50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Chapter Thirty-Eight

    She refused to let him take her to the hospital to get checked out. Typical, headstrong Destiny. She felt okay, she said. She didn't need a hospital, she said. Never mind the fact that she could be suffering a concussion right now. Not only did she refuse medical attention, but when they arrived to his house, after he was done searching the property, she insisted on cleaning up his cuts.

    Quite the timid thing on a day-to-day basis but when she wanted to be, she could be quite bossy. He sat on the living room couch while she went around the house hunting down Band-Aids, Neosporin, a washcloth and bowl of ice cold water. When she returned, she calmly told him to take his suit jacket and shirt off.

    He got the jacket off without any issues, but he couldn't get his fingers to work right on the buttons of his dress shirt. His hands were shaking too much.

    She gently pushed his hands aside and started to unbutton his shirt.

    He wanted to crack a joke about how he'd imagined this under much different circumstances, but he held it in. Now wasn't the time. She was putting up an excellent front, but she was heartbroken over the text she'd received from Aubrey. He could see it in her eyes. He was shocked himself, way too shocked to think about the possibilities that the text message had opened up for him. All he could think about was how much she'd been through tonight, between being assaulted by Jeremiah, witnessing a murder, and now no doubt feeling the stab of rejection from Aubrey. "You know...even though Aubrey said he's never coming back...he could change his mind about that."

    Her fingers were nimble as they worked the small buttons through their holes. "I don't want to talk about him," she told him firmly, looking him in the eyes.

    He swallowed and stared back at her. "O-okay. But if you do, I'm here. You know that, right?"

    She nodded. "Yeah, Brian, I know that."

    He turned his head as she drew his shirt open. "I just...I know how you must be feeling right now, and...don't underestimate him. I mean...maybe that text message was a part of a plan. To throw off Palmer. Maybe he knows that Palmer knows about you two, so he sent the text message to throw Palmer off."

    "You could be right," she said softly, but her tone didn't agree with her words. Repositioning herself so that she was on her knees beside him on the living room couch, she peeled his dress shirt from his shoulders, then sat back on her haunches staring at his chest.

    His chest and abdomen were darkening with bruises. The skin for the most part wasn't broken, not there. The same couldn't be said for his face. It already felt like one of his eyes was closing.

    "Maybe you should have gone into the hospital," she mused sympathetically, raising her eyes to meet his.

    "This? This is nothing."

    She shook her head and turned to grab the washcloth. Dipping the corner of it in water, she asked, "Why do men do that? Pretend like they don't feel like they just got hit by a truck?"

    He shrugged. "Blame the testosterone."

    She laughed abruptly and turned back to him. Studying his face, she lifted the washcloth to his brow and dabbed at the cut there.

    He drew in his breath sharply, wincing.

    She pulled the washcloth away. "Are you okay?"

    With both eyes squeezed shut, he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

    She went back to dabbing, cleaning up the blood from his face. Once she got past the bridge of his nose, she angled one leg over his lap so that she was straddling him.