Page 14

Tayla

I could feel little breaths blow onto my chest. My hand instinctively lifted to place it on his back.

My eyes opened and adjusted to the sunlight that filled the room to find Bryson’s little body nestled there.

He was only wearing a diaper. I sighed in relief that my eyes had opened and no longer felt weighed down.

I was also thankful that I hadn’t left him here without me.

What in the hell happened? I know Nina had the one-up on me, but where am I?

I turned my head to see Brice. He was lying beside me, shirtless and as sexy as he’d always been.

His hair was tied in a messy bun, and exhaustion showed in his eyes.

I was glad that he was here with me. I thought I’d never get back to this place and was saddened by the circumstances that almost permanently tore us apart.

“Hey,” he said, raising his hand to caress my cheek.

“Hey,” I said and returned his smile .

“Bryson, you did good. You woke up, Mommy. I was hoping that skin-to-skin contact would work. I missed you,” he said, then sprang up and went into doctor mode.

I kissed Bryson on his forehead as Brice retrieved his stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.

He placed the cuff around my arm and began his procedure.

While he did, I took a moment to take him in fully.

When he lifted them to place the ear knobs into his ears, his muscles flexed.

I trailed my eyes down, watching his chiseled chest and abs rise and fall with each breath.

I finally arrived at his waistline, following the V that led into the bands of his briefs and basketball shorts that hung low on his waist. The bulge of his dick was prominent under the fabric that covered it and ridiculously close to my face from where he stood on the side of the bed.

I swallowed the dryness in my throat; I’m sure I would have salivated under different circumstances.

Damn!

When my eyes met his again, he was staring down at me.

He winked before he continued lifting the blanket back to check my breathing.

It was then that I realized that I was completely naked.

I was thankful that my baby lay nestled over one of my breasts.

I lifted my hand quickly to cover the other.

He looked down at where my hand had gone with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

With the chest piece in his hand, he gently swiped my hand away before placing it gently where it needed to be to listen to my heart.

The moment his hand made contact with my skin, my heart began to race.

My body was also betraying me because why, at a time like this, were my nipples hardening into peaks?

I glanced up at him to see if he’d noticed, but he had his eyes closed with his bottom lip sucked into his mouth, focusing on the sound of my heart.

“Relax, Tay, your heart is beating too fast,” he whispered as his eyes returned to mine.

I nodded my head and focused on Bryson as he slept.

Then he stepped away to get a pair of gloves and put them on.

I never saw Brice in this capacity. This was erotic and something out of a role-play fantasy book because he was doctoring me without a shirt.

I resolved in my head that what he was doing, he would only ever do for me.

No wonder the women go crazy when he’s wearing that lab coat. Shit!

He was upping the ante on why I would fight off every skank who even thought she would get close to him.

The old Tayla was gone; Brice was mine. With my eyes back on him, he peeled back my bandages individually.

There were two. One wrapped around my right side, and the other around my lower left.

He carefully inspected both, cleaned, and redressed them.

“Let me know if he gets too heavy, Tay. Your wounds look good. You’re going to have some scarring.

I did everything I could to minimize it.

You scared me, Tay. Baby, I thought I had lost you,” he whispered again.

He removed my IV and bandaged the spot. Then he moved down, pushing my legs open.

It was then that I realized I was wearing a catheter. I wanted to crawl into myself.

God, why are you letting this fine ass man…I’m sorry, God, fine man, see me like this ?

When I imagined Brice back between my legs, it certainly wasn’t to pull out a damn catheter.

Damn you, Nina!

“When I slide this out, you're going to feel some discomfort,” he said. When he started the process, I belted out my inner dialogue.

“Ahhh. Mother-fu…Your ass better be dead in a ditch somewhere!” It was my message to Nina.

When he was done, I quickly snapped my leg shut.

Not only was I pissed, but a barrage of other emotions were also going through my mind.

The first was that Brice would never care or love me like I had always loved him.

He didn’t so much as give my body a second glance, and now it was marred with bullet holes.

I was also embarrassed because I’d let my mind take me to this place where we were a happy family, but Brice was only doing his job.

He still wasn’t interested in me that way.

When he returned to the room, he took Bryson from my arms.

“Tay, I need you to get up and walk around. You’ve been down for a few days.”

“How long?”

“Six days.” It was then that I began to look around as I sat up.

It hurt, but I wasn’t a punk, so I winced my way to the edge of the bed, where I placed my feet on the ground.

I recognized the room as the guest bedroom I’d stayed in last year when I visited Jourdan.

However, Brice had changed the décor. The room now held a modern matte black-painted bedroom set.

The dresser and chest held a beautiful medium brown walnut stain at the base.

It was nice, but lacking a woman’s touch.

It looked like a bachelor pad, and this was just the guest bedroom.

I was afraid of what the rest of the house looked like.

“You need me!” I exclaimed as Brice handed me a robe and helped me put it on. I was referencing the décor, but Brice had taken it another way.

“I know. Be careful when you stand because you’ll feel weak,” he casually said. Then he reached out his hand to help me stand, but I smacked it away.

Hmph! I’m the Lynx. Tay, you got this!

I didn’t have shit because as soon as I stood, my wobbly legs gave way beneath me, and I tumbled back onto the bed.

“Fuck, Tay. Why do you always have to be so damn hard-headed?” He said as he helped me stand.

“Come on, it’s time for him to eat, and you need to eat something small too, but I mostly just want you to get some fluids down.”

“Thank you, Brice. You could have let me die,” I said. He ignored my declaration momentarily, leaning forward to kiss my forehead. Instead of comforting me, like it had when I was out of it, it pissed me off.

“Brice, we need to talk,” I said as I defiantly gathered my strength and walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Today, he was going to listen to me.