I let out a heavy breath, not used to being spoken to like that. Not happy about it either, but Shooter was my prez, and if she’d saved my life then I surmised he was right. “Guess I should thank you then.”
Her mouth pouted and she shook her head. “It’s fine. I didn’t exactly have a choice anyway.”
She turned away, moving out of my line of sight, and Shooter glared at me, giving a small shake of his head.
I was still blinking repeatedly, and when I lifted my arms to rub at my eyes I found that my arms felt too heavy, like someone had filled my bones with lead and chained them to the bed. I could feel tears sliding down the side of my face from the repeated blinking, and I hated that I was beginning to panic. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t see properly and the edges of my vision were turning darker. My body was heavy and it felt like I was sinking beneath the ocean.
“Belle?” Shooter growled. “What the fuck is happening?”
She leaned over me, her sweet flower smell mixed with the leather from my leather jacket she was wearing making everything in my body come alive. If I would have been stronger I wouldn’t have been able to hold back from grabbing her and throwing her down on my bed before taking her body. She held a little light up to my eyes, flashing it quickly in one eye and then the next before pouting.
“Just needs drops,” she mumbled, retrieving a small bottle from her pocket and holding my eye open while she dripped it in. I was about to tell her to back the fuck off when the world started to clear and her face transformed from blurry to perfect in front of my hazy gaze. “Is that better? she asked, her warm breath washing over me, the panic in me subsiding.
I wanted to stay like that for longer—her leaning over me, our bodies close together and our scents entwined. If I would have had any strength I would have reached out and cupped her face in my hand and pulled her mouth to mine.
“Beast.” She said my name, a look of worry washing through her features. “Is that better? Can you see me?” She peered into my face, her head lowering so we were even closer. Every breath of hers I inhaled, I felt cleaner, purer. Like her air was just better than any air in the world. It filled my lungs and purified them. Tasted better too. Kinda like the sweetest pie. I wanted her. Wanted her so bad that it made the pain coming from every muscle in my body pale in comparison.
But she wasn’t mine.
I swallowed.
She’d chosen him.
I grunted a yes and she stood back up, moving away from me.
“We’ve been through hell and back, brother,” Shooter said to me, oblivious to my turmoil.
“It’s clearly been a walk in the park for me,” I bit out, shifting my gaze back to my prez.
“What, just lying there trying not to die?” he retorted darkly. “I haven’t slept in four days, brother. Haven’t screwed my wife in that time or even touched a drop of beer.”
“Awww, you been holding my hand while I slept, Prez?” I grinned. Or tried to. The muscles in my face seemed stiff and unused. In fact, my whole body felt like that. Everything ached and felt weak, like my muscles had been stripped away from my bones.
“You fuckin’ wish!” he chuckled before his expression turned serious again. “No more drugs. No more beer. No more doing nothing until you’re properly healed this time.”
“Yeah yeah,” I grumbled.
“I’m serious!” he said, leaning down over me. “You almost died. Almost killed a sweetbutt and started a fight with two of the craziest motherfuckers in the Highwaymen too, but that’s to discuss another day.” He sighed and stood back up, dragging a hand down his beard. “For now you lie there, you take your meds, you rest, and you do as you’re goddamned told, you hear me? Because that’s a fucking order.”
Anyone else would have had their ass handed to them on a silver platter for talking to me like that, but he was my prez and I also had vague memories of putting a gun to the sweetbutt’s head and arguing with Battle and Fighter. Wasn’t scared of either of those men, but they were my brothers—they were Highwaymen—and that was just wrong.
Besides, in all honesty, at the moment all I could think about doing was sleeping anyway.
“Sure, Prez, whatever makes your dick hard,” I grunted.
He shook his head. “My wife makes my dick hard, and that’s where I’m going now. I expect to find you still in this bed when I get back.” He took my hand in his, and I was about to call him out on being such a pussy but I saw the worry lines on his face and knew that shit must have been serious. Especially if he’d brought Belle there to take care of me. Knowing who her boyfriend was had to have made that decision a whole lot harder for him.
Shooter glanced over to the corner of the room to Belle, who was now fucking around with some equipment I was attached to. It was like being back in the hospital, but in the comfort of my own room and minus the connection we’d had previously. Whatever had been there was gone now, and all I felt from her was a coldness.
Shooter jerked his head toward the hallway when she looked his way, and she nodded and put down whatever it was she had been doing.
“No drugs, no alcohol, Beast.” He turned and headed out the door and Belle followed him out.
She was dressed in tiny bed shorts and my leather jacket and my dick twitched at the sight of her. God, what I would have done to see her dressed like that every single day. Wearing my jacket and being in my bed. The smell of leather surrounding us both, her hair soft on my chest, her long legs wrapped around mine.
Fuck, what was wrong with me? I was turning into some kind of… well, whatever it was was stopping now. Belle chose him…our enemy. Besides, I didn’t come second for anyone. I was putting what we’d shared down to a pity fuck, for both of us, and that’s all it was. She’d pitied me and my fucked-up body, and I’d pitied her and her pathetic existence. And that was fine by me. It had gotten things working for me again. My dick was well and truly alive once more, and I was raring for a woman to sit on it. Any woman other than Belle.
Because Belle…she was nothing but a memory now.
Chapter Seven
~ Belle ~
Shooter had asked Joey, the prospect I’d become friends with at the hospital, to bring me home so I could get some of my stuff. He was adamant about me staying at the clubhouse until Beast was well and truly in the clear. I couldn’t really blame him; Beast had undone all his hard work at the hospital in a matter of days. The drugs, the drink, the adrenaline…it had all sent his body into shock. It couldn’t fight him as well as itself, so something had had to give.
Joey hadn’t said more than three words to me the entire time, and I couldn’t help but be hurt by his cold shoulder toward me. I thought we’d become close, but I’d obviously done something to annoy him. I decided to not overthink it and just add it to the train wreck that was my life.
I got undressed and climbed into my small shower, washing the stench of the clubhouse from my body. I hated that place. Every single part of it. The smell, which was a combination of alcohol, oil, and sex. The people, who were all bossy, overbearing, and aggressive. And everything it stood for…violence, crime, and family. I hadn’t heard or seen from anyone since Shooter had practically thrown me into a van and taken me there four days earlier to care for Beast since Doctor Collins had hightailed it to Bali.