"Lancelot?" he chuckled gruffly. "What did I fight? A shed?"
"Yes, and the shed won. Sit down." We reached the couch, and I guided him to sit down, avoiding the bruises on his left arm and the nasty, stitched gash on his right. As soon as he sat down, he hooked his arm around my waist and brought me down on top of him. I guffawed, adjusting my fall so I didn't squish the injured parts of his body, and I found myself straddling his lap on the couch. "Not a good start to being a patient."
"I'd say this is a perfect start." He brushed his knuckles against my cheek, leaving a trail of fire behind that stained my cheeks pink. His brown sugar eyes traveled over my face with liquid warmth. "You have no idea how relieved I am to see color in your cheeks."
I framed his face with my hands, tentative at first, and then letting my palms scrape against his short beard. "I really can't believe you saved me. I was pretty sure I was going to die out there."
"You're not going anywhere, Bee." He took my hand in his and turned to kiss my palm. "Not after I went through all the effort to catch you."
My lips pulled to the side. "I think I could argue thatItrappedyouin this stupid arrangement."
His responding smile was soft but tinted with a sardonic edge like he knew something I didn't. "You really are gloriously oblivious."
"Excuse me?" I tried to pull my hand away from him, but he nipped my fingers before bringing them to his lips and pressing another kiss to my knuckles.
"I've been in love with you for years,” he said softly.
My head went blank. I stared. "What?"
"I didn't marry you because Knox offered me money or because I'm some kind of self-sacrificing martyr. I married you because I'm a selfish bastard." I stared with my lips parted, and he gave me a devilish smile, pressing my hand against his cheek. "I married you because I couldn't stand the thought of letting you go."
"You're full of it," I breathed out.
He shook his head, his stare just as steady and unwavering as everything he'd done on my behalf in the last year. "I married you because I love you. I didn't expect you to return it, but I sure as hell put some effort into giving you the option."
"You love me," I repeated breathlessly. "Youlovedme?"
"Yes," he replied simply. "Do you love me?"
"I do," I said with stunned disbelief.
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head once. "You walked right into that trap."
"I don't believe you. You had feelings for me this whole time?"
"Baby, no one upends their entire life like I did because they are altruistic saints." He brought his hand around my body and settled it on my ass. "Especially not when you look like you do."
I pinched his cheeks together with one hand. "And when, exactly, were you planning on confessing this to me?"
With his cheeks squished, his words were distorted, but he tried to smile anyway as he said, "When you loved me back. Too humiliating otherwise."
"You are ridiculous." I was smiling despite myself, and then I leaned forward to kiss him gently. "And you are a bastard because that only makes me love you harder."
"Yes," he hissed, grinning. I shut him up with another kiss, tilting my hips forward and rocking over his dick. He groaned into my mouth, and I wrapped my hands around the back of his head, pressing myself against him as hard as I dared. He flattened his palm against my ass, lifting his hips to press his erection against my aching center, and then he was devouring me, slipping his tongue between my teeth and switching angles to deepen the kiss.
I lifted the hem of the hospital-issued T-shirt they had given him for discharge. "I want to see your battle wounds."
"The shed never stood a chance," he said seriously.
We had to undo the strap of his sling first, but it was mostly precautionary since we all knew Spencer wasn't the type to be careful with his shoulder. Then I helped him lift the shirt over his head, and he sat forward, adjusting me on his lap so he could sit upright. I tossed the shirt aside and examined his torso.
His entire left shoulder and upper arm bore mangled, swollen bruises that caused me pain just looking at them. I trailed my fingers over them with the lightest of touches, and he sucked in a breath, closing his eyes like he enjoyed it. I let my fingers drift across his chest, touching him with feather-soft touch, and then I cocked my head to get a look at the bandage where he'd gotten stitches.
"My brave Lancelot," I murmured, bending forward to kiss the top of his shoulder.
"I will bruise every inch of my goddamn body if it means you'll kiss it better." I didn't think he was joking, he sounded serious. I smiled, kissing up to his neck, and I slid my hands down his chest to his hard abs. He sucked in a breath, and I nipped his pulse point like he had done to me so many times.
"Do you think you're too injured to—?"
