“Which are?”
He glances up at me. “That you have been running on adrenaline for several days, likely dehydrated, not getting enough sleep, and suffering as a result.” He finds the vein at the inside of my elbow. “I will likely prescribe some supplements pending results.”
“There was a bombing. This is hardly worthy of your time.”
“There was a bombing. And yet the sun continues to rise.” He withdraws the needle and presses a small square of gauze to the inside of my arm. “Until the results come back: sleep. Real sleep in a real bed, not sitting up watching Vin.”
When I come back into the bedroom, Vin is asleep.
I watch him for a moment, monitoring the steady rise and fall of his chest. He looks younger when he’s asleep. The tension in his jaw and his brow melts leaving the strong line of his nose, the dark lashes against his cheekbone, the mouth that knows how to make me feel amazing or devastate me.
The emotions practically overwhelm me, and I waver on my feet. I love him. I love him so much that he has become a structural part of my life, load-bearing, the thing the rest of me is built around.
Gently pulling back the covers, I slide into bed behind him. Doctor’s orders, I tell myself.
But love is not the question. Love has never been the question. The question is what it costs.
The costs of being with Vin flash through my mind. The look he gave me the morning after he killed Aurelio, like I was nothing. The horrible things he said to me in front of our friends. The way he pinned me up against the wall.
I think about the way he could turn off his warmth and attention like a light switch. How he could go from fucking me and coming inside me while making me feel safe and loved one minute and then tell me that he’s done with me minutes later.
I remember what it felt like to believe that I wasn’t good enough for him or anyone else. I won’t go back to that. Not for him. Not for anyone.
I know exactly why I cannot be with him. And yet I lay my hand on his chest so I can feel his heart beat.
42
VIN
Iwake up to Sophie in my bed, her hair loose, wearing nothing but my t-shirt. She’s leaned up against the headboard on her phone, frowning as she reads. She looks stressed.
Gingerly, I roll toward her, trying to look over her shoulder but she jerks the phone away.
I raise an eyebrow. “Really, princess. Try again.” I reach for the phone, and her eyes sparkle as she holds it out of reach.
“No, thank you.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
I lunge for it and immediately groan as pain spikes through my web of stitches. Fuck, that was stupid.
Sophie tosses her phone on the floor and pushes me backcarefully. “Why do you do things like that?”
“I needed you to put the phone down. You weren’t listening. This is your fault.”
“Vin—”
She’s got that playful warning in her voice, but after what I did to her last night, she knows better than to fight me. I play up the injury and she’s instantly docile, my submissive little slut.
I grip her by the waist and pull her on top of me. Fuck the pain that shoots through my back. I need my queen riding my cock. Her pussy is already wet, probably still wet from everything I did to her last night, and I groan as she slides it over my bare chest.
I’m already hard—I stay hard sleeping naked next to her—and she jumps with a squeal when my cock pokes her in the ass, then glares down at me.
She slams her hands down flat on my chest. “Vincenzo, last night was already too much! You’re going to break those stitches open and Dr. Rossi is going to—”
“—say abso-fucking-lutely nothing, that’s what he’s going to do. He’ll sew me back up so my queen can ride my cock again. Now stop complaining and slide that wet pussy down Daddy’s cock.”
She raises an eyebrow, trying to contain her laughter. “Daddy? You’re ‘Daddy’ now?”
