here. Send her on home so she can eat ice cream and watch Netflix. Isn’t that whatyou’dwant after gettin’ shot?”
The nurse had preened at Wolf—and ithadn’tbeen Chrissy’s imagination when she saw the woman squeeze her arms together to deepen her cleavage. “Well, since you asked so nicely, I’ll see what I can do.”
