Page 14 of Need Him Like Oxygen

“I’ll just crash until the morning,” I relented, not entirely sure that I could stay awake even on a cab ride back to my place. Let alone get myself up to my apartment. I just needed some rest. Then I could get back to my place. Hide away while I healed.

“Okay,” he agreed, reaching for gauze and slathering on triple antibiotic ointment, before pressing the pad to my foot, then reaching for a roll of medical tape, and securing it.

The process continued on my other foot until he was satisfied.

“You gonna pitch a fit if I suggest I carry you to bed?” he asked, giving me that boyish grin I somehow knew would make accepting his assistance easier.

“Just this once… no,” I admitted, watching relief move across his stupidly handsome features before he was reaching for me, careful not to jostle me as he pulled me into his arms, then against his chest.

I’d never been carried before.

I wasn’t a dainty woman, all short with bird-like bones. With my usual boots on, I stood pretty close to eye-to-eye with these men in the Lombardi crime family. I had hips and tits and enough muscle to allow me to take care of myself when shit got dicey.

So, no, I wasn’t the kind of woman who men looked at and generally thought to pick up and carry around.

Dav, though, didn’t grunt or wince. And, believe me, I was looking for it, intent on teasing him about it so the moment didn’t feel quite so, I dunno, intimate, as it did.

He just lifted me up like a fucking feather pillow, then walked me out of the bathroom and into the hallway, heading toward the bedroom.

If my head leaned against his shoulder, so what? It didn’t mean anything.

“Wait,” I said as he lowered me onto a king-sized bed with sheets that smelled like him. Leather, tobacco, and just the slightest hint of something sweeter. Like vanilla. It was a scent unique to him, and it always clung to him like a second skin. But in his bed? Fuck, it surrounded me, scented every breath.

“What?” he asked.

“This is your bed.”

“Don’t worry, sweet girl. Your virtue is safe,” he teased. “I’m not sleeping in it with you.”

I should have argued more.

But he was already drawing up the covers.

And the smell and the warmth were too comforting to object to.

So I just… let him tuck me in.

I didn’t even make a snide comment about calling me a ‘sweet girl.’

“Rest, okay?” he asked, his thumb sliding across my chin. “I’ll be one room away if you need anything.”

With that, he left me alone, leaving the door open a crack, so he could hear me if I called.

I was out cold before he even finished cleaning up his kit in the hallway bathroom.

CHAPTER FOUR

Cinna

For just a short, dream-soaked, disconnected moment, there was no agony as I slipped from unconsciousness to awake.

But before my eyes—or eye, in this case, since the other was swollen shut—fluttered open, the pain shot through me.

Each area fought for recognition.

My feet pulsed.

My wrist ached.

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