Page 21 of Need Him Like Oxygen

She was quick, accurate, and ruthless with them.

I didn’t end up finding her phone, figuring she was probably right about them taking it.

So I stopped to buy her an unlocked one at the store before making my way back to the apartment.

I should have knocked.

But I didn’t realize how freaked out she would be until I opened the door, catching her off-guard, and finding her sitting off the edge of the couch, the gun aimed right at me, and her hand shaking so violently that if I was someone there to attack her, there was no way she would get a good shot off.

“Got your boots,” I said, trying not to embarrass her. “And your mace. And knife. But no luck on the phone. So now you get to sit and program this thing for the next few hours,” I told her, bringing the box over.

I took the gun out of her hand, replacing it with the box.

“Thanks.”

“Is that two thank-yous in one day? Pace yourself. You might pull a muscle,” I teased, watching as she shot me the ghost of a smile.

“Once I get this up and running, I’ll get going—“

“Back to bed. Where you are going to take another nice pain med nap.”

I expected resistance.

And I guess it was proof of how much this attack had shaken her when all she did was nod.

“Right.”

CHAPTER SIX

Cinna

“I say this with a lot of love and only a small bit of disgust,” Dav said two days later, standing in the doorway of the bedroom after taking away my partially eaten tray of soft foods, “you need a bath. Or a shower. Generally speaking, water and soap need to run over you.”

Wrinkling my nose at the comment, I took a whiff of myself. And, yeah, I had that stagnant sweat smell, but I wasn’t ripe or anything.

“I’m all for rotting in bed for days on end. But you brought a lot of ick in that bed with you that you still need to wash off.”

At that, even through the way the pain meds blanketed my brain, making it hard for too many worried thoughts to sink in, the memories came flooding back.

The warehouse. The footsteps. The taunting words. The pain.

“I will help you wash your hair,” Dav went on, pulling me out of the memories that threatened to pull me under and keep me there, choking on the fear and desperation.

“I don’t need help,” I insisted, even as I winced and hissed my way through swinging my legs off of the side of the bed and moving to stand. I was drenched with sweat just from the effort.

“Sure sure. But when you try to raise your hands over your head and start howling in pain, I will be in to help you wash your hair, you stubborn ass.”

I’d always thought of Dav as, well, a kind of selfish man. He definitely sought out the fun, frivolous things in life.

But I had to admit that he’d been completely unselfish since I’d shown up at his door. Bringing me meds around the clock, forcing me to eat so my stomach didn’t hurt, keeping ice packs cold for when I needed them, and changing bandages. And having a good attitude during it all. Even when I was, well, a raging bitch.

“I’ll grab you a new shirt and towels,” he told me as I made frustratingly slow progress toward the bathroom.

Dav’s caretaking skills were top-tier.

My patient skills, though, needed work.

I was out of my mind at how slowly my body was recovering. My eye was still almost completely swollen shut. The bruises seemed to get worse by the day instead of better. Everything was still swollen. The only wounds doing better were the cuts on my feet. Likely because I’d been off of them pretty much all the time.

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