by Teagan Kade
Stone steps forward. “Yes.”
“Your son has lost a lot of blood.”
I’m conscious of the tense. Is it a good sign?
“What happened?” Stone asks. “Was he in a car accident?”
The doctor looks down. “I really can’t…”
Stone stands to his full height. “I funded this very wing you are standing in, Doctor. I think you can.”
The doctor seems to think it over. “All right,” he says, checking the hall. “He’s got a bad concussion and a pretty severe stab wound in his side.”
“A stab wound?” questions Phoenix, stepping forward. “From who?”
The doctor raises his hands. “You’ll have to talk to the police about that. I’m only here to offer my medical opinion.”
“Which is?” prods Stone.
“Look, if he makes it through the night, I think that will be a good indicator of where we’re at, but it’s touch and go.”
And with that, it’s like the ceiling has fallen. I see the resignation on the faces around me, but I won’t quit on him.
“I want to see him.”
All eyes turn to me.
“Sorry, are you family?” asks the doctor.
Phoenix places his arm around my shoulder. “She’s his wife.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good i—”
“Let her see him,” says Stone.
The doctor nods. “Follow me.”
The tears come when I see him. I can’t stop them, don’t know if I want to.
There are more machines and tubes than Nolan himself, panels and monitors left and right. My heart breaks at the sight.
Peyton guides me to a seat by the bed. “Here. You can just sit right here, for as long as you want, okay?”
I nod, silently crying to myself.
My senses are working, but they’ve been dulled and blunted.
I take Nolan’s hand. I know there are people moving in and out of the room, Stone and Alissa and the brothers, but it’s all background noise—static. I focus what little energy I have on Nolan, on willing him to pull through this.
I can’t believe we’re back here again, that this nightmare has to continue.
Even when the lights go out and only the hum of machinery can be heard with Nolan’s breathing—so, so soft—I remain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NOLAN
“Linnea? Linnea?”
It takes me a long time to work out it’s me saying her name.
I open my eyes but close them immediately. It’s way too bright out there.
My mouth’s dry but I try again. “Linnea?”
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
I let my eyes open and adjust, follow the sound of her voice.
There she is—my wife, my everything. Her hand is squeezing mine and her cheeks are wet, but there’s no doubting it. She’s here and she’s fine.
Where I am, and why, takes a bit longer to register.
“You’ve just come out of surgery,” Linnea tells me, squeezing my hand harder. “They patched you up real good, even that silly head of yours.”
“Why…are you crying?” I ask her, noting the tears falling from her face, the hot glaze in her eyes, those eyes I never want to leave.
“I’m just happy you’re okay.”
The details start to fill in. I tighten. “Rex. It was Rex and his goon in the back of the limo.
“Just one?”
“Just one, I confirm. The big one.”
Damn my throat’s dry.
“We know it was Rex,” Linnea tells me. “The commissioner is putting together enough evidence to arrest him. They found your blood in his limo, a thumbprint on the knife that was used to…” She stops, hand going to her mouth.
I try to smile, but even that hurts. “It’s okay.” I bring a hand up to the side of her face. Something attached to the back of my hand stops it going any further. “We’re okay.”
She wipes her cheek and holds my hand against her. “The print was from his bodyguard, probably the guy you’re talking about. Rex is going to have far bigger problems than salvaging a merger and trying to marry me off now.”
“How long have I—”
“Been out?” she finishes. “Twelve, maybe thirteen hours?”
“The surgery took a while, sorry.”
I look behind Linnea to the doctor who’s entered the room. He stands beside her but addresses me. I’m pretty sure it’s the same doctor who patched me up the first time. “They made a real mess of you, but we’ve managed to stop the bleeding in your side there. You’ve got a nasty concussion, might feel like you’ve been swallowing razor blades for a few days, but it looks like you’ll pull through.”
“He is going to make it. There is no ‘probably’, not for this one,” says Linnea, with more conviction than I’ve heard her say anything, even ‘I do’.
I smile at that. “I wouldn’t dream of denying you,” I tell her, the doctor taking his cue to leave.
“I’ll be in later,” he says.
I squeeze Linnea’s hand back. “You heard the man. I’m going to be fine. Plus, I’ve got you to nurse me back to health, don’t I?”
“Don’t know if you remember, but I make a really shitty nurse.”
“No Jell-O and sponge baths?” I laugh but it hurts like an absolute bitch, and I fall into a coughing fit instead.
Linnea takes a glass of water from the table next to the bed, directing the straw into my mouth. “Here.”
I sip, letting the straw fall from my lips. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You look like a racoon.”
I can’t find a mirror to confirm, but two black eyes seems about right.
I catch Linnea looking at my side where the knife went in. “It was pretty serious. I thought…”
I bring my hand back to her face. “Hey, hey, I’m right here, aren’t I? It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than your father and his goon squad to get rid of me.”
The laugh that follows is short-lived. She takes my hand away. “I’m worried you won’t be able to play hockey anymore.”
I hadn’t considered it, or even thought about hockey. I’d be lying if I thought there wasn’t irritation at the idea. “I love hockey,” I tell Linnea. “But if this injury costs my career, even if I could have avoided it by not meeting you, it will still be worth it. I’ll still have no regrets. You hear me? None. You are everything to me.”
She’s wiping away more tears. “Here I go gushing away again like Old Faithful.”
“All these tears over me. It’s enough to give a guy a big head.”
She laughs. “I think your head is quite big enough already.”
“You have met my brothers, right?”
“I don’t think any of you King boys have self-esteem issues.”
I get back to hockey. “There are other roles to play in a successful hockey team, you know.”
“I don’t think you’re cut out to be a water boy.”
Even I can’t help smiling at that. “You know I don’t play football, right? That’s Peyton King.”
She taps me on the chest and rolls her eyes. “I think I know my husband by now, thank you very much.”
“But I haven’t shown you my collection of human skulls, or the gimp I keep in the attic.”
“Whatever skeletons you’ve got in your closet, dear husband, they’re our skeletons now.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Any surprises I should know about? Crazy exes, weird fetishes?”
She raises an eyebrow. “All in good time, but for now you need to rest.”
“Do I?”
Followed by another eyeroll. “You’ve been freaking stabbed and still all you can think about is sex?”
I shrug, and again, it’s like someone’s jammed a poker into my side. “I’m male.”
She wags her finger. “But being a male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of choice.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And with that wisdom I’m off to drown myself in trans fats and sugar from the hospital canteen. You want anything.? To look at, that is. I don’t actually know what you can and cannot eat.”
“I’ll survive,” I reply, watching her strut to the door, looking back over her shoulder.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you’re fine as hell, wife.”
She walks away laughing.
The doctor comes back later in the evening. He says he doesn’t believe there will be a permanent injury that should prevent me from playing hockey, which is good news. Nothing is certain, however.
All I want to do is go home, but Linnea won’t hear of it. It’s kind of nice, actually, having her at my bedside. She promises to take care of me the next few days until I’m discharged. It’s an offer I’m happy to accept.
*
It's been a long, hard road, but finally, two weeks later, I’m headed home.
One of the hospital staff is waiting there with a wheelchair, but I’m not having it. I walk out of there confidant and upright, side by side with Linnea.
There are reporters outside, but I’m in no mood for talking to the press. I just want to get home.
The next few days are more of the same, back to being babied by Linnea and my brothers waiting on me hand and foot, never failing to take a ‘stab’ at a joke or jibe when the situation calls for it. It’s nice, though, having them here, and Linnea.
Soon I’m strong enough to get around the house myself. A nurse comes to check on my wound, tells me it has healed nicely.
It has, I can barely feel it apart from a bit of tenderness around the area and general uncomfortableness—nothing I haven’t experienced before from the rink.
By the end of the week the last of the bandages are removed and I’m somewhat human again.
Everyone’s headed off to the Steam Room tonight, which has left Linnea and me home alone.
We’re on my bed watching Schitt’s Creek, Linnea using her finger to circle where my stitches start. “It’s going to look badass when the stitching comes out.”
“You’ll still love me, even when I’ve got a fault line in my side?”
She purrs and presses up against my side. “It only makes you sexier, dear.”
I put my hand behind my head. “God, I wish I could have you right now.”
“You think you’re ready for sex?”
“Always.”
“The doctor said…”
“I know what the doctor said, but he was talking about your everyday, average patient.”
“Not a superhuman King.”
I smile. “That’s right.”
Linnea considers it. “I see.”
I can tell she’s just as horny. We’ve done some things, had fun in other ways, but sex itself has remained elusive. I can’t bear it any longer.
Linnea reaches for the remote, muting the sound on the TV.
She stands up, tossing the remote onto the bed.
“What are you doing?” I ask, scooting into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Take off your boxers,” she commands.
“Are we doing this?”
“If it takes my fancy, but first, I want to show you something.”
I pull up my knees and strip away my boxers, tossing them into the corner.
Linnea raises an eyebrow at the sight of my cock, lit on and off by the glow of the TV screen. “Why, hello there, stranger.”
“You said you wanted to show me something?”
“Just relax.”
She starts to dance, humming to herself and playing with the hem of her tank top.
“A strip show?”
She nods slowly, biting her lip. “Mmm-hmm.”
She turns and shakes her butt, twerking at me. The silky PJ shorts she’s wearing leave little to the imagination as it is, but when she peels them down, the beautiful white of her ass on show, my cock stiffens to breaking point.
She hops out of them, twirls them around on her finger, whipping them around and against the far wall.
The TV illuminates her bare pussy, lets it blink on and off.
She plays with the hem of her top again, tugging it back and forth, letting her legs drift apart. She dips, squatting and getting back up, top straining against the weight of her breasts.
“Do you want to me to take it off?”
I nod, enjoying the game.
Slowly, painfully slowly, she lifts the top up and away, her breasts rising and then bouncing back into position when her arms fall and she stands there, completely naked, before me.
Heavy need is already pulsing through me. I feel it between my legs, that longing for relief only a tight pussy can provide.
My eyes trace down her body and I can tell the feeling is mutual. She looks unhinged, equally desperate.
I watch as she traces a fingertip up and over her thigh. “I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.
“Anything?” I query.
“Anything, but first you have to wait.”
I don’t know if I can. Already it’s taking all my willpower not to leap across the room and fuck her right there on the floor.
She runs her fingers over her bare skin, lets one wander between her legs and slides it into herself, tipping her head back to let out a broken moan.
“I want to come,” she tells me, finger darting in and out of her pussy. “I want to come and I want you to sit there and watch, powerless.”
I twitch. “You sure about that?”
She concentrates on her clit with two pressed fingers, guiding them into herself, rocking her hips against her hand.
It’s the hottest sight I’ve ever seen, my cock a solid, molten bar between my legs.
She seems to be reveling in the show. Desire comes off her in waves, almost visible to the eye. She’s channeling something profound and primal. It’s a side of her I haven’t seen until now, but I sure as hell like it.
She talks dirty while she plays with herself, the movements becoming long and languid. She lets it build and grow, hands twisting between her legs, her nipples pinpointed in heat.
She closes her eyes and grinds down against her fingers, moaning aloud and looking closer and closer to orgasm with each drawing second.
I can’t keep my hands still. I want to touch her, taste her, fuck her in ways she hasn’t imagined yet, but I wait. I know she’s getting off having this control over me. She’s dizzy with it. I won’t deny her, but when it comes time for my turn, she’s going to know it. I won’t hold back.
I growl with want, start to pull lightly at my cock.
She runs her fingers inside herself until they disappear completely, her eyes, heavy with lust, flickering open to meet my own. “Is this what you like?”
I nod, growling my approval.
My skin’s prickling from top to bottom. It feels like I’m on fucking fire waiting here, watching.
I see her take this lust and make it her own, use it to drive herself closer to the edge.
She comes there on the spot watching me. Her mouth is a wide oval, each pant forcing her fingers deeper, thighs pressed together and knees flapping.
She doesn’t stop watching me through her entire orgasm, eyes growing drunken with need and then the sweet release that follows, her fingers sliding out of her slick and glistening.
I hadn’t realized I’ve been stroking myself faster, fisting my cock at the sight.
She tosses her hair back and straightens up, slowly walking over to me. She straddles me, the full weight of her sinking onto my cock until we’re pressed together skin on skin.
The stitching at my side stretches, but it seems safe enough.
She winds her arms around me and looks deep into my eyes, at the strained desire there.
“Fuck,” I groan, as she brushes her fingers over my lips still wet with her release.
“Is that better, baby?”
I nod, shifting upwards inside the heat of her pussy an
d feeling the impossible way it envelops every hard inch of me.
Sex with Linnea has always been incredible, but this is something else, something different. The way she moves against me, shifting and rolling, groaning and tipping her head back, it shows a newfound confidence, or is it freedom? Maybe it’s the fact we’re finally safe, that the whole Rex thing is over, but she’s moving like a new woman.
And I couldn’t be happier.
I grunt as she sinks her fingers into my shoulders.
“I want to leave a reminder,” she tells me. “I want to make sure everyone knows you’re mine.”
Soon she’s moving against me hard, lifting from my lap and falling onto my cock, levering against me with such energy I start to lose control.
I look at her eyes and find them glazed and heavy, her lips slightly parted and the thought of doing whatever I desire to her, to make good on her promise, tightens my balls.
Her head falls back. She lets out a long, strained moan, crying out in pleasure.
Fuck who can hear us. Let the whole world hear for all I care.
She knows she’s driving me crazy, even as I fill my hands with her ass and start to thrust back against her, heaving into her underside with everything I have.
There’s pressure at my side where the stitches are, but I’m confident they’ll hold if I don’t get too energetic.
She cries out again and I love listening to the sound of her pleasure, the way her vocal cords strain in abandon.
“I want us to come together,” she tells me, voice breathy and tense with fresh need.
I clench my jaw, force away the orgasm that was ready to spill over.
“Wait,” she tells me, working against me, ankles kicking against the mattress with every thrust.
“Yes,” she starts, voice growing. “Yes, yes, yes.”
My teeth tighten together, cock straining inside her.
I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.
“Yes, yes, yes.”
And with that final acknowledgement she comes like a thunderclap, pleasure rolling through her, her body rocking and trembling against me.
I see her eyes clouded with longing and cannot hold back. I press upwards, dragging her down onto my cock and spilling myself inside her.
I yell aloud, fingers clawing into her ass, cock pumping wild and endlessly.
So ends the drought.
