Page 50 of No Longer Mine (Rags & Riches #2)

Chapter Forty-Two

Scarlett

Pain thrummed through me as I woke in the early morning before the sun came up.

My curtains were still open to the city view I’d come to love, and there was a soft snoring coming from the corner of the room.

Any other time, I would have jumped from the bed and demanded answers, but I was in too much pain to care.

I tried to sit up, but the pain was unbearable. A groan escaped me before I could hold it back.

“Scarlett?” Dimitri was up and out of the corner chair before I could stop him.

“Just need some water and maybe some more pills.” My voice was clipped as I squeezed my eyes closed. I’d forgotten he was here. I wasn’t angry that he stayed. Now that I was a bit more coherent, I could remember what he said the night before. He’d apologized while I was just almost asleep?

That couldn’t be right.

He’d washed my hair and my body with tender care and apologized? I was certainly high.

“Don’t get up, okay?” I stared into the darkness around me and wondered what I’d done to actually get to this place. It was obviously the pain that had lowered my inhibitions enough for me to call on Dimitri Cristof.

The last person I should have called.

But here he was, moving around my room like he belonged here. Like he hadn’t spent the last few months driving me insane with that infuriating smirk and those sharp, knowing eyes.

I listened as he grabbed a bottle of water, the cap twisting open with a soft pop. Then the telltale rattle of pills as he shook a couple free.

“Here,” he murmured, his voice low, careful. He pressed the bottle into my hands first, then the pills.

I swallowed them down without argument, too tired, too sore, too everything to fight him right now.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The room was dark, save for the faint glow of the city skyline outside my window. The silence stretched between us.

I licked my lips, trying to find the right words. “Did you—” I hesitated. “Did you stay all night?”

He exhaled through his nose, a sound that could’ve been amusement or exasperation. “Obviously.”

I blinked up at him, my body too exhausted to react the way I normally would. Maybe it was the drugs, or the pain, or the fact that I could still feel the ghost of his hands in my hair, but I whispered, “Why?”

Something flickered across his face, there and gone. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached forward and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, his touch gentle in a way I didn’t know he was capable of.

“Go back to sleep, Scarlett.” His voice was gruff, but the way he said my name? Soft. It almost broke my heart.

“Why are you still here?” I tried again.

“Because I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. You need me, now lie back and let me check your wound.”

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. You need me.

It wasn’t the words themselves that rattled me—it was the way he said them. Like they were a fact, an undeniable truth that he wasn’t going to let me argue with.

And worse? I couldn’t.

I let him ease me back against the pillows, my body too sore to fight him.

He reached for the hem of my negligee, the same one he’d dressed me in, and carefully lifted it.

His fingers barely brushed my skin, but the heat of his touch lingered.

He peeled the dressing away from my skin, and I let out a pained noise as it pulled.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his apology from earlier in the night came rushing back. His jaw tightened as he examined the wound, his eyes darkening in that way that made my stomach flip. “No oozing or new blood, but it’s a nasty wound. You’ll definitely have a scar.”

“Like yours?”

He straightened at my question. “What else do you remember?”

“Do you really cut off people’s appendages?”

He let out a harsh laugh. “Are you sure you really want to know?”

I nodded, eyes big, as I watched him go back to his perch in the corner of the room.

For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then, finally, he exhaled, leaning back against the chair, a shadow of exhaustion in his features.

“I do what I have to,” he admitted. “My hands are stained, and there are things I can never take back. But I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.”

“What about me? Do I deserve to be hurt by you?” I whispered into the dark.

“Never,” the answer haunted me until I fell back asleep.

I woke up to bright sunshine shining through all of the windows in my bedroom. I didn’t know whether to curse Dimitri or thank him. It felt good to wake up to the sun shining on my face, but I wasn’t ready to wake up just yet either.

The smell of waffles and something else met my nose before the door was pushed open. My eyebrows jumped as Dimitri entered my space once again. He held a tray out in front of him. A steaming pot of coffee was in the corner with a whole spread of breakfast in the center.

I went to push myself up in the bed, but it was no use. No matter how I turned or moved, my body ached and the movements pulled my stitches. He placed the tray on the bedside table, and my cheeks went warm as I remembered him pulling all of my toys free.

Do you think of me when you fuck yourself?

He wrapped his arms around me and helped me sit up.

There was no way I could look him in the eyes.

Especially since I was still wearing the nightgown he’d put on me.

You could see my hardened nipples through the thin material, which had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

It had everything to do with the hard, dangerous man before me being gentle.

Dimitri didn’t say anything about the way my breath hitched when his hands brushed my bare arms. He didn’t smirk like I expected him to, didn’t tease me like he usually would. Instead, he adjusted the pillows behind me, his movements careful.

“Eat,” he ordered, his voice low.

I swallowed hard, reaching for the fork. “You made this?”

He snorted with his gaze averted once more. “I ordered out. I don’t know if I trust my cooking skills. At least not in your kitchen with nothing to work with.”

I closed my eyes in embarrassment. “I haven’t been to the store in a while.”

“That’s okay, we can order those too if we need to.”

We. It sounded so strange coming from his lips. I nodded as I dug into the elaborate spread before me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped the corner of the tray where there were two pills in a small plastic cup. “Take your meds. I need to answer this.”

I watched him go with longing and confusion.