Club X-Dare (Siren Publishing Allure) (16 page)

“Crappy.”

“I figured that. You’re actually in pretty good shape considering what happened to you. Has Aino given you the details?”

“No, sock it to me.”

“Okay, your left hip has a pin in it. Your left leg is broken in three places but has set well. You have four crushed ribs that have been wired back together. We will have to remove the supports in six to eight weeks. You had a punctured lung, which we repaired. Your nose was broken. You have a missing tooth on the left side, which will have to be fixed later. All total, you have about two hundred stitches and staples throughout your body. The good news is that you are alive and you have no damage to your spine or anywhere that I haven’t mentioned. You also have an amazing woman who has been here almost every moment of the day and night with you. You need to order her twelve dozen roses and take her out to dinner. “

Aino laughed as Condor muttered, “Oh shit, and then I have to marry her. I do remember that,” he said, winking at her.

“What, that I said I was an idiot?”

“Yes. I heard that, too, and I will hold you to your agreement. Did you get me a new car?”

“No! I haven’t had time to get you a new car.”

“Oh, why not?”

She shook her head, rolling her eyes at the doctor. “Can you do something to repair his sense of humor?”

“Sorry, that is out of my field. I will let you two catch up. I will be back in later to check on you, Condor. Don’t tease her too much. You don’t want to chase her away.”

“I won’t. I think that I might need her for a while.”

“I am so tempted to slap you, but I’m afraid I will hurt you. Remind me when you are feeling better.”

He laughed, cringing in pain. “No laughing.”

Aino leaned into his arm. “I missed you.”

“Good, now tell me, what is going on?”

She sat for a long time telling him details of interest, avoiding the one thing that he really wanted to know. When a nurse walked in and set her attention on Aino, he frowned.

“Good morning. I presume that you are Samantha Bell?”

“You presume correctly. Which arm do you want?”

She checked Aino’s veins and wrapped a tourniquet around her upper arm. “This is going to pinch a bit,” she said, inserting the needle and then taking three vials of blood. She stuck a Band-Aid on Aino’s arm and smiled. “All set.”

“Thank you,” Aino replied, cringing as she caught the expression of annoyance on Condor’s face.

“What was that about?”

“You will have my undivided attention for a few days. I’m having surgery tomorrow.”

“Well?” he asked in a sharp tone.

“Well, it’s not cancer, but has the potential to become so. Cynthia referred me to a doctor who works out of this hospital, and I go to be scraped in the morning. They are going to try to arrange it so we can share a private room.”

“Forget about when it rains, we are in the middle of a full-blown hurricane. Anything else you failed to mention?”

“Not that I can think of. I didn’t purposely not tell you. I’m just trying not to think about it.”

“Sorry. I have been sitting here wondering what the test results were, and you have been chattering about everything under the sun but that.”

“I have to go down for some test later on. There is nothing else.”

A man walked in with a wheelchair and frowned. “Are you Samantha Bell?”

“Yes, but I come equipped with my own wheelchair.”

“I am Steve, and I will be your escort for a while. From what I hear they are moving Brian down into a semiprivate room while you are getting your tests done. You two will be roommates later on.”

“Roommates, tonight?” asked Aino. “I don’t get to go home?”

“I don’t know. You will have to discuss that with your doctor. I heard that you were going to be sharing a room. One of you must have some pull.”

“I think they are making an exception because we only got engaged a few days ago. Plus he was in a coma until this morning.”

“Ah, well, let me go park this thing, and I will be back to take your chariot downstairs. Sit tight.”

“Do I have any choice?”

“I guess not. Be right back.”

She could feel Condor glaring at her, and she sagged. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know exactly. I just feel as if I have been away forever instead of a few days. Last time I knew, you needed me and you wanted my help to get through this. Now, I feel as if I am no longer a part of your life.”

“Oh, Condor. Don’t make me feel guilty for not mentioning the test results. I had so much else I wanted to tell you that was good news. If I didn’t need you and want you as a part of my life, I wouldn’t be here. I have been with you every possible second for the last three days. The nurses on all three shifts know me by name. They are so sick of throwing me out that they don’t bother anymore. I’m in a wheelchair because it is easier than trying to walk through the hospital on crutches. I go outside to make phone calls and then come right back in because I was so afraid I would miss you waking up. I don’t have cancer, and that was all that mattered. This is treatable. They scrape it away, and I hope it never comes back. All I am worried about now is you. Nothing else matters anymore.”

Steve walked back in. “Ready?”

“I’m sorry. Go get your tests done. I will see you back in the room.”

“I love you,” she said softly, pushing herself up onto her feet to give him a light kiss.

He smiled, giving her a light push back into the chair. “Shoo, I want to catch a little sleep before I face the ordeal of being moved. I love you, too, and thank you.”

“For what?”

“You don’t have long enough to get a full list. Ask me when you get back.”

“Let’s go, Steve.”

Condor threw her a kiss as she was wheeled out the door, and Aino sat back, wondering suddenly if it had been a mistake to give him her most protected possession, her heart.

Condor lay in his new bed, still trying to recover from being moved. There wasn’t an inch of his body that wasn’t throbbing with pain. Benny strolled in carrying a large basket of fruit. “Hey, where is the wonder queen?”

“What?” Condor asked, hitting the button on the morphine pump again.

“The wonder queen, Aino?”

“She is having some tests run. I didn’t think that you liked her all that much.”

“What gave you that idea?” Benny asked, setting fruit down on the small bedside table.

“I don’t know. You discouraged me from giving her half the club.”

“That had nothing to do with not liking her. I just didn’t want her to get the opinion that you were trying to buy her love. I told you to go ahead and marry her, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but you have always wanted me to get married. You always give her a hard time and always talk stupid when she is around. I figured you were trying to scare her off.”

“Like that is possible. I give you a hard time, too, because I like you. People I don’t like, I don’t bother with. It used to aggravate her, but now she gets a kick out of harassing me in return. What’s wrong? You seem upset.”

“Why would I be upset? I’m lying here in a hospital bed in shreds. My car is totaled. It will be forever before I can start putting my life back together. I just feel totally helpless.”

“At the moment you are. You also have a woman with a great mind who is handling things in your absence. She has been here for you, and she knows better than you do what a long road you have ahead of you. She hasn’t run, but rather straightened her back and taken your half of the load. I don’t think she has been home since you were in the accident. She goes to the club, does what has to be done, makes calls to get information on the southern club and to keep their asses in line. She does video calls and has Mark eating out of the palm of her hand long distance. She stuck up a poster just inside the front door. It says, ‘I thank you all for your concern and your support. I have had questions of where to send gifts. Please keep in mind that Condor is in intensive care and can’t have anything you send. If you feel the need to show your support, then stick whatever a flower basket would cost in an envelope and donate it toward a down payment on a new car for him, or just send a card and let him know that you are thinking about him. Thank you, Aino.’

“I opened the drop box and counted the money in the cards after she called me this morning. As of now, you have twenty-five thousand in cash to drop on a down payment. Do you have any idea how much she loves you?”

“I don’t know.”

“She has hobbled in every day to make sure the club is running smooth in your absence. I know she is in pain, but she comes, and when she leaves, she comes here and sits by your side. It was too painful for her to drive, so Anthony has been driving her. He picks her up at the club, brings her here, and leaves. She usually calls him in the morning to take her home so she can change and begin all over again. It was killing her that you weren’t waking up. Condor, I remember you telling me once that she was afraid of what happened to her parents. She was afraid to love you. She can’t turn back now. She has crossed over that line. I thought you loved her, too.”

“I thought so, too. We had sex the other night. I was standing with her wrapped around me. I will never be able to give her that again. I keep thinking of all the things that will be changed forever because I will never be the same. My hip will work, but it won’t be as flexible as it once was. My left leg will always be weak, and the doctor said that my ribs will take a year to heal completely, and then they won’t be a strong as they once were. He also said that I might lose some of the function in my left arm. What kind a future am I asking her be damned to if she stays with me?”

“Aino is not stupid. She knows that your body will never be the same. If she were some shallow dimwit, I would be worried. I am not. Think about who we are discussing. She plays with young men in their prime who would do anything she says, and then leaves them with cum in their palms while she goes home to you. Sex is not her turn on, mentality is. You don’t need to be a supple stud to keep her happy, because you know what she likes. If you really think about it, you could bring her to climax as you are right now with no trouble. If sex is your biggest concern with her, then you are an asshole.”

Condor pushed his head back into the pillow, blowing out an angry breath. Benny never was one for pulling punches. “You don’t know her as I do.”

“I never slept with her. I have a good imagination. If you push her away, then you are the biggest idiot on the face of this earth. She will walk away from everything that you think keeps her here. Without you, she will become nothing as her mother did. She may not physically lie down and die, but inside she will be dead. Condor, when I was younger, I dated two women at the same time. One was beautiful, and when I went out with her all the other men looked at me with envy because I was by her side. She was a bitch, stupid, arrogant, and self-centered. The other woman was not so beautiful. Men didn’t stop to stare at her. She was pretty in a simple, sweet way and very special. I broke up with the beauty and asked the pretty woman to marry me because she loved me and I knew there was something amazing in that love. When your aunt died, I wanted to die with her. She was crippled up with arthritis, and although I saw the person she had become, it never made her less pretty in my eyes. I would still look at her and know that in the end she was more beautiful than the beauty ever was. That is what Aino will always see in you. It won’t matter that you are not as strong or as flexible. What will matter is that you love her and that you are alive to be with her and share her life. Your mind still works, your mouth still functions, and I presume so does your dick. You have everything you need to keep her perfectly happy.”

“Benny, I really hate you sometimes.”

“You aren’t the first one, and I am sure you won’t be the last. If you want pity from me, you won’t get it.”

Aino was wheeled back into the room, her face appearing drawn and tired. Benny got up and went to her. “Are you okay?”

“Hi, Benny. I am just kind of tired. Having to get on and off tables is killing my legs. The doctor is supposed to come in and check the stitches. They are pulling really bad.”

Benny and Steve helped her into bed, and Benny noticed that she avoided Condor’s gaze. He pulled the privacy curtain and sat down beside her. “Talk to me,” he said in a whisper.

She shook her head, sucked her cheeks into her teeth, and began to cry. Benny walked out and into the hall, tapping Steve on the shoulder. “Can you help me move her bed over next to his? They need to talk, and they can’t be yelling across the room to each other.”

“I guess,” replied Steve. “The nurses have to be able to get to them, but if we put her on the left side then it should be no problem. If anyone asks, you did it yourself.”

“No problem,” replied Benny with a smile. Steve followed him back into the room, and Benny shut the door, pulling the curtain to block the view from the hall. “What are you doing?” Aino asked as they unlocked the base of her bed.

“I’m creating a more constructive atmosphere,” replied Benny.

They spun Aino’s bed and moved her as close as possible to Condor. Benny locked the base of the bed and kissed her on the cheek. “Talk to him,” he said in a slow, commanding voice as he pulled the curtain from between them and strolled from the room.

“How did your tests go?” Condor asked in a flat-sounding voice, as if he really wasn’t interested.

Aino rolled away from him, her back to his bed.

Condor stared at her in silence for a moment and then asked, “What do you want from me?”

She spun her body violently, her eyes red from tears. “I want you to go back to sleep and wake up as the Condor I knew two days ago. The man who loved me and always spoke to me in a kind, understanding tone. What did I do that turned your heart cold, or didn’t you love me in the first place? Was it all a fucking game to get the dragon to love you? Now that you know I am committed to you, you don’t want me anymore. The game is over, the challenge met?”

“I will never be the man you knew before the accident.”