Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights 1)

“Okay,” I whispered. “You promise you’ll be right outside, though?”

“I promise. All you have to do is yell for me, and I’ll be right here to kick him in the balls. Or toss his ass out the window. Whatever you want.” She winked at me and stood. “I’ll go get him.”

I wanted to stop her. I wasn’t ready. This was too soon. Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? Instead, I only nodded, and she went out the door.

I leaned my head back against the pillow that was surprisingly soft and comfortable. I had never stayed in the hospital before, but I’d thought the pillows were flat and hard.

I heard the door open and then close, but I didn’t immediately open my eyes. I knew what was going to happen when I looked at him after so many weeks apart. Despite the picture, I still missed him.

It had been too damn long since I had been able to feast my eyes on his delicious body, his sexy face, that freaking lip ring. It felt like an eternity since I had been held by him, felt his fingers stroking over my hair. I had dreamed of his kisses, of having his tongue play with mine, of his lips tasting every inch of my body.

“Doll,” his voice was rough, choked almost.

I lifted my lashes, my chin already trembling before my gaze landed on the man standing at the foot of my hospital bed.

He was wearing destressed jeans with holes in the knees. His T-shirt was wrinkled, like he had been wearing it for days.

When my eyes reached his face, I soaked up the sight of him. His skin was gray, and the dark circles under his eyes told me he hadn’t gotten much sleep recently. But it was the look in his eyes that tore my heart apart.

Tears had filled his eyes, just as they had mine.

I looked away, afraid he could see how much I loved him in my eyes.

I heard him move and saw him out of the corner of my eye as he came around the side of the bed. Then I felt his hands cupping the back of my head. It soothed something that only he could soothe, an ache that had been raw and festering for seven weeks without him.

He pressed his lips to my forehead, and out of all the kisses he could have given me, that one was my undoing.

A sob bubbled up into my throat, and I lost the fight on my tears as they spilled free.

“I’ve missed you so damn much, Santana.” His voice was hoarse, full of all the em

otions that were still swimming around in his eyes.

“I missed you, too,” I whispered in a voice that was so faint I wasn’t sure if he could hear me or not.

His hand tightened on my hair and tugged, pulling my head back so that I had no choice but to look up. His hazel eyes were almost all green right then, and the intensity in them took my breath away.

“I love you.”

“Don’t say that,” I whimpered. “You don’t get to say that yet. You … You—”

He brushed his lips over mine in a soft, barely-there kiss that effectively shut me up.

“I love you,” he said again. “And I’ll say it whenever I feel like it. I should have told you before I left, but I was afraid I’d scare you off. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”

I tried to pull away from him, not allowing myself to soak up the fact that he’d just told me he loved me. Twice.

He twisted his fingers in my hair, refusing to let me get away. He hadn’t let his tears fall, but they were still bright in his eyes.

“That’s the biggest mistake of your life?” I cried, beyond pissed that he hadn’t owned up to the shit that had been going on in that fucking picture.

“Yes. It’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” He lifted his free hand to my face, rubbing away my tears with his thumb before tracing them over my bottom lip. “I didn’t cheat on you, Santana. I would never do that. If I woke up tomorrow and my feelings for you had changed, I would man up and tell you. Not screw some random chick at a fucking party. But that will never happen, because for the first time in my life, I’m in love and I’m not about to ruin that.”

“So, what was going on in that picture, then? You had two girls in your lap. Two. They looked like they were having fun there, too. And you sure as fuck weren’t pushing anyone off you.”

He kept tracing my lips, which was distracting me from how mad I was. It wasn’t fair. Kale was there. Touching me. Telling me the one thing I had ached to hear. How was I supposed to think about anything else when I was getting all the things I’d been desperate for, for seven weeks.

“I didn’t want to go to that fucking party in the first place,” he told me, his expression dark as he remembered. “Travis said we had to, because it was Petrova, and we can’t say no to Petrova. So, I went, and I camped out on that couch with Sin and Gray for hours. I was half-drunk, bored, and missing you like crazy. All I wanted to do was call you and ask how the wedding went. I just wanted to hear your voice, doll.”