Page 46 of Sin (Salvation #1)

Cassidy

The nurse doesn’t like Sin. She just threw up her arms and huffed out of my room.

It’s unusual for anyone to be able to resist Sin’s charms, but so far, she’s a holdout.

She disapproved when he had my favorite cheeseburger delivered to my hospital room, and then when he crawled into my bed and wouldn’t let me go.

“You’re making his blood pressure go up,” she bitched at him, but she wasn’t able to budge him. Which is fine by me. For a while there today, I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel his arms around me again, so being tightly clasped in them feels pretty damned healing to me.

The pulmonologist said I could probably go home the day after tomorrow, which works out. Neither Sin or I want to go too far from Mercer, who was critical for a while. He had to have surgery, and isn’t expected to be out of the ICU for a few days.

Devlin somehow has managed full access to him despite hospital rules of spousal visitations only in the ICU. I can’t wait for him to regain consciousness so I can tell him how sorry I am that my request for a detour turned into him getting shot.

“I’m going so going to punish you when I’m sure you’re healthy again,” Sin whispers in my ear and then bites gently on my lobe.

“Punish?”

“Yes. For going back to the house.” He kisses me. “For scaring the fuck out of me.” He kisses me again. “For not having your asthma inhaler at all times.”

I start to object, pleading exceptional circumstances, but he’s not having it.

“You need to carry it with you at all times. Even when you’re being held at gunpoint by a psychotic relative.

” His hands reach beneath my hospital gown and give my bare ass a slap that sends a thrill through me, even though I’m thoroughly exhausted and not up for anything other than a little sensual foreshadowing.

“You’re so going to pay,” he promises with a glint in his eyes.

After that, we drift for a while. Finally, not able to hold back any longer I tell him about what I witnessed today. “I saw you,” I confess.

He freezes. “I saw you come close to punishing your father for what he did to you and your mother, but then I saw you change your mind and throw the knife across the room.”

“I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t slit his throat if the knife were still in my hand,” he shares. “Not after what he did to you.”

“At least the list of new crimes will help put him behind bars for the rest of his life.” It turns out the tampered asthma inhalers were a botched plan; Gideon had to collect on a sizable life insurance policy he had taken out in my name.

With his conservancy about to run out, he was trying to replace some of the money he’d stolen from the trust Sin’s mother had set up for him.

I shift in his arms so I can get closer. “That means you’re free.”

“Free to love you.” He clutches me tightly. “Free to have a life with you.”

“A life?” I question.

“A long one,” he confirms, and there in the hospital room, late into the night, we spin dreams of our future together.