Page 82 of Mafie Kings

“I can do that,” he says softly, “but you need to know she isn’t the only one I want.” His thumb slides over my bottom lip and we lock eyes. I lean into him, finally unafraid of being honest with him. I want to tell him that I’ve wanted him for years. That I used to bring girls home and make them scream my name just to get his attention. I want to tell him that living with him was its own kind of torture because his smell alone made me yearn for things I couldn’t allow myself to take.

He bridges the remaining distance, his lips brushing over mine ever so gently. All words escape me. Damien kisses me like he’s never been kissed before. I kiss back, desperate and afraid this moment is a dream, and if I let it go too far, I’ll wake up.

All at once, he consumes me. His calloused hands fist my hair, pulling my mouth to his. His tongue sweeps out, and I open for him, letting every thought of how this could go wrong evaporate into thin air.

My hands trail up his strong arms, and I dig my long fingers into his skin until I'm holding his face, his short beard rough to the touch and intoxicating to run my nails through. It’s like all the electricity I’ve been holding in all this time, explodes right here. His body presses into mine, and I lay back on the small couch, surrendering to him. His weight settles on top of me. I feel him grow hard in his sweatpants, making me groan into his mouth.

I press my length into him so that he can feel what he’s doing to me. He bites my lip and then sucks it between his teeth. I grip his shirt, pulling him to me, silently begging for more. A growl escapes him and I lose my breath completely. He pulls my head back before wrenching it to the side and biting my neck. I bite down on my tongue to keep myself from screaming. Him claiming me in this way is everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

He loosens his hold on my hair and kisses me again, but this time it’s sweet. We take our time exploring each other's mouths with our tongues, sliding our hands up and down each other’s bodies. He’s intoxicating. So perfectly molded to me that I forget where he ends and I begin. When we finally break the kiss we’re breathless, our foreheads touching as we remember where we are.

Damien smiles at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he whispers.

I squeeze his hand in mine. “Me too,” I confess.

Slowly we sit up, but I don't let go of his hand. I can’t tell if it’s just for comfort, or if in some way, I'm afraid that if I let him go, the moment will be over.

A few minutes later, Doc walks in. “Hey,” he says to us, “I think we are going to try to wake her up today. Her labs this morning looked good, and I think she should be good to resume normal activity after being awake for twenty-four hours so long as she doesn’t have any problems.”

I let out a breath of relief knowing I'll get to see her beautiful eyes today.

“Are you sure she's good, Doc?” Damien asks. “I don’t want to wake her up just for her to end up back here again.”

The doctor looks at him with soft eyes, “She’s good. It will be important that she continues to rest and only put her body under normal amounts of stress. Working out is fine, schoolwork stress is normal for the heart to work through. For her though, when she has these panic attacks or repeated episodes of abnormal stress levels, that’s when I would get concerned. It will take a month or two for her heart to heal from the accident. So if she can get into a routine that she can manage, then she should be good.”

He flips through her chart before looking at us again. “I wouldn't tell you this if I didn’t think you needed to know, but since patient privacy isn’t really a thing in our world, especially with you. I’m going to share this before we wake her up.”

The seriousness in his tone has me on edge, not liking where this is going. He walks over to us and sits in the chair next to the couch. “The scars on her legs, I’m sure you can guess by now, were all self-inflicted.”

A spark of pain hits my heart knowing she did that to herself and that she felt like it was her only way out. She has always come across like she’s so strong and put together, but if I know anything about our world, it’s that everyone who acts strong has been given a reason to fight for everything. And Evie is a fighter through and through.

“I’ve talked with her therapist and adjusted her medications based on what she thinks. However, her other scars are the ones that concern me the most. Her back has marks indicating she was whipped with different tools that are only known for torture. Her stomach indicates a particular torture mechanism only thought to have been used in the worst prisons in Syria.” Damien squeezes my hand, and I look at him, seeing a look of anguish fill his features.

“They strap their victims down and give them cuts along the most sensitive parts of their abdomen. Shallow cuts. Then they escalate hourly, taking the cuts deeper and deeper. It goes on for about five or six hours, and then they leave them alone for seven days. It’s just enough for the flesh to begin to heal before they do it again. It’s said that men go mad after just one round of this form of torture.” Tears spring to the backs of my eyes as I think about my Lucky Charm enduring any pain, much less pain like this.

Doc sighs and shakes his head as my chest tightens. “Based on the amount of scar tissue and the sheer number of marks, she’s been through at least three rounds of it. I really have no idea how she’s even alive.” He pauses, looking down. Damien and I make eye contact as the shock of this news settles in.

“When I've seen people with self-harm tendencies, I have trouble understanding them,” Doc says. “But her, I think it’s the first time I’ve understood. I don’t know what she’s been through, but this week of rest was the least I could do for her and her body. If she ever needs anything, I want you to tell me.”

He hands Damien a piece of paper with his phone number on it. “I know you both want to take her back to your place when she wakes up, and I think that’s fine as long as her heart rate can stay normal for the first few hours here. But I want you to call or text me if she needs anything, okay? I can be discreet if needed, I just…” He looks at Evie with a mixture of awe and concern in his gaze.

I know she’s remarkable, but to hear only pieces of what she has been through makes her the strongest person I know. My chest aches with the knowledge of part of her past, and I can only hope that one day she will trust me enough to share the rest with me.

“You just want to help.” Damien finishes for him. Doc nods his head, his eyes still on Evie.

After a moment he stands up. “Let’s wake her up,” he says before moving to turn off one of the pumps on her IV. I squeeze Damien's hand in mine, still not letting go. Our girl is about to wake up, and I have no idea how she’s going to feel when she does.

Chapter 39

I feel like I’m walking out of a fog; everything feels hazy. My eyes blur slightly when I open them, and my tongue is dry, feeling slightly bigger than normal. The first thing I notice, though, is that my body doesn’t hurt.

Memories come flooding back to me, and a beeping sound starts going off. I remember the video, the vomiting, the cutting, but I can’t figure out where I am or why I’m not in immense pain from the retching and cutting.

A strong hand wraps around mine as Lev’s voice finally cuts through the beeping. “Hey there, Lucky Charm. I need you to breathe with me okay? Deep breath in alright.” He takes a deep breath as my eyesight adjusts to his face. I find myself breathing with him before I even process the words. My body feels weak as I try to take a breath and wince. It doesn’t hurt so much as it scares me.

“That’s it,” he says in a soothing voice, his thumb rubbing circles on my hand, helping to center me. Slowly, the room around me comes into focus, and I notice the nurses at the foot of my bed and Damien on my other side.

He takes my hand in his, and it feels heavy like I have to put more effort than normal into lifting it. My brows pinch together as I try to move, but it feels like my limbs are full of concrete. A new wave of panic sets in as I try to figure out what's wrong with me. The beeping begins in the background again, and the nurses start mumbling words that don’t make sense.

---