Page 31 of Bleed with Me

She was still typing when chatter in the hall interrupted our fun. The door into my room swung open, and inside walked my mother, Dr. Eleanor Smith—my former Yale classmate and now head of the ICU—and Malin, whose expression was unreadable, though he scanned the room as if he expected a clown to jump out of the closet.

“This looks serious.” I grinned, placing the phone on the nightstand and sitting up.

“We had our hands full stabilizing you, Dorian,” Eleanor said, taking my card and checking something. “What did they inject you with?”

“No idea,” I replied truthfully, shrugging when Malin just stared at me. “I felt like a puppet waiting for someone else to pull the strings.”

His expression didn’t change, but I knew that empty look. If he found my kidnappers, he would tear them apart piece by piece.

My shoulders stiffened.

No. Not a chance!

She was mine. Whatever punishment awaited her, it would come from me.

-20-

Nina

Dorian scared the shit out of me. For three days, I sat in my room and watched him fight the overdose through the hospital cameras. The doctors had no idea what I’d injected into him, and I couldn’t help because my dealer disappeared without telling me the name of the drug. Day and night, the medical staff fought to stabilize him while I prayed he was strong enough to survive.

I ignored Dad, my aunt, and Sonny’s mother, claiming I was too sick to discuss the wedding. Only Lucas entered my room, but other than hacking the cameras, there was nothing he could do. We weren’t doctors or magicians. And when Dr. Smith told Dorian’s family that their only hope was to have faith, I almost lost my mind.

I crossed every possible line and nearly killed the man I considered my only hope. My heart was overwhelmed by guilt. I knew the risks when I injected him with the drug, but I chose to ignore them because my own ass mattered more than his life. However, confronted with the terrible reality of seeing him in cramps, held down by four nurses so he didn’t fall off the bed, I had to admit I deserved everything that Malin had in store for me.

But then, the morning came, and Dorian opened his eyes. After three days near death, he somehow woke up full of smiles and sharp replies, joking as though nothing had happened. His mother hovered while the doctor explained that he still needed more tests, but he looked reborn. His cheeks were rosily pink, his plump lips were red instead of a terrifying purple, his hazel eyes gleamed with playfulness, and he made fun of Malin like it was his daily job.

Clutching my stuffed giraffe, I beamed at his last text message. I knew it was a threat, but it didn’t stop me from imagining all kinds of inappropriate things. However, I should be more concerned with the unsigned marriage certificate. Lucas repeated, like a broken radio, that without signatures the paper was invalid, and now I could finally focus on it.

“What about kidnapping him again?” I mused, frowning at the screen. The camera showed Dorian in his room, talking to the young blond nurse. There was nothing wrong with him talking to another woman, but jealousy ignited in my chest and feasted on my common sense.

“He is guarded better than the president,” Lucas replied, typing on his laptop. His fingers moved quickly as if he was defusing a digital bomb. “Right now, we can only sit and observe.”

That wasn’t the response I hoped for. Still, what did I expect? He disappeared for twenty-four hours and returned drugged. I was lucky he replied to my messages without telling Malin about them.

Speaking of Malin…

“What about my phone?” I asked casually, ignoring the rapid increase of my heart rate. I risked my life by texting Dorian, but I couldn’t resist when he woke up. “Has Malin sniffed out something?”

“No.” Lucas shook his head. “I programmed the signal to keep changing identities. It’s a ghost borrowing new names. Malin might follow the trail, but he won’t catch you.”

“You’re very confident,” I said, switching between cameras because Dorian left his room. Throughout the day, he underwent so many examinations that the only thing missing was a finger up his ass.

“My skills are the only thing keeping a killer from you, Nina.” Lucas interrupted my admiration of Dorian’s face. “If I’m not confident about it, you’re screwed.”

“Okay, okay,” I mumbled, watching Dorian play with his phone. He scrolled through our conversation, a half-smile lifting one corner of his mouth, but he didn’t reply to my latest message. Instead, he slipped the phone into his grey sweatpants and continued down the hall.

“Zoom in on his face,” I whispered, ignoring Lucas’s exasperated eye roll. The camera flickered for a millisecond before sharpening, bringing Dorian’s impossibly gorgeous expression into perfect clarity.

My heart clenched painfully before going into overdrive. Three days of watching him slip in and out of consciousness turned me into a pathetic mess. And now, seeing him walk, breathe, and joke with his colleagues like nothing happened made my stomach flutter and ache all at once.

“I swear, I’m becoming a junkie,” I muttered, pressing the giraffe to my chest. “His scent is probably imprinted on my DNA by now.”

Lucas groaned, the sound reminding me of an animal in terrible pain.

“Yeah, that’s definitely what you should tell him next time.” He cleared his throat, imitating me. “Hi, babe, I memorized every pore on your face while you were unconscious and I miss how you smell.” He shook his head, his expression almost disgusted. “It’s super romantic, and also super homicidal.”

I bit my lower lip, ignoring him. Under normal circumstances, his sarcasm would’ve earned him a pillow to the face, but Dorian consumed every thought I had.