Authors: Holly Nicolai
MANDY WOKE AGAIN with a start. She was still
in the hospital room. It really had not been a dream after all.
Visions of her last lengthy hospital stay flooded her mind with the
force of a tidal wave. She looked frantically around the white
sterile room which smelled strongly of antiseptic and found Hunter
and Emmitt talking quietly on the other side of the room. Deep
worry and lack of sleep had aged their faces.
Good lord, how
long have I been unconscious?
"What––happened?" Mandy croaked, her throat
was as dry as the Sahara desert. She made hand motions of putting a
cup to her lips when she caught Hunter's eye.
"Oh thank God, you’re awake! You’re really
awake sweetheart!" Hunter's husky voice sounded
overjoyed.
"We were worried you wouldn’t wake up girl,
that the damage to your brain was too bad! The doctor warned it was
a possibility." Emmitt said full of relief.
"So not helping dear." Hunter
growled.
Talk later dammit, I need a drink!
"Thirsty!" Mandy croaked out again and glared at her friends.
Hunter rushed to her side with a glass of ice water and a straw.
After drinking two glasses of ice water down, Mandy's throat felt
somewhat normal again. "What happened to me? What am I doing in a
damn hospital? I’m leaving right now!" Mandy hissed in confusion
and anger.
"Calm down sweetheart and I’ll tell you what I
know!" Hunter said calmly, trying to reassure her. He waited until
Mandy calmed down a bit. "Now, if you’re ready to relax and shut
up, I’ll tell you." Hunter stood over Mandy from the side of her
bed, his arms crossed over his chest like a scolding school
teacher. He waited until Mandy relaxed back onto the bed and
nodded. Only then did he smile, sit beside her on the bed, hold her
hands in his and continued. "You had only gone around three or four
miles when Jett found you. He was driving along when he saw you run
right into a low lying branch, flip over it and land on your head
on the cement. It clearly won the fight and you ended up with a
fractured skull, forehead and eye socket. Jett rushed to your side
and was the one who brought you to the hospital after he made sure
you did not break your neck or your spine.
According to the nurse on duty, he carried you
in and refused to leave your side. He intimidated the doctors and
nurses who rushed to your aide and wisely, they just worked around
him. He sent his driver, Xavier, to pick up Emmitt and I and bring
us here. He further gave Emmitt a ride back home to get his car
before he left." Hunter explained.
"The doctor and the surgeon explained that you
seriously fractured your skull in three places. They also had to
repair the blood flow to your right eye and fixed your broken nose.
They might have at least considered letting you heal at home, but
you crashed twice sweetheart. Your brain keeps swelling from the
inside due to the new trauma combined with the damage you already
had from the old gunshot wound. They had to put you in a medically
induced coma for the past two weeks until the swelling receded and
stayed down. They only pulled you out of the coma three days ago
and said you would wake when your brain healed enough for you to do
so." Emmitt explained when Hunter paused, tears welling in his
eyes. "Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me you had been shot
execution style? Did David do that to you?" Hunter whispered
softly.
"I don’t want to talk about David, ever!"
Mandy growled, her voice dropping several octaves.
"Okay, we get it!" Emmitt glared at Hunter and
held his hands up in surrender. "Geeze Louise, don’t go all
exorcist on us girl!"
"Guys, I’m sorry. I really hate hospitals and
will just say, for a very good reason and leave it at that. I did
not mean to bark at you both, but my past is not up for discussion
anymore today." Mandy’s eyes grew confused again as she asked, "Are
you sure Jett was telling the truth? I have no memory of running
into a tree branch."
"What can you remember sweetheart?" Hunter
asked in extreme concern.
"Odd flashes to be honest. I remember clearly
hearing a deep laugh behind me while running and the fear that my
ex escaped prison and found me, but no one was there. After that,
all I have are odd flashes of Jett’s face and murmured words. That
is it and then I woke up here and saw you two whispering across the
room." Mandy lied through her teeth. The truth was, she needed time
to think about what all the flashes meant. She needed to separate
fact from fiction in her mind and to do that, she unfortunately
needed to confront Jett and thank him as well.
"Call the doctor in here for me, Emmitt. I am
going home now."
"Mandy, I don’t think that’s…." Emmitt did not
get to finish his sentence. He was interrupted by his now
pissed-off best friend.
"Right Now!" Mandy screamed in anger and
frustration.
"Alright, alright! We are going!" Emmitt
glared and Hunter stared at her with compassion for a moment before
he followed his boyfriend out of the room, knowing Mandy needed a
few moments to herself.
Mandy watched them leave the room and sighed
heavily. She felt like shit for yelling at them.
She heard Emmitt's worried tone, "What is the
matter with her, Hunter? It’s like she woke up a completely
different person."
Once her friends were out of sight and hearing
range, Mandy pulled back the blankets and stood on shaky wobbly
legs, aiming for the general direction of the bathroom, not caring
who saw her ass falling out of her gown. If they were that
desperate, then let them stare. She had to get to a mirror to see
how bad the damage was. She was also determined to take care of her
toiletry needs then find her damn clothes and escape. She was
almost to the bathroom, hobbling along when the anger rose up like
an inferno of self-hatred. How could she have been so damn careless
to imagine David was out of prison and laughing behind her? Then
ended up running right into a tree branch. It was damn embarrassing
getting flipped onto her head and knocked on her ass by an
inanimate object.
Not even Master Yang had been able to knock
her on her ass in training. Two weeks in the hospital and she lost
everything she had worked so hard for with running and training.
Now she was going to have to build up her strength all over again
in Krav Maga training and build up her running endurance, all from
scratch because she was stupid!!!. Mandy wanted nothing more in
that moment than to blame Jett, because if not for him getting into
her head, she wouldn’t have been running distracted. Why couldn’t
he have just left her alone! Dammit! She only had a second’s
warning before that familiar heat arose in her body
Think of the
devil and he shall appear from Hell
.
"Get your beautiful ass back into bed Mandy
and I mean right now."
His all too familiar deep and
gravelly, sexy-as-sin voice belongs in a medieval torture chamber,
not in my hospital room.
"Go straight to Hell Jett and quit staring at
my naked ass! I can feel the heat of your eyes. I am going to the
bathroom to pee, if you must know. Afterward, I
am
going
home. I have a workout to do and a run to complete and start over
getting my strength back up. Congratulations, you did your good
Samaritan deed of the day and boosted your self-image, now get the
hell out of my room before I turn your balls into a new kind of
caviar." Mandy growled and forced her body to stand proud even
though it hurt like hell and began to seize up.
Oh shit! I am
going to fall any second now and right in front of Mr. I’m always
perfect!
"No." Jett growled from right behind
her.
"No?" Mandy’s voice squeaked in shock even as
she clenched her fists, ready to punch Jett right in the kisser.
Well, maybe after she coerced him to help her to the
bathroom.
"That’s right tigress, I said no. Don’t make
me say it again, woman. My palm is itching to smack that beautiful
ass of yours just to see it turn a beautiful dark red. Now come
here, so I can carry you to the bathroom. Then, we will continue
this conversation."
"Ha! You wish." The sarcastic reply flew right
out of her mouth before she could stop it. Before she could say
another word, she was lifted into his strong and powerful arms and
carried right into the bathroom and set gently down on the toilet.
Jett then sat down on the edge of the tub right across from
her.
Mandy felt her face blaze hotly at his
nearness and her lack of clothing. "You can leave now. I am not
peeing in front of you. We are not that damn close for one and for
two, I don’t want to be. So go on now, shoo!" Mandy made a shooing
motion with her hand toward the bathroom door. Jett stayed put with
that arrogant smirk on his face and for a moment, she wondered if
he was deaf, dumb or both.
Jett laughed at her but his eyes told a
completely different story. He was going to remain in the room and
watch her for several reasons. The nicest of them all, was to make
sure she didn’t fall when she was finished. After carefully running
all the options through his head, he finally decided to concede to
her wishes, for now. "Alright tigress, this once I will step out
but you
will
call me the moment you are done or else." He
growled and pulled on the door to close it, but decided to leave it
open a crack so he could hear her call out for his help.
Moments later, he heard the toilet flush and
heard her struggle to stand. He growled loudly in warning but
decided to wait a moment before he pushed the door open, in case
she was behind it. He saw her through the crack standing in front
of the mirror. There wasn’t much to see, other than the light red
circle around her eye that had been damaged and a the cut across
her forehead. She healed remarkably fast. He was strangely affected
by her and was contemplating what it meant that he was drawn to
her. That she haunted his every minute of the day and night. He did
not get a chance to move before the door flew open and smacked him
in the forehead.
Mandy let out a small yelp of surprise before
her face turned angry again. "Back to our misunderstanding, you
would be wise in not daring to lay a hand on me, Jett Damian. I
know very lethal fighting techniques and I am not afraid to use
them on a virtual stranger." She growled and tried to push him
aside. It was like pushing against a brick wall. She turned and
began to hobble as fast as she was able on her deficient wobbly
legs. Jett’s rich chuckle filled the room behind her, sending a
million tiny electric shocks all through her body and straight to
her core.
Do not let that arrogant, egotistical ass see that he
affects you!
"You will never escape me, tigress." His calm
assurance annoyed the living hell out of her.
"I am sure as hell going to try, you
egotistical, overbearing, conceited, arrogant ass! Get out of my
room, this conversation is over! I don’t know you and don’t really
want to get to know someone better when he has been staring at my
naked ass for the last ten minutes!"
Jett anticipated her move before it became a
thought in her mind and his only response was to calmly and swiftly
walk around her, straight to her hospital room door, shut it with
incredible force and locked it from the inside.
If you think you are trapping me in here
with you, you have another thing coming!
The door slamming shut
sounded like a crack of thunder in the remaining silence. Halfway
back to the bed, Mandy spun on her heel and headed with an
increased speed right back to the bathroom door. Her room was on
the ground floor and she had no qualms about shimmying right out
the bathroom window to escape him. She had almost reached the door
when she heard something soft being dropped onto the floor behind
her. Before she could take another step, she felt a warm naked
chest and slacks pressing up against her naked backside just as two
muscled arms slid under her open gown to wrap around her, just
under her breasts to hold her firmly against himself.
Mandy struggled to find a way to escape him,
but her damn traitorous body was battling against her mind. Her
forceful struggles slowed as weak muscles, head pain, and a
weakened body began to melt backward into the warm hard heat of
his, despite the objections from her brain. Her brain soon betrayed
her as well. It became foggy, consumed with overwhelming sexual
need that she'd denied herself for the past five years.
"No. I can’t do this" She murmured softly, her
head resting against his shoulder.
Not now, not ever and not
with your perfect ass!
She hissed silently as she gained
control of her brain. She smacked the back of his head as hard as
she was capable of in her position, hoping he'd let her go. Her
voice gained strength and rose as she said, "I am going to see that
damn doctor right now and I am going home….
alone
!" Mandy
made herself perfectly clear.
"Let me put this in a way that will penetrate
that stubborn and apparently still broken brain of yours. You have
exactly two choices, tigress. You can either come home with me to
relax and heal or you can lay right here in this bed like a good
girl for another two weeks. Which is it going to be? Hm?" Jett
stared down at her much the same as a parent would with an insolent
child.