Page 186 of Branded

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Then I called the one person I thought might be able to help.

Hazel.

Twenty

Beth

I woke up in a bed that wasn’t mine.

The lights were off, but it was brighter than my bedroom, illumination from beeping machines and a large glass door seeping into the room.

The bed was small.

The blanket and sheets were hospital grade.

I had tubes and wires hooked up to me.

Had I?—

I tried to think back. I’d been in bed with Raph after we’d had sex. Sex that was so fucking incredible and mind-altering, and I’d loved it so much that though I’d been a puddle of limp satiated woman, I’d been trying to summon the energy to attack him again.

To taste him.

To take a ride atop all that yummy hockey player.

To—

“Beth?”

I blinked, turning my head, and even that little bit of movement was painful, as though every single muscle in my body had been used until it was burned out, like I’d been to the most tortuous fitness class on the planet, and then done it again, just for funsies.

Oh, God.

I stared up into Raph’s bright blue eyes.

“The babies?” I asked.

Or rather, rasped, because fuck, my throat was dry.

Something flittered across his face—relief, anger, fear, I couldn’t tell. But he reached for a pitcher on the rolling table, poured some water into a cup, and opened the straw. “The babies are fine.” He bent the straw and brought it to my mouth, inclining his head to one of the beeping monitors. “That’s tracking their heartbeats, and your ultrasound looked great.”

I drank deeply.

Then he set the cup down and lifted a strip of ultrasound pictures from the table, holding them up so I could see.

My heart skipped a beat.

They were okay.

I was okay.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“I was kind of hoping you could tell me that.”

Pushing my hair back, I tried to weave my way through the fog in my mind. “We were in bed, honey.”

“Yeah.” A gentle prompt.

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