Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,164
looking embarrassed.
I grin. “How’s all that going? Blossoming?” I tease.
He smiles. “You can probably bring them in soon. Even now.”
“I’ll let you do that.”
He does the dishes while I package some stuffed bears and watch Papa on the tracking software. He’s not staying in one spot, which is strange, so I’ve been monitoring him. No sign of anything odd, and definitely no humans, so that’s good.
When I go back into the kitchen half an hour later, one of my gardenias is in the center of the table.
The dishwasher is going, and Barrett’s leaning against the counter going at a block of wood with—
“What is that?”
He stops carving and smirks. He holds a knife up. “This?”
“What is that?”
He turns the block of wood around. I laugh. “A pig!”
“For you, my dear.” He grins.
I throw my head back laughing. “That’s— adorable. So I’m Piglet now forever, am I?”
“Pig and Bear. Next thing I do, I’ll do us both.”
“That sounds dirty.”
He arches one brow. “Dirty Piglets need baths.”
We find ourselves lying underneath the shower water, fucking more like rabbits than a pig and bear. After that, we watch The Princess Bride while Barrett whittles the pig’s flank, and after that, I brush my teeth. When I come out, he asks for one of my Prazosin.
We go to bed wrapped in each other’s arms and Barrett wakes me up some time later, his hand locked around my upper arm.
“Gwen?”
I frown up at him. Is he…standing by the bed? His face is troubled. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry… I can’t stand up straight.”
“Ohhh…I see.” I sit up, take his shoulders. “It’s okay. Can you get on the bed?”
“I don’t know. Fuck.” There’s a cord of desperation in his voice that makes my heart twist.
“It’s okay…” I slide down with him, and we sit together on the floor.
“What woke you up?” I murmur.
“Thirsty I think.”
I stroke his hair. “Do you feel sick, or just dizzy?”
“I don’t like being dizzy.”
“I’m sorry.”
He draws his knees up, rests his temple against one of them, and I take his hand.
“I should have thought about it,” he says roughly.
“Thought about what?”
His hand squeezes mine. I see his shoulders rise. “Reminds me of Landstuhl.”
Oh. The U.S. Army hospital in Germany, where he went after the awful day on which his friend was killed and he was so hurt.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
I scoot close to him and wrap an arm around his back…another one around his front, until I’ve pulled him into my arms. I wrap my legs around him, too, and lean against my bed. Barrett’s weight is heavy on me.
I take a tiny trigger risk, stroking his hair over his scar. I try to think of what it must have been like for him: waking up at Landstuhl. The first time he was fully aware of what had happened to him. I’ve looked up epidural hematoma since he mentioned it, and if I’m correct, he would have had a period of normal consciousness after he first got hurt, maybe when he and his friend Breck were making their way to the armored car. During the time his friend died, too. And after that, he would have not really been conscious for a while. They probably drilled some holes to relieve pressure at the nearby hospital, and if I was betting, I would put money on the fact that they did the full-scale craniotomy in Germany to get him really stable.
“Was anybody with you there?”
He shakes his head.
I struggle to swallow.
“I had the shrapnel wound. The craniotomy.”
So he probably woke up sedated, having no idea what had happened, with tubes everywhere, a piece of his skull removed and then screwed back together with titanium plates, a drain going into the site of the surgery…
“I remember waking up,” I murmur. “I was scared. I had a lot of people there…and it was terrible, still.”
I kiss his temple.
Barrett pulls away from me, or rather sits up straighter. His hand squeezes mine. His eyes on mine look depthless.
“I wish I had been there with you.”
His lips find my forehead…then my mouth. We kiss sweetly, then harder, then he pulls away, his shoulders heaving.
His eyes shut.
“Some of the nurses there were German. Some were American. When I first woke up…I had trouble talking. Not for long. Just for a few days while my brain was still swollen. The doctors were busy. Lots of bad shit happening, a lot of wounded coming in. They would be in and out, the nurses would. They’d have to turn me over