Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Roman

I am impatient as shit and would be up pacing right now, but I don't want her to wake up without me being by her side either. The medics who looked at her said it was just shock, and that she would be perfectly fine and would come to in a couple of minutes. That was twenty minutes ago.

I am hyper-focused on any change, any little movement, from her that I know the moment she is coming around. And I am right beside her.

"Rome? Wha…what happened?"

"You fainted." She looks disappointed with herself, so I add the rest. "After you shot the bad guy which makes you a total badass."

"My sister?" She tries to sit up, but I hold her down for just a little longer.

"Is fine. She's with Roan at the hospital."

"She…didn't get shot?" I shake my head in the negative. "Roan?"

I look down at my watch, "They took him to the emergency room and are probably just finishing stitching him up. He was talking to your sister pretty lucidly when they took him away so…I think he's going to be just fine. But I am waiting for one of them to call me to tell me everything is alright for sure."

She slowly rises up on her elbows and this time I let her. "The…um, the guy I…shot…?"

"Is in police custody. They have a really solid case against him with Roan being a police officer and Joe, the doorman, being able to testify to his weird obsession and dangerous personality. He shouldn't be getting out anytime soon."

Especially if I have anything to say about it. I think me and the fucking mayor can keep him behind bars for a long, long time. And if the mayor can't do anything about it, I'll just go to the Governor or higher if I have to.

When I saw that asshole hit my little ray of Sunshine, I felt my heart come up in my throat. Even as I think about it, I reach out and brush the still-forming bruise on her cheek and get pissed off all over again.

She sits up more and looks around the room. "Are we…?" She takes in the small mound of rubble that's been stacked neatly -by me- in the middle of the floor.

"Safe? As much as we can be, but I think it would be best if we stayed somewhere else tonight."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense." She looks around for her bag that was on the end of the bed but has now taken a place at the door…next to mine. "I, uh, guess I better…I should probably go. Stop and check on my sister and her man. Try to find a room for the night."

"Yeah, about that…?"

Her eyes come to mine finally. "About what?"

"There's a convention in town this week and a lot of the hotels are full."

She sits quietly for a few seconds trying to process what I am telling her. "Oh. Um, well I can just stay with Summer at the hospital. That's probably the best thing for me to do anyway."

"I was thinking, maybe, you could come with me."

She blinks a few times before repeating what I just said only in the form of question, "Come with you?"

"I keep a suite in the bigger hotel in town for business and it's got two rooms. So…it would really be perfect. And it's closer to the hospital than anything you are going to find that doesn't have its own cleaning staff of cockroaches."

"It's…closer to the hospital?"

"Well, not as close as some of the less nice ones, but close, yes."

"It has two rooms?"

I nod. A little part of me even holds my breath waiting for her answer.

"You wouldn't mind?"

"No, not at all," I hesitate to tell her I might not be there very often since all I do is work and sleep. That might not be all I do these next couple of days. "I already have your bag downstairs, waiting, it wouldn't be very much trouble and your sister wouldn't have to worry about you staying somewhere safe."

"Um, okay. I guess, I guess I can go with you just for today so I can grab some more rest since I drove most of the night to get here. Resting before having to find somewhere else to go sounds…kinda good to tell you the truth."

I give her a forced smile and hold back the urge to tie her up and throw her over my shoulder again. That would be a surefire way to make her run from me as fast as she could and kill any chance I might have of being able to keep her. I don't want to think about why this little thing with the fierce attitude and the bright eyes has me so fascinated, but she does. And the thought of her just walking away has me verging on a sense of desperation that irritates and unnerves me. And don't even get me started on the age difference between us. I was freaking out when I thought about Pearl coming to stay with me…and now I'm chasing after someone younger than her.

It makes no sense but there is something about Nolia that makes me think…she's mine. Yeah, maybe I am just too tired to think straight. Or maybe it has some warped connection to coming home and finding her in my bed. Am I that fucking territorial, that fucking possessive?

Probably. But the way I see it, I have a little under twenty-four hours to figure out a way to make her stay with me without her knowing that's what I am trying to do. On top of that, I also have to find some way to make this stubborn, hard-headed, sexy woman look at me the way I am looking at her.

Good thing I am incredibly talented at making the fucking impossible happen in the blink of an eye.