Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels (57 page)

I couldn’t tell how much time had passed before Leon returned. He walked in quietly and sat down next to the hospital bed where the doctor had sat recently, engrossed in my story.

“Here, it’s chamomile,” Leon said, holding out the tea delicately. He placed it down on a table that slid in front of me, attached to the bed. He pushed the chair back against the wall after placing down the tea, making as much room between us as was possible. Yet I could still turn my head over and look at him, something that I badly wanted to do but refused to actually do. Despite the dreams, despite the inner desire that I was coming to terms with, I didn’t want to look at him right now.

“Thank you,” I said. I sipped the hot tea and its warmth felt good down my throat. I felt a little queasy from the opiates, but the tea seemed to help. It was the first thing I had in my stomach since the whiskey on the night of the shooting. I closed my eyes and felt the wonderful drowsiness of the morphine.

“The police arrested Marilyn,” Leon said. I could hear guilt heavy in his voice. “A few hours ago. The cops looked her up and went to her house. She was there, when they questioned her, they found the gun still in her purse. Can you believe it?” Leon shook his head and gave a slightly cynical laugh.

I didn’t even try to smile. Marilyn was incredibly unstable; my condition was living proof of that. It almost didn’t surprise me that she hadn’t ditched the gun, but even I had to admit that it was mildly surprising that she had kept it in her purse even after using it to try and murder me.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, my voice thick with the haze of morphine. Every word came out slowly, but it wasn’t as laborious to talk as it had been early. It was more that my brain and my mouth seemed to be miles apart and every thought that I wished to speak came out so slowly, as if the download time was really slow.

“The cops called me,” Leon admitted.

“I didn’t tell them to call you,” I said, needing him to know that I hadn’t wanted him to be the person I told to contact. In fact, I had no one to contact.

“Well,” he said, pausing before continuing, choosing his words carefully. “Two cops came to the Nova. Naturally, they wanted to speak with the owner. I happen to be the owner. They wanted to know about the man that you left with. Tom, I believe his name is.”

My cheeks turned red with embarrassment. I took a small sip of my tea and tried to hide any dismay that was coming off of me. I had deliberately smiled at Stills and make a show of leaving with that man, but now that Leon was standing before me, recounting how he had to answer to two police officers about that man, I felt embarrassed; it was simple as that. I had walked in on Leon with another woman and responded in kind. I sipped the tea for a long moment, silence now hanging between us like a noose. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, refusing to be ashamed of my actions. I was entitled to do whatever I felt like doing with whomever I felt like doing it with.

“The conversation didn’t go well. There was an... altercation.”

“Altercation?” I asked curiously.

Leon raised his right eyebrow and studied me. “Officer Roe made some comments about you to which I took offense.”

“Was he balding with a mustache?” I asked, even more curious now. I felt my anger flare up at the thought of the balding officer, Officer Roe, calling me names behind my back to Leon.

“Yes, he must have left quite the impression on you as well,” Leon said scornfully. “That asshole cop starts spouting his mouth off, saying how you came into the club looking for ‘some dick’ and that ‘little sluts like that are always in these kind of places looking for a fuck’. When I asked him how he could even know that, being an elderly gentleman, he got upset.”

I laughed inwardly at the thought of Leon using his legendary charm on Officer Roe, not-so-subtly referring to him as elderly. A small smile escaped onto my face and I imagined Leon pleased with himself that he had made me smile. Yet when he continued, the tone of his voice was anything but pleased.

“He just said, ‘trust me, cops deal with hookers all the time and she fits the bill as a perfect potential whore’ and I’m pretty sure he said something else, but I didn’t exactly catch it. We were in my office, and I got up and walked over around the desk to knock his teeth out,” Leon said, his voice growing with anger that was obviously still fresh.

“The young cop and Stills got between us, but I managed to get a swing in on the cop’s stomach that only he and I saw. Officer Roe starts yelling and spouting off that he’s gonna arrest me and then he yells at his partner for not arresting me immediately. The young guy said that obviously things got a little heated and needed to calm down. Stills, that strong bastard, practically threw me across the room when he pulled me off the cop,” Leon said, laughing.

I listened with growing awe over Leon’s response.

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly, not knowing exactly how to proceed. The truth was that I was impressed with how Leon had defended me. Maybe not so much that he could be foolish enough to strike a cop, but that he defended my honor in some weird way.

“It probably helps that the police commissioner is an old family friend whose son I still keep in touch with regularly, but if Stills and the younger guy hadn’t stopped me I still probably would have gotten a billy club to the head or some mace down my throat. Even connections won’t stop you from getting your teeth kicked in by cops who you punch in the face.”

I wanted to ask why, badly. Yet I just listened to him, taking in everything he was saying. I could feel a burning in my wound that was growing, cutting through the morphine. This was a new pain, a shrill, high pain that felt not as though something had been shot through me but rather that something was still inside, trying to dig its way out. I let out a little cry as pain stabbed at the wound. A tear fell down my cheek .

Leon stood up from his chair, handkerchief in hand. He reached down and wiped away my tear before I could even think to do so. I felt his caress, shielded by the thin cloth, and longed for him to touch me in a way that I had never previously felt. It wasn’t a sexual longing but rather a longing to be held, tight and secure, the warmth of his body on mine.

Another jolt of pain erupted in my shoulder and this time it was so intense that I almost reached down to call the nurse for more pain meds. But when I looked up, I saw Leon’s face. His eyes were heavy with worry and they looked down at me with something that reminded me of the night we had shared in my house by the fire. Except the difference was that his eyes had such an intensity to them now that the other night had only been a vague suggestion of.

He sat back down, this time pulling the chair closer to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was heavy with sorrow and it surprised me when I heard it. “I’m so sorry about Andrea.”

It took a minute for the gears of my memory to finally click over and lock. Andrea. Andrea Locke had been the woman Leon had been with when I walked in on him. I saw them before me clearly, as though I was back in that room. Leon thrusting into her from behind, fucking her forcefully as she cried out for me. She looked at me and hesitated for only a moment before letting him continue. He had turned her just enough so that I could see him sliding in and out of her. When I looked in his eyes, there was nothing there but contempt. As I had fled, tears flowing down my eyes, he had moaned loudly as he came.

“You scared me,” he said.

“I suppose it’s scary being walked in on while you’re having sex,” I replied curtly. The memory had struck back so hard that I felt like crying all over again. Yet I knew no tears were going to come; I had cried all of my tears for Leon Christensen already.

“No, not like that,” Leon said, smiling meekly. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and ran his other hand through his hair, pushing it from his face. “You scared me because of how you made me feel.”

I turned my head and looked at him. A wave of emotion struck at me when I saw his eyes. They were growing wet with tears and bloodshot from rubbing. They looked exactly as they did the night we had first embraced one another. Yet when I looked at them closer, there was a pain that had not been there that night.

“After Kevin died, I saw exactly what love could do to a person. That was an absolute for me. But more than that, I saw what I did to someone I loved. I loved Kevin like a brother. When he died, something in me was lost. I knew that his death was my fault. Yes, he had tied the rope and made the decision, but I had pushed him to it.”

Leon paused to wipe his eyes with the same handkerchief he had cleared away my tears with. I wanted badly to reach out and touch him, but I stayed guarded. I was not about to be pulled into another emotional roller coaster with this man. I felt distrustful and as I listened, the pain in my chest was growing past unbearable. Something felt seriously wrong.

“I’ve never let it go. I’ve never been in love and I’ve always felt that was because I don’t deserve to be in love. I’ve never even had a strong feeling towards a woman. I’ve kept them distant, almost cruelly distant. More than a few have even called me a sociopath.” Leon said.

“Then I met you. Immediately, I was interested. But of course, I thought I just wanted to have you. I figured that once we had sex, you’d be boring just like the rest. Even if you made it interesting for a while, I would make sure I got bored before you could get close. I’d never let anybody in and I wasn’t planning to ever start. But after we had sex, you were in my mind like a goddamn computer virus,” he said, laughing.

I wanted him to stop. Tears formed in my eyes and fell down my cheeks. The pain was spreading down my spine and my whole body was alight with torturous tumult. It was as if Leon’s words were spreading my wound.

“Leon,” I said, my voice breaking with pain and tears. I wanted everything he was saying to be true. More than anything, I wanted this to be genuine, but I couldn’t trust anything.

“I knew that if I told you how I felt, you could hurt me. And if anybody deserved to be truly hurt, it’s me. When you brought that file, I thought you didn’t feel the same way. And after our conversation, I had to prove to myself it meant nothing. But afterwards, with Andrea still there, I just felt horrible. The guilt was so intense that I had to leave. I wanted to chase after you and apologize. Beg for your forgiveness.”

Even if Leon Christensen was sincere, there was no way this was going to last. I wasn’t even sure that this was the first time he had given this speech to a girl. I wanted to believe that it was genuine and at the same time I wanted to believe that it wasn’t. But the look on his face defied any claim that he was putting on a show; Leon Christensen was revealing himself to me.

“Leon,” I said, words were now like molasses coming out of my throat. “Please, you don’t...”

Leon reached over and took my hand that was next to the button for the nurse. Everywhere fire tore through my body and I felt as if I was about to convulse with the horror of whatever was spreading through me. I shifted my body to try to adjust the pain, to calm it, and a wave of blistering torture shot out of my shoulder. I cried out softly and bit my teeth down.

“I want you,” Leon said. It was everything that I had ever wanted to hear from him, but at the moment he said it, I felt something wet coming down my chest.

I raised my hand and once again I was staring at my hand, dripping with red. Leon looked down at my hand and immediately rose to his feet.

“Julie, oh my god, are you alright?” he asked, alarmed. He looked back on me and I saw a look of terror adorn his face. “You’re bleeding.”

Blood was flowing out of my once closed wound. My hospital was soaked with red that quickly spread to stain all the white that was around me. The pain was unbearable. The lights dimmed and then returned as though someone had flipped them off and on quickly before I realized that it was me, passing out.

Leon pressed the button for the nurse, slamming it with his thumb over and over. A second passed. Two seconds passed and Leon ran out into the hallway and started yelling. His voice rose and fell in volume and I struggled to make out the words he was saying.

“Julie, you’re going to be alright. You have to be alright. Please,” Leon said, his words miles away now. “Be alright. I can’t lose you.”

People surged into the room like water from a breaking dam. My eyes opened and closed, creating a strobe-like effect for only me. I saw doctors hover above me and looks of concern turn to anger turn to fear. Nurses ran around me, injecting me with things and pulling things out of me.

“Sir, you have to leave. Now!” a woman yelled.

“No, wait, let me stay. Please,” Leon pleaded.

“Get him out of here or call security,” a doctor commanded. “We need to get her into surgery, right now.”

I blinked and the lights above were moving, passing over me with increasing frequency. I heard the sounds of wheels creaking as footsteps pounded against the tiled floor. I tried to look around, but the air was so thick with gravity that I could merely blink. The world began to drift away. Everything felt far away. In that moment, all I wanted to do was sleep.

My eyes opened and I saw a bright light above me encased in a large metal circle. It looked almost like a light from a dentists’ office. Before I could speak or even look around, a doctor lowered a plastic piece over my mouth. I breathed in heavily and soon the darkness was complete. As everything dissipated, my last thought was of Leon. I wished he was right beside me, holding my hand. I wanted to feel his heartbeat against mine as he told me everything was going to be alright and I believed him.

Darkness became my world and everything else was gone.

I slept a dreamless sleep. When I awoke, my mind was numbed from sleep and opiates. The lights were off in the room yet it was not fully dark. After I passed out, they must have moved me to a new room because now the window was on a different side and showed a wide city landscape. Lights flickered on and off in concrete buildings and a full moon cast its blue light down upon my hospital room. I looked around, trying to adjust my eyes, thankful that it wasn’t daytime; even the moonlight was painfully bright.