Bonds of Attraction (Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (27 page)

The voice had been Leon’s. I had been sure of
it. Had I dreamt it? Was I still dreaming?

The nurse eased me back down and the pain
pounded inside of me. Yet I knew that I was awake; there was no way I was
dreaming the pain in my shoulder. Her touch was soft, yet firm, and she looked
me over with a mild disapproving look, as though the gunshot wound was a
personal affront to her.

“Are you in pain?” she asked. I nodded.
“Well, that’s just not gonna do, now is it? Looks like you’re dry as a bone.
I’ll get you a new IV drip and I’ll put something a little special in it for
you. What are you drinking, anyway?”

I laughed. “The last drink I had was whiskey,
but I think that I might be laying off the alcohol for a little while. Although
a gin and tonic would be a godsend right now.”

“You’re telling me, hun,” the nurse said
chuckling. “I’ve been here for sixteen hours already and a drink sounds like a
taste of heaven. But enough about my problems, I’ll be right back.” With that,
the nurse rose and exited the room quickly.

“Hello,” I said softly, still laying down. It
hurt too much to raise myself to look around so I let my eyes remain closed.

There was a long pause. I was sure that I
really must have been dreaming before and now I was talking to a figment of my
imagination. Then I heard a soft shuffling and footsteps. A small cough that
told me he was clearing his throat sealed the reality that Leon was in the
room.

“Hello,” Leon said. “I’m sorry if I woke you
up before. I came in and the nurse said you were sleeping and that it was
family members only, so just remember that I’m your brother.”

The nurse reentered the room and came back to
my side. Leon and I fell silent as she worked on changing the IV bag. I managed
to turn my head and examine what she was doing. On the bag, I could read big
bold lettering that said 5% DEXTROSE and 0.45% SODIUM CHLORIDE. The nurse tore
off a little plastic piece from the bottom and stuck some of the tubing in the
end. She ran the tubing through the box that regulated the flow and punched in
a few numbers.

“Now, the good stuff,” she said, giving me a
conspiratorial smile. She popped a grey top from a small glass vial and then
raised it and poked a needle in. She withdrew some of the morphine and then
tapped her finger on the side of the syringe before she took the syringe and
attached it to a plastic piece that was attached to a tube that was injected
into my arm. Warmth shot through my vein and I felt a wave of relief wash over
the searing pain in my shoulder.

“There we go,” I said joyously. “Thank you.”

“Hey, that’s why I’m here. You need anything
else, hun?” asked the nurse. “Oh, I can kick out ‘your brother’ if you want.”
She clearly knew that Leon Christensen and I bore no familial resemblance and
that there was no way this man was my brother. If I could have looked up, I
probably would have seen her shoot Leon a disapproving glare.

“No, he can stay. And I don’t need anything
else,” I said, then I stopped and reconsidered. “Or actually, a little tea or
some hot water with lemon would be wonderful.”

“I’ll get it for her,” Leon said, maybe
trying to score brownie points with the nurse.

“A little hot water with some lemon would be
quite alright, or even some herbal tea. But nothing caffeinated. You got that?”
the nurse asked Leon parentally.

“Absolutely, where is the kitchen?”

“I’ll show you the way,” the nurse said. She
walked Leon out and I heard their footsteps patter off down the hallway. They
didn’t make any small talk or chat. I could hear the beep of the machine next
to me and the hum of machines that operated in the room. The television in the
upper corner of the room stayed dead and silent. I didn’t want to turn it on.

I couldn’t tell how much time had passed
before Leon returned. He walked in quietly and sat down next to the hospital
bed where the doctor had sat recently, engrossed in my story.

“Here, it’s chamomile,” Leon said, holding
out the tea delicately. He placed it down on a table that slid in front of me,
attached to the bed. He pushed the chair back against the wall after placing
down the tea, making as much room between us as was possible. Yet I could still
turn my head over and look at him, something that I badly wanted to do but
refused to actually do. Despite the dreams, despite the inner desire that I was
coming to terms with, I didn’t want to look at him right now.

“Thank you,” I said. I sipped the hot tea and
its warmth felt good down my throat. I felt a little queasy from the opiates,
but the tea seemed to help. It was the first thing I had in my stomach since
the whiskey on the night of the shooting. I closed my eyes and felt the
wonderful drowsiness of the morphine.

“The police arrested Marilyn,” Leon said. I
could hear guilt heavy in his voice. “A few hours ago. The cops looked her up
and went to her house. She was there, when they questioned her, they found the
gun still in her purse. Can you believe it?” Leon shook his head and gave a
slightly cynical laugh.

I didn’t even try to smile. Marilyn was
incredibly unstable; my condition was living proof of that. It almost didn’t
surprise me that she hadn’t ditched the gun, but even I had to admit that it
was mildly surprising that she had kept it in her purse even after using it to
try and murder me.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, my
voice thick with the haze of morphine. Every word came out slowly, but it
wasn’t as laborious to talk as it had been early. It was more that my brain and
my mouth seemed to be miles apart and every thought that I wished to speak came
out so slowly, as if the download time was really slow.

“The cops called me,” Leon admitted.

“I didn’t tell them to call you,” I said,
needing him to know that I hadn’t wanted him to be the person I told to
contact. In fact, I had no one to contact.

“Well,” he said, pausing before continuing,
choosing his words carefully. “Two cops came to the Nova. Naturally, they
wanted to speak with the owner. I happen to be the owner. They wanted to know
about the man that you left with. Tom, I believe his name is.”

My cheeks turned red with embarrassment. I
took a small sip of my tea and tried to hide any dismay that was coming off of
me. I had deliberately smiled at Stills and make a show of leaving with that
man, but now that Leon was standing before me, recounting how he had to answer
to two police officers about that man, I felt embarrassed; it was simple as
that. I had walked in on Leon with another woman and responded in kind. I
sipped the tea for a long moment, silence now hanging between us like a noose.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, refusing to be ashamed of my actions.
I was entitled to do whatever I felt like doing with whomever I felt like doing
it with.

“The conversation didn’t go well. There was
an... altercation.”

“Altercation?” I asked curiously.

Leon raised his right eyebrow and studied me.
“Officer Roe made some comments about you to which I took offense.”

“Was he balding with a mustache?” I asked,
even more curious now. I felt my anger flare up at the thought of the balding
officer, Officer Roe, calling me names behind my back to Leon.

“Yes, he must have left quite the impression
on you as well,” Leon said scornfully. “That asshole cop starts spouting his
mouth off, saying how you came into the club looking for ‘some dick’ and that
‘little sluts like that are always in these kind of places looking for a fuck’.
When I asked him how he could even know that, being an elderly gentleman, he
got upset.”

I laughed inwardly at the thought of Leon
using his legendary charm on Officer Roe, not-so-subtly referring to him as
elderly. A small smile escaped onto my face and I imagined Leon pleased with
himself that he had made me smile. Yet when he continued, the tone of his voice
was anything but pleased.

“He just said, ‘trust me, cops deal with
hookers all the time and she fits the bill as a perfect potential whore’ and
I’m pretty sure he said something else, but I didn’t exactly catch it. We were
in my office, and I got up and walked over around the desk to knock his teeth
out,” Leon said, his voice growing with anger that was obviously still fresh.

“The young cop and Stills got between us, but
I managed to get a swing in on the cop’s stomach that only he and I saw.
Officer Roe starts yelling and spouting off that he’s gonna arrest me and then
he yells at his partner for not arresting me immediately. The young guy said
that obviously things got a little heated and needed to calm down. Stills, that
strong bastard, practically threw me across the room when he pulled me off the
cop,” Leon said, laughing.

I listened with growing awe over Leon’s
response.

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly, not knowing
exactly how to proceed. The truth was that I was impressed with how Leon had
defended me. Maybe not so much that he could be foolish enough to strike a cop,
but that he defended my honor in some weird way.

“It probably helps that the police
commissioner is an old family friend whose son I still keep in touch with
regularly, but if Stills and the younger guy hadn’t stopped me I still probably
would have gotten a billy club to the head or some mace down my throat. Even
connections won’t stop you from getting your teeth kicked in by cops who you
punch in the face.”

I wanted to ask why, badly. Yet I just
listened to him, taking in everything he was saying. I could feel a burning in
my wound that was growing, cutting through the morphine. This was a new pain, a
shrill, high pain that felt not as though something had been shot through me
but rather that something was still inside, trying to dig its way out. I let
out a little cry as pain stabbed at the wound. A tear fell down my cheek .

Leon stood up from his chair, handkerchief in
hand. He reached down and wiped away my tear before I could even think to do
so. I felt his caress, shielded by the thin cloth, and longed for him to touch
me in a way that I had never previously felt. It wasn’t a sexual longing but
rather a longing to be held, tight and secure, the warmth of his body on mine.

Another jolt of pain erupted in my shoulder
and this time it was so intense that I almost reached down to call the nurse
for more pain meds. But when I looked up, I saw Leon’s face. His eyes were
heavy with worry and they looked down at me with something that reminded me of
the night we had shared in my house by the fire. Except the difference was that
his eyes had such an intensity to them now that the other night had only been a
vague suggestion of.

He sat back down, this time pulling the chair
closer to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was heavy
with sorrow and it surprised me when I heard it. “I’m so sorry about Andrea.”

It took a minute for the gears of my memory
to finally click over and lock. Andrea. Andrea Locke had been the woman Leon
had been with when I walked in on him. I saw them before me clearly, as though
I was back in that room. Leon thrusting into her from behind, fucking her
forcefully as she cried out for me. She looked at me and hesitated for only a
moment before letting him continue. He had turned her just enough so that I
could see him sliding in and out of her. When I looked in his eyes, there was
nothing there but contempt. As I had fled, tears flowing down my eyes, he had
moaned loudly as he came.

“You scared me,” he said.

“I suppose it’s scary being walked in on
while you’re having sex,” I replied curtly. The memory had struck back so hard
that I felt like crying all over again. Yet I knew no tears were going to come;
I had cried all of my tears for Leon Christensen already.

“No, not like that,” Leon said, smiling
meekly. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and ran his other hand through his
hair, pushing it from his face. “You scared me because of how you made me
feel.”

I turned my head and looked at him. A wave of
emotion struck at me when I saw his eyes. They were growing wet with tears and
bloodshot from rubbing. They looked exactly as they did the night we had first
embraced one another. Yet when I looked at them closer, there was a pain that
had not been there that night.

“After Kevin died, I saw exactly what love
could do to a person. That was an absolute for me. But more than that, I saw
what I did to someone I loved. I loved Kevin like a brother. When he died,
something in me was lost. I knew that his death was my fault. Yes, he had tied
the rope and made the decision, but I had pushed him to it.”

Leon paused to wipe his eyes with the same
handkerchief he had cleared away my tears with. I wanted badly to reach out and
touch him, but I stayed guarded. I was not about to be pulled into another
emotional roller coaster with this man. I felt distrustful and as I listened,
the pain in my chest was growing past unbearable. Something felt seriously
wrong.