Spying Under the Mistletoe (Love Undercover #2) - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,92
I met earlier when she checked on me—says. She smiles at me. “How’re you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” I’ve also been a lot worse. So there’s always that.
“I need to check your wound.” She turns to Chloe, who’s stretching her arms above her head, and flashing me a view of her stomach.
A stomach I’ve licked and nibbled, all the while making Chloe moan her sweet sounds.
Fuck, I’ve missed that.
“You might want to step out while I do that,” the nurse tells Chloe.
“I’m fine.” Chloe’s eyes widen, and her gaze shifts to me. “I mean if you’re okay with that. I figured since I’ll be looking after you once you’ve been released—at least until you’re feeling better—that I should get used to how it looks.” She stumbles over her words and points to my shoulder.
“Sweetheart, I don’t need someone looking after me. I can take care of myself.”
“I see someone has alpha-male issues,” the nurse says, amusement in her tone and in the gleam of her eyes. She pulls the hospital gown down from my shoulder, exposing a shitload of gauze taped to my skin.
She peels it away and checks the wound. “Looking good so far.” She presses the tape back against my skin. “I’ll change it when I bathe you in a bit.” She turns to Chloe. “Unless you want to do the honors. Although from where I’m standing, you’re not doing much better than he is. You two look like a matching set with your arm in a cast and his in the sling.”
Chatting merrily, she checks my vitals and unhooks me from the heart-rate monitor, then leaves.
“I’m so sorry about your shoulder,” Chloe says once we’re alone. “I don’t know why Nikolai shot at you. I didn’t even know he had a gun on him until it was too late.”
She sits. Jumps to her feet. Sits. Jumps to her feet.
“I’m beginning to think someone’s turned you into a yo-yo since the last time I saw you.”
“I know. I mean, I don’t know about the yo-yo part, but I mean I…well, I don’t know what to say. I can only imagine how it looked to you and Adam. That I’d lied to you all this time and knew where Nikolai was when I didn’t. He just showed up at the store when Kiera and I were there. In that costume. I guess he was tailing me, or someone reporting to him was tailing me.”
I’ve hopped onto the Chloe Express. Next stop? The land of confusion.
I raise my hand, hoping to put the brakes on her words. “We were counting on him coming out of hiding when I became your boyfriend,” I say when she pauses long enough for me to get a word in. “He knew that Liam’s team does contract work from time to time with the FBI.”
I don’t exactly want to talk about any of this right now. I’m just amazed she’s in my hospital room.
Or maybe she isn’t.
Maybe I’m hallucinating that she’s here.
To be certain, I pinch myself on my injured arm.
“Did you just pinch yourself?”
“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.”
“Dreaming? Which part do you think you’re dreaming? The part about being shot, because I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a nightmare.”
“I’m referring to the part where you’re standing in my room. The last time we were together, before your accident, you were pissed at me for letting you believe Nikolai hired me to protect you.”
She winces and chews her lower lip for a heartbeat. “I was wrong about my cousin. He would’ve done anything for me when we were kids. But that’s not the man he became.
“And I also understand that I had nothing to do with my father’s, stepfather’s, or Mark’s deaths. I wasn’t the one who murdered them.” She steps forward. Uncertainty buzzes around her like static electricity.
She opens her mouth to say something but seems to change her mind.
I reach out to her.
She takes hold of my hand, being careful of the IV needle inserted in it, and closes the gap between us. “Soooo? How’s Whiskey doing with his new family? Ava told me they have two kids. I bet he loves that.”
“They didn’t adopt him.” I fight to keep the corners of my mouth from twitching up.
“Oh, no. Are they crazy? He’s absolutely adorable. How could they not want him?”