I want to say so many things in this honest moment with Sara/Whisper, but words won’t form in my piehole.
My eyes land on her abdomen. My child is in there, growing. I want to know if he or she is all right medically. Fear like I’ve never felt for anybody other than Whisper hits me hard in the heart. This fear is all powerful and consuming and threatens to knock me backwards.
I rub one hand over my face and try to scrub the fear away and concentrate on getting Whisper cleaned up and whatever else she needs.
“Edge?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t get my hands wet. Can you please help me?”
“Whatever you need, I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
I want this baby to be healthy, but the mother’s been through so much. I could potentially have harmed the baby when I shot Whisper, then she fought with Ebony and Ivory, had her wrist broken, and tongue cut. She’s been drugged and I don’t know what else she’s been put through. I added to all that, by sticking her with a drug I knew nothing about.
“My teeth, Edge,” she prompts me, drawing me back out of my thoughts.
“Right…let’s get on with it so you can lie down. Sitting here with your legs dangling, can’t be good for your feet.” I snap open the packaging and hold the hot pink toothbrush up. She holds her hand up for me to slide it onto her palm.
I raise a brow in question, silently asking if she’s sure it won’t hurt her. She nods and I place it gently on her palm and then start opening the toothpaste packaging, discarding the box in the hidden bin inside the under counter cupboard.
The whole time she sits there watching me, I want to know what she’s thinking. But I have no right to ask.
I study my reflection in the mirror and Hazard is right, I need to get cleaned up. I’m probably stinking up her personal space; it’s been a while since I’ve had a shower. I’m looking like a wild man and I should be using a toothbrush myself.
“You’re exhausted. I can manage if you want to send Phoenix in with a glass of water,” she tells me softly.
Sweet… so fucking sweet.
It’s been nearly three days since she was rescued and I’ve really only had a handful of sleep in all that time. When I realize I’ve been standing here staring at myself and not getting on with the job at hand I snap to it.
“Nah…I’m good.” I take the toothbrush out of her open palm and start squeezing paste onto it. She doesn’t stop me, so I gather she’s giving me the green light to help her.
A large hand shoves a tall glass and a bowl at me and I follow it all the way up into Slade’s face. “Heard you might need these?” He beams a smile Whisper’s way.
I take the items from Slade and place them on the counter space and then he’s back out the door.
“Sounds like there’s somebody monitoring the goings on in here?” I pretend to sound annoyed. “Phoenix… you stalking us?”
Her pretty head pokes around the bathroom door. “Nope!” She grins at the both of us. “I just happened to be bringing a few things upstairs for the ladies, to make them more comfortable, and I heard you might need a glass. I added a bowl for spitting into. Slade seems to be tracking my every move—insert eye roll—so I thought I would put him to good use and whallah a glass and bowl have appeared. No girl wants to be dribbling water down her chin in front of a guy.”
“I’m not tracking your every move…woman!” Slade’s voice is traveling from outside Ghost’s bedroom.
“Damn behemoth of a man,” Phoenix mutters.
“Heard that! Damn woman.” Slade tries to sound grumpy, but you can hear the affection slipping through.
Phoenix rolls her eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She’s got it bad, but these two are gonna have to play it out on their own time.
“Back to what I was saying, I hope you are okay with bunking in with Miss Catherine in Ghost’s bed?”
“Thank you. We will be fine together, Phoenix.”
“I’ll warn you, she’s got her snore rockin’ at the moment, the volume is pretty low. If she gets too rowdy for you”—she places a phone on the counter by Whisper’s slender thigh—“everybody here has plugged their number into that phone, you can call any of us to come attend to you and you can come bunk with me if you aren’t getting the rest you need. I doubt a freight train could wake her up. Just thought Miss Catherine might be a comfort for you and I’m sure she won’t say no, to sharing a bed with you.”
“I’ll be watching all three of them, so she can ask me for anything, and I’ll get it organized. I’m sure one of my brothers will post their ass outside Ghost’s door, but nobody comes in unless either of them requests it. Understood?”
“Gotcha, Edge, can’t say you’ll be giving those men out there a reason to storm this room, so everything is cool.” Phoenix might be acting all chummy, but she’s letting me know she hasn’t let her guard down and still has Whisper’s back.
“I’m still here—you two. I’m not a prisoner, Phoenix. I don’t need a guard on the door. I don’t even want to be surrounded by four walls, I would prefer to rest in the great room with the fire crackling, makes me think of home, but I will do it for Miss Catherine.”
“Now that’s settled, I’m outta here.” Phoenix leaves the room.
I fill the glass with water and set it down on the counter. “Babe, you ready to do this?”
“Can’t really do it myself.” She holds her hands up in front of me.
“Nope, can’t say you can. Do you… um want to rinse before we start?
Oh for the love of all things hormonal teenager! I’m Edge ‘Dallas’ Masson, not some pubescent kid who’s got a girl in the bathroom for the first time.
“Might be a good idea after hurling up those sandwiches. I’ve not been able to keep much down since I started getting morning sickness, which isn’t always in the morning, it can hit when it feels like.” She blushes so deeply when explaining this to me. “I try to ignore the nausea, but I feel like it’s getting worse.”
“Babe, I want to hear it all. You get sick I’m here to help clean you up. You want to talk about anything, I’ll listen.”
“I need to talk to you, but I don’t even know where to start.”
“How ‘bout we start with the simple stuff for now and get that pretty mouth of yours swished out and then we get down to brushing those teeth. If they feel anything like mine do, then they will be all furry and gross feeling. Hell, why don’t I join you and I can multitask and brush mine at same time, what do you think?” I can’t believe I used the word ‘gross’. “We’ll take everything else one baby step at a time and I really am not resorting to puns.” Fuck’s sake. I’m a badass enforcer for the Soulless Bastards and I’m sounding like I’m in college. I feel like I have to tone down who I am around her, because she’s had enough violence in her life. I want to give her normal and my normal isn’t normal.
Hell, she should be in college and dating. Scratch that last bit—no dating—but she should be leading a normal life. None of her life has been normal and she’s jumping to being a mother.
I place the brush on the sink and pick up the glass of water and hold it tipped to her lips, the bowl ready for her to spit in.
Her eyes lower, her face flushing again at the intimacy of these simple actions because they belong to a couple who knows each other and we’ve only scratched the surface.
Once she’s finished swishing and spitting, I empty the bowl in the sink and set it aside, then I prepare another toothbrush for myself from the supplies bag.
I pick her brush up again. “Open up, babe.” Again with the lowering of the eyes, but I manage to brush both our teeth in some rhythmic way, and make it seem like something normal.
We finish up and I get back to refilling the glass and doing that whole swish and spit thing; rinse and repeat a couple times.
“Better?” I wait for her to look at me and nod. “I feel better too. What do you need next?”
“I really need… ”
“What?” Her face has gone fifty shades of red. I step in between her legs, my thighs brushing hers wider, the hospital gown riding up. She’s red now—might as well be a good reason for it. I drop my head down to her eye level and ask, “What do you need, babe?”
“Toilet,” she says softly. I think she’s now holding her breath. I hope I’m affecting her, like she affects me.
“Babe, breathe.”
She lets out a little whoosh of minty breath.
What I really want to do is slide her body towards mine until we connect in a seriously intimate way, but I don’t want to scare her off. I’ve tested the waters enough for now.
“Okay, how do you want to do this?” I’m not gonna crowd her. “You want Phoenix?”
She shakes her head at me. “I just need help getting to it and I can manage. I’ve had no privacy using the toilet in the past. I can handle it.”
Fuck!
She’s starved of dignity. Miss Catherine and Boxer gave it back to her only for it to be torn away again. She says she isn’t a prisoner, but she slips so easily back into what has been conditioned into her.
“Babe, I’m calling Phoenix.” I pick up the phone she left behind and hit her number up, texting for assistance.
She appears a lot sooner than I would have thought, because she sure as shit wasn’t waiting downstairs by the fire. “You need me?”
“I would like to go to the toilet, please.” Again with the red splotches all over face.
“Sure, chickie. Tell me how you want to play it and it shall be done.”
“If you wouldn’t mind helping me to get there I can sort it out.”
“I got this, Edge.” Phoenix doesn’t wait for her to finish before I’m getting the hint to depart.
“How are you going to get her there, because she ain’t walking.”
“Piggy back… now shoo.”
Woman has an answer for everything.
“I might want Phoenix to help me with getting cleaned up a little too, so take your time and maybe you might want to shower or something,” Whisper hints at the state I’m in. Her face has dialed up to sixty shades of red. Damn, it’s so cute. Yeah, she’s my sweet and wild girl.
“What date is it?” Whisper asks no one in particular.
“December twentieth,” we both reply in unison.
“Oh—”
“What?” we both cut her off at the same time.
“Um… nothing.” She looks away.
Fuck! She’s never had a Christmas.
And if that knowledge doesn’t hit me square in the chest. Of course it’s her first Christmas.
“My fucked-up fath—William—wouldn’t have celebrated it,” I mutter under my breath, barely audible. I mask my words further by looking down at the ground and running my hand through my hair. There was nothing kind he did for her.
“We will take a while, Edge, so maybe you might want to organize some food as well for yourself?”
“Sara, you gonna be all right with Phoenix for a couple hours?” My selfish heart wants my sweet and wild girl to say ‘no’, but I want to do something special for her and if she’s with Phoenix, she’ll be looked after. That much I know.
“Yes.”
I can’t help glancing down at her stomach. I need to give her time before we walk that bridge. I just need to be there for her and let her take the reins. I am of my father’s blood and I’m a glaring reminder of twenty years of hell.
And that’s pretty fucked up.
“My phone isn’t charged up, so hit Hazard’s number if you need anything and Slade won’t be too far away.”
I glance down at her stomach, one more time and turn on my heel, heading out the room. I pass Miss C, who’s snoring softly, and go to find my brothers and tell them of my plans for the afternoon.