Page 42 of Protect

“Hmm. My dad and I still play all the time online and now that I’m home, every Sunday,” she says, as if to warn me of my impending demise. “I beat him too.”

I chuckle.

“But I can’t play cards with you while I’m working,” she says, pulling out the deck of cards.

Oh.

“However”—she fishes out two bags of mini chocolate chip cookies—“on my break, I can offer you thirty minutes to remind you why youshouldn’tplay me.”

Violette makes her way over to me, tossing the cookies on the tray beside my bed along with the cards. “Practice up while I’m gone.” She turns and heads for the door. “You can find the rules at www.play-euchre.com, in case you forget them.” She grins over her shoulder as she ducks behind the door.

“Just get your ass back here and get ready to lose,” I call to her, with the world’s goofiest grin on my face.

“Never lost yet, don’t know why I would now, especially when you’re weak, injured, and high.” Her voice echoes down the hall in response, and I extend my good arm up, resting it behind my head as I lean back in my bed. I count the minutes until she gets back, pain, guilt and self-blame aside, this night is looking up, all because Violette is here with me and she’s smiling.

“I’m sorry to beat you yet again and bring up all those bad memories of losing to me,” Violette says, not looking the least bit sorry as she pops the last mini cookie between her plush lips and lays her card down on the tray between us.

We just finished our second game of Euchre. Somehow, even though I was in the lead five minutes ago, she just earned her final two points by picking up a fucking nine of clubs and making that trump with no bower in her hand. All she had in her hand was the king, a nine, a ten, and an Ace of Spades but she took every trick and just made me look like a chump. She giggles and swipes the cards up into her graceful hands and starts shuffling.

“How dare you come in here and have no mercy on me when I’m weak, injured, and high,” I grovel.

“I see. I hurt your feelings too much?” she asks with her eyebrow raised and the prettiest fucking smile, the one where she’s a little nervous and her bottom lip meets her teeth.

“Fuck yes, forgot you play dirty and make it on anything you turn up,” I add to her.

Her mouth falls open in a gasp. “I do not play dirty. Rule number one, youneverturn down.” She tosses her braid over her shoulder, and I notice her toned arms and the silky waves of her hair as she does. “My dad taught me that, and healwayswon until I beat him,” she says matter-of-factly.

She’s right, no one else beat Jack Taylor at Euchre. He’s won tournaments for Chrissake.

“Admit it.” She stands checking the time on her phone. “Admit I’ve still got it and that you’re not worthy.” She giggles. I know it’s been thirty minutes, probably longer, and she has to go back to work. I just don’t want her to. I could sit across from her all night.

“I plead the fifth,” I say, which earns me another genuine laugh.

“You need to get some sleep, and I have to go back to work.”

“Violette?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. I don’t sit still very well. It gives me too much time to think. Aside from physical therapy, I haven't done much.Mostly sit in this fucking bed with my demons…so, thank you for this. There are days when what happened to Jacob feels…too heavy, like it might crush me,” I say honestly to her. I don’t want to get into some intense conversation, but I do want her to know I appreciate it.

She nods, pursing her full lips. “I understand all too well what the weight of losing Jacob feels like. There are days it’s still crippling, especially since I’ve been back.”

“I can imagine,” I offer, surprised she said something so personal. I don’t even have time to register that moment before the walls go back up.

“Get some sleep,” she tells me before she heads into the hall.

I lean back in my bed and let myself just remember her for the first time in a long time. I can almost still smell her beside me as I close my eyes. I think of the look in her eyes right before I kissed her all those years ago, the way her skin felt under my hands, and the sounds she made when I made her come for the first time. My cock remembers too, beginning to stiffen, and in this hospital gown there’s no hiding it.

I know it’s wrong to remember her like this when she’s right down the hall, but I do. I catalogue everything she said to me in the last few days, grinning to myself when I think of the way her face looked as she pulled that magazine out of the basket.

Joke’s on her if she thinks I’d even consider looking at that when I can still hear the way she moaned my name, or the sounds she made as my lips grazed her neck. I instinctively reach for my stiffening cock, Violette’s face in my mind only makes me harder.Fuck.I will not jerk myself off in a hospital bed while the object of my quickly growing obsession is down the hall.

I force myself to think of every unsexy thing I can—unloading the dishwasher, filling my tank with gas, the way Opp’s yellows smell. After a few minutes, I feel my hard-on subsiding.

Fucking Christ. Ten years of trying to forget how I let her go was just decimated by that stunning smile and a couple games of cards.

It's just because I’m desensitized to her after not seeing her for so many years, that’s all it is. After a few more days, it will get easier…right?

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