He scurried away like the rat he was.
I pursed my lips even as success flushed through me, and spinning on my heels, I turned around and headed for Bear’s room.
After his last heart attack, he was back in the ICU, so I re-dressed in some protective gear and made my way inside.
Rex, catching my eye, shot me a scowl the second I closed the door behind me.
God, he was gorgeous. Even with his hair shaggy and his jaw covered in thick stubble, beneath it all, in the stark light of the hospital room, he was beautiful.
Strong brow, blade-like nose, kissing lips…
My mouth had traced the hard lines of that jaw. My fingers had drifted through that onyx hair.
I knew his reflection as well as I did my own.
“Rex,” I said calmly, belying the sudden surge in my pulse.
“Rach,” was his greeting as his gaze glanced off mine.
My brow furrowed at the sight of his clenched jaw—was he mad?
“Heard the good news,” I said brightly, if a little doubtfully.
Just a single glance at Bear would have any rational person reasoning that all was not well.
A part of me wondered if the doctors were concerned about Bear’s relationship with the local MC and that had them fearing the repercussions of failing to save the old Prez from the inevitable…
But Stone wasn’t like that.
She wouldn’t spoon-feed us hope.
On the same track as I was, Rex rumbled, “Yeah. Not sure how it’s good when he looks the same as ever just without the cuts and scrapes, but what do I know?”
“Bear… We’re not used to thinking of him like this. He’s larger than life. Never frail. This is an adjustment,” I tried to reason.
He grunted, and I had to figure that said it all.
For a moment, we just stayed like that, our focus on the man who’d helped shape both our lives, who continued to do so even when he was unconscious.
Change was coming.
There was no doubting that.
But he wasn't wrong.
False hope was cruel—
“What did he want?”
I blinked. “What did who want?”
“The nurse.”
My mind elsewhere, I was genuinely confused when I asked, “Which nurse?”
Rex’s jaw clenched again, this time hard enough that I was sure he could crack nuts with his teeth. “The nurse at the station, Rachel. The one you were flirting with before you came in here.”
My eyes flared wide at his accusation. “Flirting? Who was flirting? I sure as hell wasn’t.”
He mocked, “I saw you making a move on him.”
“You didn’t see me do anything,” I growled. “And anyway, what right do you have to keep tabs on me?”
He growled back, “Think through that question, Rachel, and you tell me where you went wrong.”
That statement, the tone of his voice, whispered through me.
Sinking into my bones.
My fucking marrow.
God.
Still, I was pissed. My ovaries were not in charge.
“Fuck you, Rex,” I sniped.
“I wish you goddamn would,” he sniped back.
A hiss escaped me and I shot Bear a pointed look. “Is this really the place for this conversation?”
“I don’t know, Rachel. Where would be better seeing as you almost constantly ignore me and I’m nearly always in this goddamn room with my dad?”
He had a point.
Sort of.
“You should be coming back to my place more. You need the rest.”
I knew Nyx visited nightly with news and updates on the club, but I also knew that Rex barely spent any time sleeping at my house. That meant he was in here far too much.
No wonder he was a grouch.
Trying to take that into consideration, I decided to do the diplomatic thing and ask, "What did Stone say?"
The storm was still in his eyes, making this the most fired up I’d seen him in months.
For a second, he seemed to be at war with himself, then he ground out, "That he's in bad shape. You don't need a medical degree to see that. Some of his wounds have opened on the amputation sites.”
“Oh, no!” I cried, my distress real.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his forehead. “You come to give me the lowdown on church?”
“That’s Nyx’s job.”
He snorted. “Nyx can’t delegate for shit.”
“And you can?” I scoffed. “You’re as bad as he is. He’s settling in well as VP though, isn’t he?”
“Knew it’d take an emergency to make him realize he was needed. You know what he’s like,” he said gruffly. “Always thinks he’s disposable.”
“There’s an irony to that when you’ve made so many decisions around his proclivities over the years,” was my careful retort.
“It’s a sign of how messed-up he is. But we both know that better than anyone, don’t we?”
“Yes. We do.”
It wasn’t difficult to figure out what he was referring to.
Nyx’s admission to Bear that he knew why Carly had killed herself… His need to make his uncle pay.
Two decades might have passed, but it could still have been yesterday.
While his words were technically a compliment, the way he spat them out grated on me: "You're a prettier messenger than Nyx, that's for sure."
I locked up tighter than a convent during a Viking raid, remarking, “I said I’d visit, so here I am. Visiting. You need anything? I can stick around so you can catch some sleep.”
“No. I’m good. Are you? You look tired.”
“Don’t start,” I said angrily. I knew I looked like shit.
“You’re allowed to care that I’m not getting enough rest but I’m not allowed to care about you?” was Rex’s quizzical response.
“That sums it up.”
“I don’t think so.” He got to his feet and pressed his arms to the guard on the bed. “What did Kian want if he didn’t want in your panties?”
“Are we still talking about that?” I blandly countered.
“We are. You’re the one who changed the subject.”
“Because it’s none of your business.”
“And I repeat,” was his calm, cool, dangerous response, “think again.”
My jaw rocked from side to side as I attempted not to lose my shit. “He came onto me,” I snarled. “I was not interested.”
He studied me, and I waited, I just fucking waited for him not to believe me.
For him to say that it looked as if I’d been into Kian.
As if I’d craved his attention when that was the exact fucking opposite of what I wanted.
Men were superfluous to my lifestyle. I got my kicks from my work. Well, work and Rex. But not always. Certainly not goddamn now.
“Sorry.” He scratched his jaw, drawing my attention to his stubble. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.”
My gaze flicked away from that stubble.
I liked the feel of it between my thighs, but hated it on him.
“I don’t forgive you,” I retorted.
“Didn’t think you would,” he said sheepishly.
My umbrage lessened at his admission but it didn’t make me cut him any slack. “You have no right to question me.”