Chapter 18

I’m not quiet. I just don’t like talking to you.

-Lark to Baylor’s brother

Lark

“It’s karma.”

“What’s karma?” Travis questioned.

I swallowed and looked down at my hands.

“I did something bad, and God’s punishing me now.”

“You didn’t do anything bad.”

I ran away from my husband and followed through with divorcing him despite his contesting it.

I’d lied, cheated, and stolen to get away from him.

I’d lost my babies. Babies I’d loved with all of my heart, and they hadn’t even been born yet.

I stole somebody’s dog. All because I had fallen in love with the dog’s previous owner.

Then, when that man starts to make love to me and pulls me on top of him to do the deed, I break his dick in half.

Baylor would never let me touch him again, I was sure of it.

I was mortified.

God, could my life get any worse?

I deserved everything that I got.

“Come on,” Hannah said.

I winced.

“I’m just going to go home.”

Before she could say anything more, I moved through the sliding doors that I’d seen the medical personnel using over the last hour and started walking.

I’d gotten maybe two ambulance bays down when I heard my name yelled.

I whirled at Baylor’s voice.

“Baylor?”

I hurried toward him, immediately worried at the gray sheen that still tinged his face.

“What are you doing out here?”

He pointed, and I looked in the direction of the window he’d indicated.

“That’s my room,” he said. “I saw you walking and came out here. You weren’t leaving, were you?”

The worry in his voice had me blowing out a disgusted breath.

Jesus, I was going to leave him.

I was going to leave and never look back.

Again.

“Baylor…”

“You don’t leave,” he pleaded. “Talk to me first. Always.”

I looked away to the parking lot.

There were a lot of people here for this hour of the night.

There were people bringing food in for the patients and personnel I assumed. There was a mother and child standing on the corner, the mother smoking while her daughter tried to dodge the smoke cloud.

Then there was the large muscular black man—who, I might add, was sexy as hell in his police uniform—watching us curiously.

I turned back to Baylor, who was standing there in his hospital gown, staring at me with a look of sadness on his face.

“I’m bad for you.”

“You’re good for me,” he countered.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I’m a bad person. I do bad things to people.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Get over yourself, Lark. This isn’t just about you.”

My mouth fell open.

“I’m not lying.” I wiped the tears that were forming in my eyes as quickly as I could. “This is serious. I was the one to do this to you…next time it’ll be Sal hurting you. I have the worst luck in the world, Baylor. I’m going to cause you to be hurt, and you don’t deserve that. You are a good man. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Before I could so much as take a step off the curb, he hauled me back with surprising strength.

“You will not leave me,” he ordered harshly. “You’ll live your life. You’ll come sit by my side while they sign my discharge papers.”

“What did they say about...that?”

I looked at his penis, which was covered completely by the gown that he was wearing.

I couldn’t see a thing, but even thinking about how he’d screamed had made me want to die all over again.

“Rest. Anti-inflammatory meds,” he said. “It's not black and blue so they don’t believe that I tore anything. They think that it’s just a mild ‘sprain’ that will fix itself in a few days. Until then, I’m to abstain from any sexual intercourse.”

“You’ll keep abstaining. I’m never having sex with you again. I’m a danger to your privates.”

My muttered words didn’t go unnoticed or unheard because he started to laugh as he hauled me back inside.

I waved at Hannah, who was standing next to the door. She’d obviously been watching.

“Your butt is almost as nice as your brother’s,” Hannah fired off the moment we were inside.

I shifted and looked at his backside, and sure enough, it was hanging out there for everyone to see.

“You didn’t think to cover that?” I asked.

Baylor shrugged. “An ass is an ass. Everyone has one. Everyone has seen them. What’s one more?”

“Not everyone has seen your ass,” I yanked the sides of his gown closed and held the ends in my fist.

He hissed when the tightness of the gown pressed against his front, and I moaned. “I’m so sorry.”

He patted my hand. “It’s okay. Just hold it a little less tight. When I walk it puts pressure on my dick. Even the slightest touch doesn’t feel good right now.”

I bit my lip as another moan threatened to escape.

“Shit.”

“It’s okay.”

No, it wasn’t.

I’d broken the man’s dick. It didn’t matter if it was just sprained or completely broken. I’d done it to him. Me.

I’d felt it under my ass as I came down on him, and I couldn’t stop it.

His scream.

Oh, my God.

The sound of his scream would be replaying in my head as long as I lived.

To add insult to injury, I’d been in the midst of an orgasm at the time I’d come down on him, so it’d taken me longer to move off of him than it normally would have.

I felt a tug on my arm, and my eyes went wide at the woman and young girl that’d been at the baseball game a few weeks ago.

They were walking out of the hospital room just a little down from Baylor’s.

The girl had a cast on her hand, and the both of them had cuts, scrapes, and contusions all over their bodies.

“Andie?” Baylor asked. “What happened?”

Andie shrugged. “Car accident. Everyone is okay. We’re just a little shaken up.”

Baylor didn’t go to touch either one of them, and I wondered if it was due to the fact that I was there, or the fact that his dick was still hurt, and he didn’t want to risk either one of them putting any pressure on it.

The latter was more than likely, and that made an irrational surge of jealousy course through me.

I was such a hypocrite.

God, I was going to hell.

Five minutes ago, I was willing to leave him. Now I was thinking about how I’d beat a woman’s ass—even one who’d just been in a car accident.

“You got a ride?”

“They do.”

I whipped around, startled at a male’s voice being so close to my back, and reacted before I could think.

I whipped my arm forward, my hand in a fist, and aimed it right for the man that was standing behind me.

It was headed for his jaw when he caught it in mid-air, stopping me before I could make contact.

Our eyes met, and I gasped.

“Shit,” I said, trying to pull away. “You scared me.”

“Your reaction is to swing before you know who it is?” he questioned, not letting go of my hand.

I nodded. “Better that way. Strike first, apologize later. Might keep my head from being broken.”

His eyes held understanding as he let go of me.

“What are you doing here, Parker?” Baylor asked, pulling me into his side.

It made me feel warm all over.

Parker gestured to the woman. “Giving them a ride.”

Baylor shrugged. “Okay then.”

“Why are you here?” Adrienna’s asked.

“Andie,” Andie said. “Don’t ask that.”

“He asked us,” Adrienna countered. “You don’t look so good.”

That last part was aimed at Baylor.

“That’s because he should be sitting down,” a doctor snapped from behind us. “I’m going to sign you out AMA if you don’t come in here and sit down.”

“What’s AMA?” Adrienna whispered.

“Against medical advice,” both Parker and Baylor answered at the same time.

I pushed Baylor forward. “Go. Or they might not give you the good meds.”

Baylor rolled his eyes and waved as he allowed me to push him down the hallway toward his room.

Soon we were back in his room, with a cross man looking at us like we were naughty students and not adults there of our own free will.

“Sorry,” Baylor muttered to the disapproving doctor. “I saw her leaving, and I didn’t want her to go.”

The doctor threw me a pitying glance. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first one to do this, and won’t be the last. Though it’s definitely an unusual condition, it wasn’t the most interesting case that I’ve seen all day.”

“What was the most interesting?” I asked, unable to help myself.

This medical shit really did interest me.

Tomorrow was supposed to be my first day at the vet’s office. I’d taken a part-time position on the weekends as an assistant. Although it interested me, and I was doing it because of Pongo, it didn’t draw my avid attention anywhere near as much as human medicine did.

“A fidget spinner on a penis,” he said. “An unknown object up an anus. Which, might I add, wasn’t unknown. The man knew what he was shoving up there before he ‘fell’ on it. It was a gourd, by the way.”

My mouth fell open.

Baylor laughed and then groaned as he sat.

“I guess I should be happy I didn’t accidentally fall on something,” he teased, a little grayer than before. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“It’s going to hurt for a few days,” he said. “I have a prescription for you for Vicodin. It’s possible that it’ll cause constipation, though, and you don’t want that to happen. Having to strain will also put strain on your penis. Which will hurt. So, make sure you eat a lot of food high in fiber and stay hydrated to counteract that.”

I took copious notes in my mind, and an hour later when we stopped by the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions, I also made sure to get the things he would need to tide him over the next few days.

All the while, I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed by any unwanted men—like Sal.

I never saw him, but then again, I never did… at least not until I felt that first strike.