Wilder

“Mr. Wilder,” the doc said in accented English, lifting a chest X-ray to the light board and flipping it on. “You are lucky. Nothing is broken. No concussion.”

I did a mini fist-pump. “Yes,” I hissed.

He gave me a look of pure disdain that was echoed by Leah. “But your ninth and tenth ribs are bruised, probably where you impacted with your motorbike.”

“But not broken,” I reiterated. Broken was a pain in the ass, but I could still function, still perform with bruised.

“No. Not broken. You’ll need to rest until the ribs heal, but other than the scrapes on your torso, you’re fine.”

Score one for protective gear. At least this accident had been of my own making. Hell, if I could screw up something like this, maybe I had overlooked something in the rigs. Besides, nothing bad had happened since Miami. Maybe I’d been stressed out over nothing—or worse—over my own idiocy.

“We’d like to keep you overnight for observation—”

“No thanks,” I interrupted, yanking the IV out of my arm. “I never did like hospitals much, so if I can sign a release, I’ll be out of your hair.”

Oh yeah, this doc was not impressed with me. “Of course. I’ll have a nurse bring you the papers.”

“I’ll tell Little John to fire up the cars so we can get back to the ship,” Landon said, following the doctor out.

“You sure you don’t want to stay overnight?” Leah asked, her eyes imploring.

“I’m okay. Trust me, I’ve bruised a couple ribs in my life. I’ll do better at home. I probably need a couple days of rest and I’ll be fine.”

“More like a couple weeks,” she rebutted.

“Weeks will kill me. Days are all I’m giving myself. I’ve trained with way worse.”

“Okay,” she replied, but her eyes said something else entirely. They shone with disappointment, and that hurt.

It was an odd revelation considering I’d never given a fuck what anyone thought of me, except maybe Mom. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“I said okay,” she rebutted softly. “You know the limits of your body way better than I do.”

Before we could get further into it, the Renegades arrived with a ball-busting wheelchair, ready to take me home.

Leah stayed with us until they tucked me in like a five-year-old, but some of the light had faded from her eyes, and I hated knowing that I was responsible.

I hated thinking it wouldn’t be the last time.

…

“Rise and shine,” Leah said as I was coming out of my bathroom the next morning. Mixed with the aroma of the coffee she was holding, it was pretty damn perfect.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” I said, wincing when I leaned over to grab the shirt I dropped on the floor.

Leah put the coffee on my nightstand and then raced over to help. “You’re not supposed to be up.” She grabbed the shirt but got a little distracted when she stood to hand it over.

“Leah.”

“Uh-huh?” she asked, her eyes raking over my chest, examining my tattoos, gnawing on her lower lip.

Fuck, the way the woman looked at me got me insanely hard. I thought about flexing just for fun, to see if those eyes would dilate any further. My head swam with visions of stripping that long, strappy shirt off her, taking those gorgeous breasts in my mouth, and watching her eyes roll back.

I wanted to fuck her senseless and make love to her at the same time, which wasn’t a combination I was familiar with. Sex had never been emotional, merely a physical release, a challenge to see how many times I could get a girl to come before she was begging for me.

But I wanted to worship Leah.

“Paxton?” she asked, and I blinked. Now I was the distracted one. “Does it hurt?” She motioned to the dark purple bruising along my ribs.

“It’s not too bad,” I lied. It hurt like a bitch whenever I moved.

She thrust the shirt at me, her cheeks deliciously pink. I quickly pulled it over my head and shoved my arms through the sleeves, wincing again when the material brushed the scrape that took up a full seven inches on my side.

“You’re not supposed to be up,” she repeated her earlier comment.

“Well, I kind of had to use the bathroom, and my mouth tasted like something furry curled up and died in there, so I figured I should do something about that.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

I walked over to the bed and got in without making ugly “I hurt” faces, but she knew and propped three pillows behind my back. “Better?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Sure,” she said, handing me coffee. Then she grabbed her backpack from the doorway where she’d dropped it. “Ready?”

“For what?” I asked, taking a sip of the nectar of the gods. “And shouldn’t you be gone by now? The schedule said the excursion is leaving soon.”

She rolled her eyes. “The excursion left an hour ago.”

My mouth dropped open. “But the Vatican? The Pantheon? What about the lab grade?”

She walked around to the opposite side of my bed and then—fuck my self-control—the woman got into bed with me. She didn’t say yes yet, so calm down.

“Remote me,” she ordered, her hand outstretched.

I passed her the TV remote, and she flipped through until she found what she was looking for, a shitty documentary with nauseatingly bad cinematography.