Page 25 of Forced Bratva Hostage (Dubrov Bratva #15)

It’s like I’ve been trapped in a dream.

I have flashes of things, flickering through my mind. Tia’s face. Nico saying my name. Tia telling me stories I can’t remember.

Each moment fades in and out quickly.

I drift in and out of consciousness, pain in my entire body, a constant beeping coming from somewhere behind me.

My throat is so dry it feels like I swallowed ash.

I reach up to touch it, but my hand is tied up with something.

Squinting down at my hand, I see a transparent tube running into it, disappearing into my skin beneath a piece of tape. A drip.

“Where—" I try to speak, but only a dry whisper comes out.

Blinking, my vision slowly clears, and the smells and sounds of a hospital come into focus.

I’m on a drip. I’m in a bed.

I groan and close my eyes again. They are heavy and dry. I want to sleep more. But it feels like I’ve been sleeping for too long already.

When I move, pain shoots through my abdomen, and I run my hand over it, feeling the bandages wrapped tightly around me.

I search my memory,

Next to me, someone stirs, and I shift, looking down to see who it is. Tia has her head resting on her folded arms, sleeping against the bed near my hip. I reach out and run my fingers through her hair, my heart screaming with happiness at the sight of her.

“Tia?” I rasp.

“Andrei?” She wakes up instantly, her eyes shooting wide as she squeals loudly. Standing up suddenly, she knocks the chair behind her over.

She’s so excited, it makes me laugh. Instantly, the agony in my abdomen triples.

“Ow,” I say, trying to hold my breath until the pain passes.

“I’m so sorry.” She quickly steps towards me, reaching out to touch my cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” I murmur.

She grabs the glass next to my bed and fills it with fresh water from a jug, jingling with ice cubes. She holds the glass against my lips, with her hand cupped behind my head, and lets me take small sips until my throat eases and begins to relax.

“Do you want me to raise your bed a little so you can sit up?” she asks.

I nod.

At the press of a button, the backrest of my bed slowly rises until I hold up my hand, letting her know to stop. The new angle eases some of the pressure off my stomach.

“I feel like I got shot,” I groan.

She laughs, a beautiful light light-hearted sound that spreads a smile across my lips. “You did get shot.” She nods. Her eyes are happy, but I see something else there.

“And you? Are you okay?” I ask, remembering that she was right next to her brother when I killed him.

“All that matters is that you’re okay,” she whispers.

Leaning over my bed, she kisses me in the most gentle way. She’s scared she will hurt me, but the truth is that all I want to feel is her lips against mine.

I reach up with my hand that isn’t tangled in a drip and wrap it around the back of her head, pulling her lips tighter against mine and kissing her more urgently.

She moans softly against my lips, and it sends a thrill through my body. Even though my abdomen hurts, everything else clearly still works.

“Ehem.”

We stop, and the doctor is smiling at us. “None of that, please. He’ll rip his stitches out if he moves too much,” he warns us.

Tia blushes and steps aside as the doc examines my charts and the readings beeping away on the screen behind me. “It’s nice to see you awake and talking,” he says.

He shines a light in my eyes and presses a stethoscope against my chest, listening to the rhythm of my heart.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Like I got shot,” I say again.

He laughs. “Apart from that.”

“Not too bad. What happened? How long was out?”

“Three days,” he says, raising his brows.

“And you’re going to have to stay rested for at least two weeks before your body will be ready to start slowly moving around again.

That bullet ripped through you, and we had to stitch everything up.

You’re really lucky to be alive, man.” He turns to smile at Tia.

“And you’re lucky to have someone who cares so deeply about you.

She and everyone else who has been hovering around the hospital, waiting for you to wake up. ”

“Everyone?” I ask, my brows knotting.

Tia smiles and steps close to me again when the doctor moves away to make notes in the chart. She leans over, taking my hand in hers.

“Nico, Ark, and Luka have visited every day,” she explains. “The others all popped in after your surgery, but you weren’t awake, and Nico told them to give you space until you were rested and back home.”

“Wow. I didn’t expect them to be looking out for me like that,” I say, smiling.

The doctor chuckles. “Like I said, you’re a lucky guy.”

He runs through my surgery and what recovery is going to be like. I have to stay in the hospital until the drain comes out in two days, then I can go home, but I’m under strict instructions to stay in bed and only move around a little bit each day.

Tia listens intently. I can see her taking notes in her mind, making sure she doesn’t miss a single instruction for my care.

“And no fooling around,” he says sternly.

Tia’s cheeks turn red, and I grin.

“I mean it, Andrei. I don’t want you back on my table with internal bleeding.”

“Okay, okay. I promise to be good.”

Tia is dying of embarrassment as she tries to look anywhere but at the doctor or me.

***

Three days later, I’m hobbling up the stairs of my mansion with Nico on one side of me and Arkady on the other. “Come on, old man, you can make it,” Arkady taunts me.

“We set up the bedroom downstairs for him—it’s this way,” my housekeeper says, ushering us all down the hall.

Tia is anxiously hovering nearby, wanting to help and stay out of the way at the same time.

Once the guys have me in my room and sitting on the edge of my bed, they step back and nod, satisfied.

“Right, so, Jade, Aly, and Serafina have all done a bulk cooking thing. They have stocked your freezer full of heaven knows what—but I can vouch for it, it smelled amazing, and what I was allowed to taste was really good.”

“I have a chef,” I laugh.

“Yeah, look, man, when the girls get something in their heads, I don’t get in the way.” Nico shrugs. “My wife is in charge. I don’t argue,” he laughs.

“Please, will you tell them that I really appreciate it. When I’m not stuck in bed, I’ll have everyone over for dinner to say thanks.”

“Hey, it’s what we do for family, man,” Nico says.

Ark grins and, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he confesses, “I already stole one of the meals.”

“Ark,” Nico huffs.

“Dude, it was lasagna. You know that’s my weakness.”

“I can’t fucking take you anywhere, man.”

Tia is giggling as Nico waves goodbye and shoves Ark out of the room.

I hear panic in Ark’s voice when he says, “Don’t you dare tell Jade. Please .”

“I might have to,” Nico threatens.

Their voices fade down the hall, and Tia sits next to me on the bed.

“You have to get into bed,” she says sternly.

“Yes, I will. I have to admit, the walk up those stairs was a lot harder than I expected it to be.”

She pulls the covers aside and helps me ease backward into the hospital bed they rented for me. It’s got the backrest thing that goes up and down, which I’m so grateful for.

“I might want one of these for the bedroom upstairs,” I say, raising my brows as I push the button until it’s where I want it.

“Mm. Maybe we can get one that looks less like this and more like a bed-bed.”

“I’m sure there are some pretty nice ones out there. What about a water bed? I have some ideas of things I’d like to do to you on a water bed,” I grin at her.

“Really? So, you’ve thought about this?” she asks, with a naughty shine in her eyes.

“I’ve thought about it a lot, actually,” I say, wrapping my hand around her cheek and pulling her closer to kiss her.

Her mouth presses against mine, and my heart beats faster as she slips her hand beneath the covers and slips them into my pants.

“Oh, fuck,” I groan with pleasure.

“Don’t move,” she whispers.

“Um, I’ll try,” I breathe heavily.

“If you move, I’ll stop,” she warns me, as she lowers herself and gently tugs my pants down just enough to free my cock.

It’s rock-hard, throbbing, and pulsing as she licks her tongue over me.

When she wraps her lips over the tip of my cock I melt into the bed, pleasure blocking my ability to think clearly.

***

Each day that goes by, I feel stronger and healthier.

The physiotherapist works with me every afternoon, and I can feel the strength coming back. He makes me stretch and move and bend in the right ways to avoid harm, but helps me heal faster.

Tia has been an angel.

She’s here every second of the day to take care of me, and I have no idea what I will do without her in my life.

Despite the doctor’s warnings, Tia sneakily pleasures me every night, but she refuses to let me touch her in case we get carried away. And one night, when I did get too into it, she actually stopped and confirmed that her warning was in fact very real.

It took a full fifteen minutes to convince her I was fine, and that all my stitches were still in place before she carried on.

It’s late, after dinner, and she’s lying next to me with her head resting on my shoulder.

I’ve been wanting to talk to her about her brother because I know she’s struggling and hasn’t wanted to burden me with it.

“Little bunny, I’m sorry,” I say tightly.

“For what?” she asks, her eyes looking up at me, round and beautiful.

“For what happened to Boris. I had no choice. I hope you realize that. If I could change the outcome, I would.”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t, Andrei. He was my family, and it hurts to lose him, but if he had lived, he would have carried on killing people. People who didn’t deserve to die. He was not a good man, and the world is a better place without him.”

I stroke my hand over her head and down her back.

“But are you okay?” I ask gently.

“I will be. I have everything I need right next to me.”

She shifts her position, careful not to move too much or hurt me. “Andrei…” She rolls onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Mm?”

She smiles, looking away, a shyness in her eyes makes me curious.

“I’m in love with you,” she says, grinning at me. Her eyes are glittering as she looks into mine.

“You’re in love with me?” My lips stretch into a massive smile. “That’s really good—because I’m in love with you, little bunny.”

“Really?” she asks nervously.

“I’m so in love with you it hurts,” I grin.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks, knitting her brows.

“Here,” I say, touching my heart. She leans over and kisses where I pointed, moving slowly, seductive and teasing me.

“Where else?” she asks, still concerned about this pain.

“Here,” I say, pointing a little further down my body, across my ribs. She leans down and kisses me there, too; flicking her tongue out, she licks my skin, then looks up at me, biting her lower lip.

“And? Anywhere else?” she asks, trying to hide her grin.

“Mm. Here,” I say, pointing to my hip. “It’s really hurting in this area.”

She giggles and shifts down the bed, kissing my hip as she brushes her hand over my cock.

“What about here?” she asks, pressing her fingers against my hard-on, bulging against the blankets.

“Damn. That hurts the most,” I moan with pleasure.