Page 133 of Salvatore

“Don’t hurt you?” Annoyance enters his voice with his approach.

“I…” I shouldn’t have been down there. Shouldn’t have snooped in a criminal’s home and betrayed the trust of my savior. “I need you to let me leave.”

I take another retreating step, but he grabs my bicep, the light squeeze of his fingers igniting agony through one of my wounds.

I cry out, my knees weakening. “Stop.Please.”

“What the fuck, Ivy?” He flicks on the bedroom light, the illumination slaughtering my retinas.

I shield my eyes, disorientation making me dizzy.

“What the—” His hand falls from my arm. “What the hell happened?”

“Please just let me go. Give me the keys to your car, and you’ll never see me again.”

A hard line bites between his brows, his gaze feral as it rakes over me. “Tell me this blood isn’t yours.” He grabs my wrist, his focus narrowing on a perfectly circular hole that seeps claret from my forearm. “Ivy.” His gaze meets mine with unruly force. “Who did this?”

I shake my head, my lips sealed.

He steps closer, his palm sliding up my arm to stop before another seeping puncture wound. “Jesus Christ.” He snatches at the hem of my clinging pajama top, raising it, pausing at whatever he finds. “Fuck.” He clasps a punishing hand over my abdomen, making me double over with a squeal.

“How many are there?” His eyes are more demanding than the harshness in his voice.

I swallow, trying to recount the attack. The punctures. The pain.

I can’t remember. It’s all a blur.Everythingis. Even the man who stands before me in nothing but silken navy boxers, the peaks and troughs of all those Hulk-arian sculpted muscles becoming one big smoosh of dreamy goodness.

He truly is a work of art—his body as beautiful and timeless as a Monet. Too bad his mental equilibrium matches that of a Picasso.

I smile to myself, wishing I had the energy to voice the quip, but my head sways, the adrenaline,poof,gone. Now all that’s left is dizzying lethargy through chaotic heartbeats.

I reach for him, stabilizing myself with a feeble grip on his extraordinarily smooth shoulder.

“Hey.” He gets in my face, his free hand palming my cheek, lightly patting. “Don’t fucking pass out on me.”

I blink back to life. “I-I won’t. I’m good.”

He grabs my hands and guides one to my abdomen, the other to my waist. “You need to add pressure to stem the bleeding.”

Numbly I glance down, understanding that the slowly splurging carnage from beneath my palms is a bad thing but not feeling the stress that should probably accompany the observation.

He swoops in, sweeping me off my feet, all surly and strong as he treks fast steps back into the bedroom to awkwardly juggle me while he snatches a car fob and his cell from the bedside table. “Tell me what happened.” Then he stalks for the hall.

Did he really not know of his mother’s plan to turn me into a human pincushion?

He’s meant to be a momma’s boy.

“Ivy?” He reaches the front door and wrenches at the handle. “You can’t fall asleep.”

I open my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them. “I won’t.” I shiver as he steps outside, the external security lights illuminating our path to the black SUV while his bare feet crunch along the loose pebbled drive. “Where are we going?”

“The hospital.”

“No.” I attempt to straighten, the sharp movement punished with a stab of white-hot pain through my belly. I loosen the pressure of my palms, needing a reprieve. “Gabriel will find me.”

“Not if you don’t give them your name.”

Another set of rushed footsteps approach from behind us. “Everything okay, boss?”

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