Mastering the Virgin Box Set Five: A BDSM Ménage Erotic Romance novel Chapter 67

I reach out, hold his wrist. “She wasn’t hurt? Really not hurt?”

Michael gazes down at my hand. He could break away with a shrug. I don’t have the strength of a kitten. But, “No. You took the single shot Corby managed to fire before I took him down and the police took him out. But when you went down, Charlotte….” He chews his words….

“Yes? Charlotte what?”

“She just collapsed, screaming. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s normally so…. self-contained, so competent at whatever she decides to do….” He huffs…. “…. Regardless of whether anyone else might like it or not. But when she thought you’d been killed she simply came apart at the seams.”

*****

When the nurse comes to check my thigh and change the dressing, I prop myself up on elbows, trying to see the damage.

Fuck!

The entrance wound itself is stitched closed, but the entirety of my thigh is dark with brutal bruising in a sickly rainbow of black, purple, green and yellow.

“You don’t want to look too long at that Mr Alexanders,” comments the nurse. “It’ll put you off your dinner.”

I flop back, turbulent inside.

How badly wounded was I?

“Enough that it was touch and go you coming back to us.” says the nurse. And I realise I spoke aloud.

She props me with pillows, enabling me to sit up. Then she sets me up with a drip and a syringe. “If you become uncomfortable,” she says, “just give the syringe a slight push and it will deliver an extra flush of painkiller.”

“James! It’s good to see you with us again.” Richard’s smile is broad and bright. And flatteringly, so is Beth’s.

“Hello, James.” She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “For a while there, we thought….” And she simply cuts herself short, holding up a bag. “We brought more of Ross’ cooking for you.

“Great,” says Michael, immediately standing, his eye passing over Charlotte.

She’s lost weight….

And although she is smiling brightly now, dark rings under her eyes testify to lack of sleep.

He and Beth between them divvy up chicken and veggies for all, the portion he puts onto Charlotte’s plate being noticeably larger than the others.

Beth and Richard eat a little, just to be sociable I think, but Charlotte, smiling happily, shovels hers down in time-honoured fashion. The moment her plate’s empty, Michael scoops more on for her.

When her eye is turned away from me, I give the syringe a squeeze, and after a minute or so, the growing ache in my thigh ebbs enough that the pain stops doing my thinking for me and I can keep my attention on the people around me.

If it weren’t so bloody painful, I would recommend getting yourself shot for anyone who enjoys being the centre of attention.

Michael says little, mainly I think, recouping from the strain of being Charlotte’s support over the last few days. He’s doing his best to be polite and alert but keeps drifting off into cat-naps, which everyone pretends not to notice.

And ego aside, it’s good to have people around me as the chatter, consequential or otherwise, keeps my mind off my injury. Painkillers or not, it is a mere soreness so long as I remain quite still, but flares and burns whenever I move.

For now, I’m happy enough where I am.

And what happens next?

“So where do we work from now, as a base?” I ask Richard. “With the old offices burned out. What has actually been lost?”

He shrugs it off….

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs….

“Oh, it’s by no means a disaster,” he says. “All the information that mattered was stored on the cloud anyway. And, as you know, it was always the plan that we would move to the new headquarters as part of the City Project. I’ve simply brought forward that phase of the works. The offices are going up as we speak. We should be in there within three months.”

Is it really that simple?