Page 80 of Forbidden Eyes
“What—”
“What the hell is wrong with your head?” he asks, a slight gravel to his tone. My head? I don’t understand. I blink again and push my hand to the floor, trying to get a goddamned grip on reality. “Up, come on. Ass on the bed. Rest.”
A hand touches my back and I immediately swing around to it, a snarl levelled at whoever the fuck is daring to touch me in this state and my fist ready to do damage. A man in white holds up his hand and backs away. Fuck him. The second he does, though, it clears my line of sight to someone smaller in the far corner—Fia.
Humiliation, confusion, shame—it all rides over me like a fucking tsunami crashing down. The hell is she doing here? Then everything about her comes reeling into my brain because of the visual. Her. The temptation. The desire. The want. The sex and her passion. Her father.
The reason I’m in this fucking state in the first place.
I look back at Quinn, finally seeing him and everything else in the room around me clearly and disgraced by my weakness in front of her I say the first thing that comes to mind with any clarity.
“Get her the hell out of here. Now. I don’t want her here.”
I don’t miss the sharp intake of breath she takes, nor do I give a fuck at the moment, even if she did manage to get both Quinn and me here somehow. I’m a mess, and I’m damned if she’s seeing me until I get my shit back together. I look down at my naked knee barely covered with a hospital gown and lean on it to push myself upright. No one sees me like this. Only Quinn.
And he’s only seen it twice before.
“Carter?” she says quietly, her voice trembling.
“I said get the fuck out!”
Quinn walks around me, patting me on the back, and heads over in her direction as I labour towards the bed. Good. Get her gone. I’m not ready for that yet. Not ready or stable enough to deal with whatever the fuck I’m going to have to deal with. What the fuck have I been doing? Getting my ass handed to me just so I can get my dick off?
Stupid. Fucking idiotic.
“Goddamn, you’re a heartless cunt, Carter,” Quinn says from somewhere, shutting the door.
I fold back onto the bed and try evening my breath out, nodding. I am. Always have been. But the fact that I’m in here, having taken the worst beating of my life, should prove to everyone, me fucking included, that for her I’m apparently not.
“She shouldn’t see me like this,” I mumble, looking at him and then reaching shakily for some water. He snorts and passes me some, holding the back of my head like a child while I drink it.
“Why? Because she might see a weakness?”
I finish drinking and push the offered cup away, annoyed with the fact I’m still shaking. “I’m not weak.”
“You are at the moment. And for whatever screwed up reason, you’re like this because of her.” He strips himself of the vomit covered jacket he’s wearing and pulls up a chair, bringing it to the side of me to sit. “The hell got into you, fronting him like that?”
I half smile at him and then look at the bed. She did. She got into me. Got into my head, into my thoughts. And then I got into her knowing exactly what the risks would be—what would happen afterwards.
“You know why I took it,” I reply, leaning my head back on the pillows to look at him comfortably. “If you want your turn beating on me as well, you’ll have to wait.” I shift a little, uneasy with the pain surrounding my ribs, jaw and face. Fuck, everything hurts. I blow out a breath and squint in the bright lights, searching the room for painkillers. “I’m done taking hits for a while, Quinn. Respect or not. I tried to do the right thing. I tried to stay away. Couldn't.”
Didn't want to.
The bitter anger I expected to come from him once he knew the full extent of what I’ve been up to doesn’t materialise. He chuckles lightly instead and picks up a plastic cup of coffee, eyeing me over it. “You in love with her?”
How the fuck would I know?
I scowl at him, unsure how to react to the question.
He nods, legs crossing as if he’s got something to say. Fine, he can say it. It’s not like I can avoid it. At least talking is better than getting my ass handed to me. It is what it is. She’s out there, having seen everything, probably not knowing what the hell to think now that I’ve told her to go.
“I'm pretty convinced you letting yourself get beat up is a damn fine indication of love, Carter,” he says.
Is it? I don’t know. I wanted her, couldn’t think of anything else but having her. Getting beat on was just part of the repercussions of that happening as far as I was concerned. I keep staring at him, internally asking him for help in a situation where I don’t know what to do.
“When did you get so cold blooded?” he asks.
I frown and think over all the things I’ve done for this family over the years. His family. Cold was something I just needed to be to get the jobs done. He knows that well enough. He was the one who taught me how to be a heartless asshole in the first place. “When I became a Cane.”