They dispersed like a silent cloud, and I tried to shake off my dark thoughts.

I carried her up to our room, settling her in bed.

"Can I get you anything?  Are you hurting?"

She was in considerable pain, she admitted, and I brought her pills and water.  She downed them and lay down.

I lowered myself carefully beside her, taking her gingerly into my arms.

She (not gingerly) burrowed into me, plastering her lush body to my clenched one.  It was as torturous as it was pleasurable.

"I want you," she said into my neck, her hand snaking down.

I stifled a groan and caught her hand, jaw clenched, body throbbing.  "No.  It's too soon, love.  You need to rest.  And heal."

She must have agreed, because she fell asleep between one breath and the next.

I, unfortunately, did not, though this arrangement was a marked improvement over the earlier one.

It was the next morning, over breakfast, that I mentioned, "I think Clark and Blake are sleeping together."

"I already guessed," Bianca said, without batting an eye.  "They're totally in love.  Just mad for each other."

"How long has that been going on?"

"Since the shooting, I think.  Nothing like almost losing someone to show you how you really feel about them."

No kidding, I thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MY RAVENOUS SELF

It was some endless span of time later, after the shooting.

Weeks that felt like ages.  Time I'd spent agonizing and worrying.

I'd adjusted almost completely to working from home, as I wouldn't even consider leaving her side while she recovered.  My businesses suffered through some minor hiccups for this, but nothing catastrophic.  All of it had become rather relative, besides.

So what if a few other people helped me run things, and I lost control over some of the minute details that used to consume me?  I couldn't even recall why it was so important to manage it all myself anymore.

What was the worst that could be happen?  I'd become slightly less filthy rich?

We were dining privately, and Bianca was being very quiet.  Too quiet.  She was up in her own head again, though her worries were always the polar opposite of mine.

She worried about me.  My stress levels, my lack of sleep, my unmet needs.

It was a difficult thing to grow accustomed to, as I couldn't remember the last time, pre-Bianca, that someone fretted over me.

Not since my mother, I supposed.

She cleared her throat and brought her level stare to meet my troubled one.

"I heard you talking on the phone earlier, to your Detroit manager.  It sounded as though the situation would best be handled if you went there in person.  I think you should do it.  You can't stay home with me forever.  I'm perfectly self-sufficient now, and even if I weren't, I have Stephan and Javier next door, not to mention all of the staff."

I didn't even consider it.  She may have been ready for that, but I was not.

"Maybe in a week or two," I told her, not meaning it, but using it as a subject ender.

I went back to my food, feeling her presence acutely to my left.  I was a focused man, but I could not be in a room with Bianca without at least half of my attention on her at all times.

Her presence was a great gaping void in my concentration—my ultimate distraction.

I caught her sigh out of the corner of my eye and turned my attention on her fully.

She set down her utensils, sitting back in her chair.

"Was it not to your liking?" I asked her, eyeing up her barely touched dinner.  She'd finished only about a third of her filet and less than half of her vegetables.

"It was very good.  I just wasn't that hungry.  I think you actually need to expend energy to work up an appetite."

The words hungry and appetite coming out of her succulent mouth with that soft voice of hers was enough to make me hard, though it was a fact that it didn't take much these days.

I looked at her, keeping my eyes squarely on her face.

I'd taken one look at the little dress she was wearing earlier and decided wisely not to look at it again.

My control was hanging on by the thinnest thread, and that dress, or more specifically, the body it revealed more than clothed, was more provocative than I could stand.

It was overkill, really.

Inflammatory, when I was already on fire.

Still, if I let my mind wander for even a second, I could picture it perfectly—her body in that dress.

It was palest peach, a lovely color on her, feminine and loose, with ruffles at the neck and hem, and so minuscule that it could have been a shirt.  I had to force my mind away from any thoughts about her long, bare legs in it.

It also exposed nearly her entire back, just one T shaped strap was all that covered her from her shoulder to the little dimples above her ass, which was torment for all kinds of reasons.  One being that her back drove me mindless.  The other being that it meant she was braless, and that drove me from mindless to madness incarnate.

The neckline was decent enough, but the sides of the dress were cut severely, on account of the back, leaving the sides of both br**sts exposed, so much so that the wrong movement could slip her clean out of it.

I took a few deep, grounding breaths for control.

I allowed myself one brief glance at her bare neck.  Her choker was locked away, since the injury.

The sight of her neck without it always made my fingers twitch restlessly.