Sweet Affliction [Sweet Awakenings 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

What the hell? Had someone shit in his mouth? He could only imagine what his breath might smell like to her. No wonder she was fearful of him. She probably thought he was Satan himself. Smells like that coming from a human being just weren’t natural.

He opened his mouth again when she brought another spoonful to his lips. He wanted to demand she dump the whole damn cup in his mouth, but he was afraid opening his mouth for longer than one word at a time would surely make her run for the room screaming while she looked for her bible and cross.

Instead he laid there like a good little boy as she scooped in several spoonfuls of the greatest fucking thing on earth. Ice. It truly was fucking underrated. Unless you were on the Titanic, in which case you probably weren’t a big fan.

His throat was finally starting to feel somewhat normal again and not like a scraped up piece of flesh after getting a nasty case of road rash. What he really needed was water. These ice chips were fantastic. And he’d be happy to thank her once his breath didn’t taste like the back of a dog’s ass, but he needed some water.

“Water?” His voice was still scratchy but comprehensible.

“I don’t know. You just woke up. He said only give you ice chips.”

“Please.” The word struck him. Had he ever said please to a woman before? Ever? Huh. He’d have to revisit that at a later time.

“You could get sick.”

He was no rocket scientist and never claimed to be the genius of his team, but if his memory served him right he was pretty sure that he’d been shot. Somehow getting sick from too much fluid didn’t seem to be a real big problem and was definitely a risk he was willing to take.

“Please?”

Yeah so he was begging. Big fucking deal. He was goddamned thirsty. It’s not like anyone was around to actually witness it. No one would ever even know he had to grovel to a woman for a drink of water.

“All right, but just a little. I’ll be right back.”

He gave her a smile, or tried to. His face felt all weird and contorted. The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. A SEAL was begging a woman for water. Hell, he lived in the water. He was the strongest damn swimmer in his BUD/S class and held onto that reputation throughout the years.

As if a gift from God, she reappeared with a small glass of water. It probably only had a couple ounces at most, but at this point he’d take whatever she was willing to give.

He tried to lift his head as she brought the glass to his mouth. He was struggling, and she placed her other hand behind his head and helped him. Stiffness just soared through his neck and shoulders as he drank the small amount she gave him.

She placed the glass on a table beside the bed and lifted his hand. For a minute he thought she was going to hold his hand again. He would be lying if he didn’t admit the idea seemed nice, but instead she placed fingers to his wrist and looked to the wall above his head. Assuming there was a clock above there, he waited while she counted. She seemed satisfied and not worried with what she determined.

So what did he have here? He’d been shot. He was alive. For some reason unbeknownst to him he made this woman’s emotions hit all over the radar. He was used to causing a reaction in women, just usually not a bad kind. That was another topic for another time though.

He glanced around the room and found the dingy appearance of the cabinets and lights to be older than he’d expected. Even for Mexican hospital standards this place was dated. He remembered something then. When she’d been arguing with that man about him they made mention of an underground doctor’s office and something about illegal activity.

“This isn’t a hospital is it?” he asked.

Her nervousness reappeared. What the hell, did he have the numbers 666 tattooed on his forehead? He couldn’t stand it. He had to ask her.

“Do I scare you?”

She cautiously stepped a few steps away from the bed and eyed him curiously. He seriously needed to get in front of a mirror so he could figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

“Look, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where I am. If anyone should be scared it should be me.”

“You’re um…being cared for.”

“Where?” No matter how scared she seemed, his patience was running thin. He wanted answers. This was no damn hospital. He’d been in hospitals in third-world countries, but something was off here. It wasn’t just the old dated furniture and drab feeling. The hallway seemed to look dark like there was no light. Then he remembered something he seemed to know just minutes earlier. They mentioned a cellar. Fuck! What the hell was wrong with his memory? Everything seemed foggy.

He waited for her to answer him, wondering if she had it in her to lie. Something about her just didn’t seem the type. She had an almost innocent nature to her, not in the sense that she was a child but in the way she saw the world.

“You’re in our home.”

Were her hands shaking? “Are you okay?”

She backed farther away and edged herself closer to the door. “Do you think you’ll be all right? If I leave you be?”

What in God’s name was going on here? She was afraid to be alone with him. Having only been awake for a short time he was sure he already had her pegged. If he told her he needed her to stay, he was positive that she would. He bet on his chance and took it.

“No. I don’t feel so well. Could you stay with me? Just in case I get sick or something?”

Nervous, she picked up a small plastic pale that was near his bed and put it near his mouth. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you that water.”

She all but hit him in the face with it with the way she moved so abruptly. He started to laugh, but that jolting pain that he felt in his arm earlier was now all over his torso.

“Fuck!”

“Oh God! Did I hurt you?”

The poor girl was pacing back and forth while he controlled his breathing against the onslaught of pain. This scared-as-a-mouse bullshit was getting on his last nerve. His combination of pain mixed with his lack of patience didn’t result in an even temperament.

“Sit!” he snapped at her.

He didn’t know what annoyed him more, that he’d had to shout at her in order to get her to be still, or that she’d jumped so far when he yelled that she all but jumped out of her skin.

A minute of deep calming breaths and the pain he felt started to subside. His once-racing pulse was beginning to steady itself. He needed to find out where he was, how the hell he got there, and what was wrong with him. He wasn’t going to be able to do that if he was edge and she was jumpy. His mouth tasted like shit, and he had a sneaking suspicion his appearance matched his odor, so charming the socks off of her might seem fruitless, but it was the only weapon at his disposal.

“Please relax. Can you do that for me? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Fidgeting with her hands, she nodded to him.

Be patient, Nick.
“No really. I’m a good guy. I don’t hurt women.”

“I know that.”

Okay, so foggy memory and being shot aside, he was all kinds of confused. She knew he wasn’t the type to hurt her, but she was afraid of him. Well that sure as hell made sense. He filed a frustrated thought that came to his mind about women for a later date.

“Good. That’s good you know that because I wouldn’t. Ever.”

“Okay.”

She wasn’t completely relaxed, but she’d stopped picking at her fingernails. Surely that was a sign of progress, right?

“Now, will you tell me how I got here? Why aren’t I in a hospital?”

“My father brought you here.”

“That man you argued with before was your father?”

She dropped her head down and stared at her lap. “Please don’t talk about him in the past tense. He is my father.”

Oh for fuck’s sake
. What was she, a goddamn English teacher? “Sorry. He is your father. And he brought me here because?”

“He wanted to protect you.”

Okay now he was intrigued. A man wanted to protect him. The last thing he remembered was a gun pointing down at him. How did he get from there to here?

“I remember a man with a gun. Is that who your father was trying to protect me from?”

She nodded her answer. He only remembered hearing the man’s voice, but the hazy image of him didn’t register as being an overly large man. In fact his size seemed average at best. He wondered how the hell her father would have been able to overpower whoever was holding the gun. He’d gotten a good look at the size of the men when all hell broke loose on the boat. They were all large-framed, muscular men. This game of twenty questions could go on all day. He needed to know what the hell happened.

“Look, I feel like I’ve had the shit kicked out of me. Can you just tell me everything that happened starting from the—” He wasn’t able to finish his sentence as he succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep.

Warmth
. It was the first thing that came to his mind when he started to wake. The room was quiet, but he could hear the trickling sounds of water. Then he felt wetness. On his face and neck. It was dripping. Was he back in the ocean?
Damn!
Just once he wanted to wake up to a feeling of knowing where the hell he was and what the fuck was going on.

Opening his eyes didn’t prove to be as hard as the last time. His eyelids were heavy, but he still managed to get them open before quickly shutting them again. The room was bright.

“You’re awake.”

There she was. Her voice was incredibly sweet, but she had to win the award for the most obvious statements.

“Why is it so bright in here?”

He heard a splashing sound and her feet scurry across the floor.

“Is that better?”

Squinting as to not shock his pupils again, he opened his eyes slowly. It was much darker. There was still light in the room, but she had obviously dimmed whatever monstrosity was blinding him.

“Much. Thank you.”

She smiled at him. It was nice.
Wait.
What the…she smiled at him?

“You have a nice smile.” It could have been a line, but it wasn’t. She had straight white teeth and a dimple on her right cheek. It was cute.

“Do you mind if I continue?” she asked, ignoring his compliment.

He looked down to his side and saw a small bowl filled with water and a wash cloth.
The water.
So that’s what he was hearing. She was trying to clean him off. Good God it must be bad for her to resort to bathing a man who clearly invoked such fear in her.

“Not at all. Thank you. Any chance you have a tooth brush and something minty to rub all over my teeth?”

“I think I can probably find something.”

“Thanks. I guess I should be apologizing though. I’m wagering my breath smells nothing short of a putrid scent from the gates of hell.”

Again she smiled.
Wow. Two smiles in such a short time?
Whatever he did to ease her nerves, he was glad for it.

“It is kinda bad,” she admitted.

“Thanks for sparing my feelings.” Sure he was being a wise ass, but her bluntness had surprised him.

She merely shrugged in response before wringing out the wash cloth before bringing it back up to his mouth and rubbing at something that was obviously troublesome and she couldn’t get off.

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“No. Just some dried blood.”

That has to look great, he thought. He didn’t want to chance the possibility of her mood swings doing a flip on him again, so he decided to fill in some more of the gaps while he was still coherent enough to understand what she was saying.

“Will you tell me what happened now? From the beginning?”

She seemed to be considering whether or not she should tell him when she sighed. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Please though, try and understand that my father is a good man. He’s made mistakes in his life and is trying to make up for them, but he’s a kind and caring person. He would never hurt anyone,” she insisted.

Again he wanted to make a wise ass crack about women but thought better of it. She was being a little too melodramatic for his tastes. He had no doubt her father was a fantastic guy. Shit, he’d saved his life from one of the mercenaries who had a gun trained on him. Why the hell did she think he’d judge her father? Before he even considered asking the question, he thought better of it. He didn’t give a rat’s ass why she said it. He just wanted answers.

“Okay. I believe you.” Well, what was he going to say?

She blew out a deep exhale and looked up at a ceiling that was cracking and in desperate need of repair. It was as if she was searching for the right words as she stared in thought.

“My father and I were walking on the beach. It’s one of the many things we do together. Walking is a good way to decompress and just talk with someone.”

Great. That’s super. Get on with it please
. The words nearly fell from his lips, but he thought that probably wasn’t the best way to handle the situation. She didn’t seem the type to appreciate sarcasm.

“We were only a dozen or so yards away from you when we saw you crawling to a small recess in the cliff wall. It was obvious from looking at you that you were hurt. A trail of blood followed you as you inched along.”