got my eyes to stay open, and when I did, I saw her.
She sat there, tired, weary, hurting, not physically but clearly emotionally, and still, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
Her eyes were downcast, and I realized she was on her phone, swiping left like she was looking at photos.
Amid the manic panic of the ER, she was an oasis of peace. Of calm. Something I wanted to dive in, bathe in.
Was it a crazy moment to realize that I actually loved her?
Or was it the right one? The most perfect timing of all?
Maybe.
It wasn't like I was going to tell her, but I just needed to admit it to myself.
Something drew me to her like a moth to a flame, and had done ever since that fucking night.
She'd gone from being a brother’s sister, AKA hands off, to being a sexual entity. A woman who was on her hands and knees, scrubbing like it was four PM and not four AM, trying to make her best friend's place nice for her before she came back after a long stay in the hospital.
She'd been sweaty, grimy, tired, and it had all just flowed like a lightning bolt directly to my cock.
Even now, battered and some parts definitely broken, my dick responded to her. I figured when I was eighty and her tits went down to her knees and my balls hung just as low that I'd feel the exact same way.
Everything about her resonated.
It was just... right.
Perfect.
"I can feel you staring at me."
"Yeah? Then why haven't you said hey, huh?" I rumbled, wincing at my voice. It was dumb of me to figure out, just then, that I had a goddamn oxygen mask on, and my lungs were feeling pretty fucking incinerated.
Dumb fuck.
She looked at me though, her eyes red from crying, and I knew that not only had the worst happened, but people had died.
Family.
Brothers.
I sucked in a sharp breath, then regretted it when I started hacking my guts up and agony splintered my chest, keying me into the fact that I’d either fractured or broken some ribs. She jumped to her feet, rushed over to my side and pressing her hand to my lower back, reached for some water that was on a small stand beside me, and hovered it in front of me for me to take when I was ready.
The pain in my chest had me cringing because I knew there'd been smoke damage. I was enough of a chemist to recognize a blast when I was in the goddamn epicenter of it, which meant someone had the audacity to bomb the Sinners' compound.
Inwardly, I reeled at the act of outright warfare, but outwardly, I knew I had to keep my shit together.
My spidey sense was telling me two things.
One, Indy was reeling from this. Badly.
Two, it was the kind of reeling that would see a person run away in the middle of the night.
She wasn't a runner, she was a fighter, but more than that, she had common goddamn sense.
Why, in her right mind, would she tangle herself up further with the likes of me? Not only was I a biker, I was just a lowly one. Not on the council, not pulling in the big bucks.
Throw in the fact my home had just been bombed and that someone was literally gunning for us, she'd have to have a death wish before she'd willingly tie herself to me.
I reached for the plastic cup with one hand, and with the other, I reached for her fingers. As I tangled them together, I murmured, "Means a lot to wake up with you sitting next to me."
She kept her face downturned, and I knew, just fucking knew, she was already walking out the goddamn door. If not physically, mentally.
I could feel her checking out as I sat there, tied to a goddamn gurney with all the tubes and shit coming off my body.
I had to act, and I knew I needed to key into something fast or she'd leave, on the pretense of going home and getting some rest, and I'd just never see her again.
The prospect hurt worse than the daggers ramming their way into my chest from the smoke damage.
If breathing had hurt before, that was nothing to now. Nothing to the sheer agony of contemplating a future without her.
With her fingers knotted into mine, I rested the cup on the gurney, uncaring if it spilled, and tugged down my mask.
"You need to