She flinches at my tone. “I wanted him to come to me so I could kill him. I almost did.”
Holy shit.
“Are you out of your mind? Someone could have seen you. You could have been hurt.”
Her eyes glimmer with angry tears. “I had to do something!”
Johnny looks at my wife with a bit of grudging respect. None of the other guys’ wives would have had the balls to do what she did.
She’s crazy.
She’s mine.
“Nothing can be done until we find the guy. Just rest, Tony.”
Just rest. Easy for him to fucking say.
A familiar voice yelling down the hallway makes my guts seize.
Oh fucking no.
“Where’s my son?”
“Mrs. Vidal, your son is talking to Johnny.”
A muffled voice from outside is cut off by my mother’s angry retort.
“I don’t give a damn about that man. Get out of my way!”
“Mrs. Vidal!”
“I’ll go. See you later, Tone.” Johnny gives me a short wave before heading outside. Part of me wants to call him back.
“Oh fuck.”
Elena’s hands freeze in my hair as my mother bursts through the door, looking as though she’s aged several years.
“Oh my God. My son! My beautiful son—what happened?”
Elena steps away from the bed as Ma comes barreling for me. I brace for the impact as she throws her arms around my neck and squeezes.
“I’m just a little banged up, Ma.”
“You were shot! Who did this to you?” She speaks in a low, gritty voice, as though the neighborhood kid beat me up.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Her face screws up in anger and she swells like a bullfrog. “Don’t worry about it? Why don’t you tell that to your wife and baby? How the hell are you going to raise this kid if you’re getting shot—”
“Ma, relax.”
Her mouth trembles as she falls silent, her eyes wrinkled in pain. “Tony, I love you but you are destroying yourself.”
Her seething voice cuts me deeper than the wounds burrowed in my body. I never wanted this, and I can’t get out.
“You know I can’t leave.”
“Try. For their sakes.”
Elena’s worried face meets mine, and I watch her flatten her shirt over her belly. The one that has my baby growing inside it. Sadness clenches my heart and I let my head fall back on the pillows, blinking rapidly. The thought of leaving them crushes my heart. For the first time in my life, I’m afraid. I don’t want to die.
Ma’s face hovers over mine, and she seems to understand the turmoil in my head.
“It’s different when you have a kid, isn’t it?”
Yeah, it is.
ELENA
My hands smooth over Tony’s sculpted arms, tracing over the intricate tattoos inked on his tanned skin. He closes his eyes as if it soothes him to have my hands on him, and then he takes my hand and brings it to his lips. A bump of pleasure lifts my heart as he kisses it, and then his gray eyes open to mine, lust and devotion swirling together.
We haven’t really said much to each other since it all happened. It was hard getting a moment away from the people constantly visiting him, but now a heavy silence falls over us both.
“I need to change your bandage.”
“So change it.”
A wide smirk staggers over his face as I straddle his waist. I change his shoulder first, gently peeling the bandage coated with rusty blood. He doesn’t make a sound, even though it must sting. His hands stroke my sides as his charcoal eyes never stray from my face.
All the unsaid things glow from Tony’s gaze. I’m vividly aware that this is the first time we’re actually alone together. No doctors to interrupt us, no mother to pop in unannounced, nothing. Heat builds up between us until I have to wipe my hands over my jeans.
Underneath my legs, I feel him hardening into a stiff rock. I meet his gaze warily and I inhale a sharp breath. Fuck, he just always looks so delectable. Even now with his five o’ clock shadow, I just want to run my fingers along his jaw and stare into those deep eyes as he rams me hard.
“Tony, we can’t. The doctor said—”
“The doctor said a lot of shit.”
The heat in his voice makes me lick my lips. “Seriously, though. You could hurt yourself.”
“I’ll fuck you when I want to fuck you, stitches be damned.”
He leans forward, kissing my neck. The feeling of his lips pressed against mine gently strokes the fire simmering inside me. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve felt him inside me. We’ve just had stolen kisses in the hospital bed, a hand job while the nurses were occupied, that’s it. Tony’s face blazes with need, his hair already tousled from the many times I’ve run my hands through it.