Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

His hands are all over me. Doesn’t he know I’m not in the mood? Men. Then something sharp pierces the cloud I’m floating on. Ouch. Don’t like that.

“Stay with me.” He sounds frantic. Panicked, really. It’s strange coming from him. He’s always so confident and composed. “Can you hear me?”

“Nice and easy.” It seems like the thing to say.

“Christ. She’s losing too much blood. Stay with me!”

Is he still talking to me? It’s not clear. Everything is pretty fuzzy, like I’m looking through a stained glass window. I hope my sister doesn’t take me seriously about naming her baby boy Clara. “I love you, by the way.”

Then I close my eyes and rest.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Kip likes the name Alfred. It was his grandfather’s name. I think it kind of sounds like a grandfather’s name, don’t you? I can’t imagine a baby face named Alfred. Like he’d need a tiny butler suit.”

My sister’s voice drifts over me, comforting as the artificial haze of whatever medication wears off. There’s a sharp pain in my shoulder that I don’t really want to think about right now, so instead I focus on what she’s saying.

“I’m thinking of Alessandro. What do you think? It’s pretty, right?”

Another thoughtful pause.

“Not as pretty as Clara, mind you. But I hope you weren’t serious about that, if it’s a boy. I suppose we could have gone with Claro, but that’s worse than Alfred.” Her words grow thick. “If it’s a girl we are definitely going to name her Clara. If she gets even half your strength, we’ll be glad.”

“Strength,” I manage to say, my voice rusty. “I remember you calling it stubbornness.”

She appears above me, her eyes shining with tears. “You’re awake.”

“Especially when I wanted to move out.”

“The world is a very scary place.”

“I’m not going to argue with you just now.”

She bites her lip, worry infusing her brown eyes. “How do you feel?”

“My shoulder hurts. Tell me I just landed on it wrong.”

“You probably did,” she says. “After you got shot.”

I groan. “I’m going to need harder drugs.”

I’m back in the bedroom—Giovanni’s bedroom, with the expansive vista of the Red Rock Canyon painted on one wall. My limbs are heavy, my eyelids somehow sore. Honor has pulled up one of the wooden chairs from the table to my bedside, a small basket bursting with pink and blue and pastel green yarn bundles at her feet.

“I’ll get the doctor. And I’ll tell Giovanni you’re awake.”

“Wait.” I grasp her arm with my good hand, the one that doesn’t feel like it’s weighted down by two tons of cement. “You’re okay with him?”

Her eyes flash. “I’m furious with him. But he did save your life. You know…after drugging you, kidnapping you, and forcing you to marry him.”

“Oh. You heard about that.” I’m picturing an explosion when someone told her. Followed by a nuclear winter. It might have been good to be unconscious for that.

“I had some things to say to Gio about that, I can promise you. And that sham ceremony is absolutely not a real marriage. But I’ve watched the way he’s been these past two days.”

I’m a little afraid to ask. “How has he been?”

“He’s been outside the room nonstop since you’ve been in here. He won’t even leave to eat or shower. He’s a mess. But he won’t come inside the room either.”

As much as I love my sister, I’m honestly a little disappointed not to find him here. “Why not?”