Title: Every Breath You Take
Author: Blair Babylon
Series: Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie & Xan #4
Genre: New Adult Romance
Release Date: October 27, 2015
Summary:Georgie broke up with Xan Valentine, the lead singer for the rock band Killer Valentine, the guy that Rolling Stone calls “sex incarnate.” The magazine isn’t wrong, but they don’t know the half of it. He’s the alpha-est male who ever walked onto a stage or into a bedroom and might be crazy, and Georgie is definitely in love with him. Plus, he hired her ex-boyfriend, her first “real” boyfriend, to play in the band, and now she’s stuck between them.
So she tried to leave. That’s what any sane girl would do.
And just as she feared, the Russian mafia kidnapped her.
She prays that Xan won’t try to rescue her because they said they’ll kill him. But she knows he will, even if it costs him everything.
Georgie pushed the door open and found Alexandre sitting on the bed, his good arm resting across his bent knees. He was wearing his jeans, but he had on a blue hospital gown instead of a shirt. His hair was escaping his ponytail, blond strands of it glinting in the fading sunlight streaming in the long windows. His hurt arm rested in his lap behind his knees.
He said, “Sorry about making you the fetch-andcarry girl.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.” Georgie pulled the drape that cordoned off the door to the private room and scooted onto the foot of his bed, careful not to jostle the mattress too much under her legs.
“Are you going to wear your jeans again?” he asked. His weak smile worried her. “It’s considered déclassé to not change into yet another designer outfit for the reception. Perhaps your black jeans?”
“I have a dress that Flicka brought for me,” she told him. “It’s red.”
“Too bad you don’t have that black dress with the silver chains from their civil wedding. It looked smashing on you.”
“And on your floor.”
“Indeed.” His smile grew a little warmer.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He didn’t even glance at his hand, but his quiet voice was just slightly breathy. “I don’t think so.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head, a slight movement from side to side, but his expression was still so calm.
“Are you sure that you want to go tonight? We don’t have to. We can just stay in Geneva tonight, if that would be better. I’d stay with you.”
“It wouldn’t matter. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow because the best surgeon in Europe is flying in to do it. Going now wouldn’t change anything. A distraction might be welcome.”
“Well, then. Let’s get this party started,” Georgie said, bracing her arms on her knees to stand and get their clothes.
He lifted his wrapped arm from his lap where it had been hidden behind his legs and the long part of the hospital gown. Elastic bandages wrapped his forearm and hand down to his fingertips where the ends of a foam and silver splint stuck out of the beige cloth. “I don’t know how I’ll get clothes on over this.”
Georgie smiled, cocking her head and looking up from the corner of her eyes like she had been very smart. “I called the concierge at the hotel and got sewing supplies. I have scissors and a needle, and white thread for the shirt and black thread for the jacket. I can sew you into it. If they look closely, it might look like Frankenstein,” she admitted. “But if they don’t, the tux should cover most of that.”
A slow smile grew on his face while she spoke. He said, “That’s amazing.”
She patted his long, bare foot because it was closest to her. “It’s okay, man. I’ll just grab those garment bags.”
Georgie slid off the end of the bed and got the garment bags from Friedhelm, who looked entirely relaxed leaning against the wall, pleasantly hanging out with Paul, except that his brown eyes tracked everyone who moved in the long hospital hallway. He had a resting sweet face.
When she brought the bags back to Alexandre, he was already standing up and was shrugging off the cotton hospital gown, facing her. The cotton slid down his chest and dropped to the floor. She hoisted the bags up and hung them on the curtain track that ran near the ceiling. “Let’s get you dressed first,” she said. “You’ll wrinkle less.”
“You can wait outside,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute. Then we can sew me in.”
“Oh, come on. I’ll just help you button up the shirt.” He unbuttoned his jeans with his one hand and shoved them down his long legs. “I don’t need any help.”
“One last night, okay?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked as he sat on the bed and yanked the denim off his foot with one hand.
“One last night. I’m going to Atlanta tomorrow. Let me help you.”
“I keep hearing that, but you never leave.”
“Now you’re daring me,” she said. He pulled the other leg of his jeans off his foot and threw them behind himself on the pillow. He wore blue boxer-briefs that hugged his slim hips and rode below the ripples of his abs. Red-gray bruises stained his skin on his ribs and thighs, mostly on his left side.
He said, “I am merely commenting on a trend. One that I like.”
“Well, I’m just saying that you should let me help you because this really is our last night,” she said, trying not to look at the bleeding under his skin. “Don’t push me away, even for a minute, even to just get dressed.”
“Then don’t go to Atlanta,” he said.
She ignored him because she ignored the people on the sidewalks of Southwestern State who hollered that little green men were following her, too. Indulging in fantasies was not something that the Ice Princess did.
She said, “Even now. Even just for a few minutes. Just pretend that I’m helping you so I can stay.”
He blinked, those lush eyelashes blinking over his dark eyes. “All right.”
“So we need to get ready for the reception,” she said.
He nodded, some of his blond hair slipping over his shoulder.
“Do you want to shower?” she asked.
He gestured to the splint and bandages on his left hand and shrugged his strong shoulder, pulling up the ripples of muscle along his torso.
Yeah, his splint and bandages shouldn’t get soggy.
“I can give you a sponge bath,” Georgie said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in hospitals?”
USA Today Bestselling Author Blair Babylon is the nom de plume of an award-winning author who used to publish literary fiction under another name. Because professional reviews of her literary fiction usually included the caveat that there was too much plot, too many interesting twists, and too much sex, she decided to abandon all literary pretensions, let her freak flag fly, and write intense thrillers and naughty romantic suspense.
TWITTER / BLOG / NEWSLETTER / TSU
Nothing Else Matters #4
Every Breath You Take #1
No comments:
Post a Comment