“I don’t know, Ivan. I can change your bandage, but I’m a little paranoid about checking your stitches. You had so much damage. What if I miss something important?” I asked, trying to figure out if he could handle seeing a doctor one more time,
He laughed. “Says the girl that misses nothing.” I squinted my eyes at him. “You’ll be able to tell if there’s something going on in there that needs to be looked at. If it looks bad, I’ll go to a doctor,” he said, reluctantly. He paused, then added, “as long as you go with me.”
Smiling, I rested my chin on his good shoulder. “I’ll always go with you, Ivan He rested his head gently on mine. “Do we have everything we need to wrap you back up again? I don’t think you need to go without a bandage and sling like Bubba quite yet.”
He nodded. “Viktor made sure to pick up everything. He knew there was a very slim chance I would go back to see the doctor, like instructed.”
I grinned. Viktor was like the father of the group. He quietly went about making sure everyone had everything they needed. He oversaw all the security, kept Adrik’s schedule, and was even helping Armando create his own security force. Papa Bear.
Ivan’s stitches looked quite good once I got his bandage removed. “Dr. Williams did a much better job on your arm than I did on your back,” I said, laughing as I inspected his arm.
“Your stitches kept me from having to go to the hospital, so I’d say they were infinitely better as far as I’m concerned,” he said, cutting his eyes at me.
“Squishy logic for the win, ladies and gentlemen.” I sighed, “I think you’re going to live, Super Squish. Everything looks good from what I can tell. I would tell you to let me know if anything starts to hurt, but I don’t think that would do any good.”
“I can feel it when it starts to heal. It itches,” he said.
“Really? That’s surprising. So, it’s just the pain that you don’t feel? Like you can feel everything else?” I asked, curious how it worked.
He nodded his head. “Some pain I can feel. Like when you poke me in the ribs. I feel that. Severe pain, I don’t feel. Everything else, I can feel. Pleasure I can feel”
“I was Loday years old when I learned that I was secretly curious about that,” I said, grinning at him. “Now I know,” I said, working on bandaging his arm again.
He looked around, making sure we were alone. “Redheads are similar, you know. You guys have an insanely high pain tolerance compared to other people. The few redheaded boys I knew in the program were put through he II to see how much they could handle. It was almost as much as me. They had weird reactions to drugs too. One boy had it the worst. The pain meds didn’t work on him at all. Like ine, but he could feel all the pain. I really felt bad for that aid.”
My heart hurt for that poor child, “I didn’t know redheads were that different. I’ve only had the one surgery and I don’t remember much about it. They said I was out for a long time, but I don’t remember anything else about it. I wasn’t in the best state of mind when I woke up, so I think 1 blocked it out.”
“Understandable. They probably had to give you more drugs than normal to keep you under. That’s what would happen to the boys in the program. They would take at least double the amount of drugs to knock them out. It would always take them twice as long to wake up too.”
I shook my head. “Those poor kids.” I finished his bandage in silence, thinking about everything he had to endure in his early life, but also how I found myself silently grateful for it, as it led him to this moment. I smiled, remembering Adrik had said basically the same thing to me on the balcony so many months ago, after learning about my scars. “Ivan, I don’t think anything I can say to you about your past will make it any easier to deal with, but I’m grateful that the path you were forced to walk led you here. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
He looked stunned. I just smiled at him while I put away the bandage supplies, I went to throw away the old bandage. When I came back, he just pulled me to him, hugging me tightly. I rested my head against his chest, hugging him back just as tightly. Knowing he would always keep me safe.
We were finishing tip dinner on Sunday night. Adrik looked to Ivan, raising his eyebrow, asking a silent question. Ivan nodded his head, a small smile on his face. I looked to Adrik, who also had a smile on his face. “I think we should go back to the penthouse until we leave to meet Trino,” he said, holding my gaze. There was something in his tone that told me it had already been decided, but there was clearly another reason he wanted to go back to the penthouse before we left. We’d spent almost the entire week at the house, so I was happy to go back to the penthouse, even though I was enjoying the routine we’d all settled into at the house. I was enjoying cooking dinner for everyone each night.
Stephen told me that Viktor hadn’t even put the word out that we needed a chef yet. Clearly, they were also enjoying my cooking.
“Why do I feel like the decision has already been made on this?” I asked, smiling at Adrik, He gave me his boyish grin that told me there was definitely more to going back to the penthouse. I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
Viktor asked, “what do we have to do to get you to cook at the penthouse too?” He leaned back in his chair, pulling his shirt up and patting his stomach. He’d pushed it out to make himself look like he had a belly. I laughed at him, knowing he had a six-pack like all of them.
“You don’t have to do anything, Viktor. I like it. Wait until it gets colder and I don’t want to go outside. I’ll start baking. Your stomach might actually look like that come spring.” “Worth it,” he said, smiling broadly at me
Sephic
We spent the morning at the house, like usual. When it was time for Adrik to leave for work, we all left. All of them had been practically giddy all morning long, like they had a secret that I wasn’t in on. I was hoping by their smiles that whatever it was, it was going to be good.
On the elevator up, I finally asked, “are you guys going to let me in on the secret you’re all clearly very happy about?”
Adrik kissed my temple. He looked at his watch, then back to me. “In approximately 15 minutes, you’ll know everything.”
Instead of going to the penthouse, we went to his office first. Except Ivan. Ivan stayed on the elevator, waving bye to me as I looked at him, confused, while the doors closed.
“Where’s he going?” I asked. Now I was getting even more curious, They all looked at me, devious grins on their faces, but no one answered my question. 1 felt myself starting to get slightly nervous about what they were planning.
It didn’t seem like we were in the office for more than 5 minutes and Viktor’s phone rang. He answered it, listened, then hung up. He looked to Adrik, “ready, Boss.” Viktor looked to me, his broad smile stretching across his face.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.