Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
She's okay.
I won't believe it until I see her looking at me.
"Mila, baby, I need you to open your eyes and look at me." My voice shakes. So do my hands when I run them across her again. I can't stop touching her, can't stop trying to make sure she's okay. "Please, baby. Open your eyes and look at me."
"Roman," she whimpers. It takes her a minute, but her eyes finally blink open and focus on me. She looks confused, like she isn't sure what happened. Fear rolls through her gaze, followed by pain. Tears well in her eyes.
"Where do you hurt?" I ask, pushing myself to my feet. I need to get her to the hospital. She needs a doctor and X-Rays and a bunch of shit I don't have in the condo.
She cries out when I jostle her. The tears pooling in her eyes slip down her cheeks.
"Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I whisper the words over and over as I carry her out of the condo and put her in the passenger seat of my truck. I'm not just apologizing for hurting her by moving her. I'm apologizing for everything that happened this morning.
She doesn't say anything to me. Not even when I buckle her in.
My lips ghost across her forehead before I reluctantly pull back and slam her door. It takes me two seconds to make it around the truck to climb in. I drive well over the speed limit, my hands clenched into fists against the steering wheel. Thanks to the lunch rush, it takes a lot longer to get to the hospital than I'd like.
Mila doesn't say anything the entire time. She doesn't cry anymore, either. She just sits beside me, not making a sound. Her silence kills me. I want to fix everything, but right now, the most important thing is making sure she's okay. The things I need to say to her can wait until afterward.
"I can walk," she mumbles when I pull up in front of the bay doors at the hospital and throw the truck into park.
I choose to ignore her and hop out before striding around to her door. By the time I get to her, it hasn't even opened. She opens her mouth like she's going to argue with me when I reach for her, but when she twists to the side, another whimper rolls from her lips, and her face pales.
"Let me help you," I whisper, cupping her face in my hands.
She searches my expression for a second and then closes her eyes.
I take that as acceptance and tuck her against my chest.
Three hours later, I get to take her home again. She has a knot on the back of her head, nasty bruises on her back, and a bruised rib. She refused pain medication, being fucking stubborn. When the ER doctor saw the cut healing on her foot from the broken wine glass, he gave her an antibiotic and a Tetanus shot just in case. She accepted those without objection.
She's still not speaking to me. If she weren't obviously in pain, that fact would piss me off. But it's clear to me that she's hurting, so I let it slide.
Every time I try to touch her, she tenses up. The nurse helps her into the truck when she refuses to let me pick her up. Seeing another man's hands on her, even innocently, has me ready to lay him out.
She's mine.
When I finally get her back to the condo, she hops out of the truck before I can get to her. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she hunches over and whimpers.
I want to bend her over and spank her for being so fucking stubborn. It’s killing me that she’d rather hurt herself than let me help her.
Instead, I lift her into my arms, ignoring her protests. I shove her door closed with my foot and then carry her into the condo. I was in such a rush to get her to the hospital that I didn't even lock the damn door. It doesn't really matter.
"I can walk," she mutters as I carry her up the stairs.
Her body is rigid in my arms, and that frustrates the ever-living shit out of me. I hate that she's not talking to me. I hate that she's hurting and doesn't want my help. I fucking hate that all of this is my fault.
"I can sleep in my room."
"This is your room," I growl in her ear. She's been in my bed with me since the first time I fucked her. My arms tighten around her like she might jump out of them and run if I don't hold her tightly enough. Her words piss me off.
I know I fucked up. I hurt her. But for a few minutes today, I thought I’d lost her forever. I saw her at the bottom of the stairs and my goddamn heart stopped beating. The world stopped spinning because she wasn’t in it. So I need her to let me fix what I broke. It’s the only way I’ll ever forget the way that felt. But she's not giving an inch.