Cold Hearted: Bad Boy Rugged Love, #1

By Amy Faye

He pressed his hot lips to my neck and told me to stay quiet...

"Touch it," he whispered. "Touch me. You can, you know. Nobody would have to know."

"You've been looking forward to this," he accused, and she ground herself against his fingers in answer.

This boxed set has three FULL LENGTH, standalone alpha bad boy romance. No cliffhangers, and a sexy HEA. Perfect for anyone who loves men that bite and scratch and make it oh so hard to love them!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heartthrob Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386763901

Book preview

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Rough Hand

Bad Boy Fighter Romance

Amy Faye

Published by Heartthrob Publishing

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Here’s a preview of the sexy love story you’re about to read...

Have you ever been fucked before, Caroline? Have you ever had a man take you?

No, she said. There was more to it, when she'd planned the response in her head, but when her mouth started moving it came out short and didn't have the protest that she'd intended.

But you wanted to. You've been wondering what it's like for so long that you don't even remember when you started. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong, and I'll stop.

He rounded the sofa, his cock starting to grow. Even flaccid, he had a size that was a little bit intimidating, but as he stared at her it grew. He seeming to see right through her defenses and into a private world where she had wondered very much what it would be like to have him take her. It made her shiver.

You should go get dressed, she offered. It wasn't a refusal, though, and deep down she knew it.

I could do that. But I don't want to disappoint you.

Who would be disappointed?

He leaned down over her, his face filling her vision and the rest of him filling her mind. Her body tingled, every nerve in her body waiting for him to touch her. She held herself still, held her body stiff and forced herself not to reach out to him. But she desperately wanted to.

Touch it, he whispered. Touch me. You can, you know. Nobody would have to know. Nobody would judge you.

You're a tenant, and I'm saving myself.

Shannen didn't scoff at her. He didn't laugh. He didn't even smirk. He pressed his lips against her jaw and she didn't pull away. Then he put those same lips, surprisingly soft for a man who was, in so many other ways, so hard, right by her ears.

Are you sure? Think about it. Think hard. Think about what you're missing. About how good it would feel to have this cock inside you, fucking you, filling you up in ways that you never even dreamed of.

You're very full of yourself, she said. The defenses were crumbling, and it was all that she could do to keep her hands pressed hard into her own hips.

I can back it all up, if you'll let me, he purred, and Caroline shivered. God, the offer was tempting.

You'd better, she breathed.

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1

Caroline's third day at the hospital wasn't all that different from the first two: crazy, way over her head, and yet, for the third day in a row she seemed to be almost keeping up.

Her supervisor was a matronly woman named Sarah. She looked like a nurse was supposed to look. No, that wasn't quite right. She looked like a nun was supposed to look in an old-fashioned hospital, like you saw in paintings.

The similarities to what nuns were supposed to be like ended approximately there. On the other hand, Caroline's experience with nuns in Catholic school had taught her that some things weren't what they seemed; Sarah may not have been what nuns were supposed to be like, whatever that meant, but she was a dead ringer for every nun that Caroline had actually met.

She had sharp senses, so that any little thing Caroline let slip or said out of turn seemed to make her supervisor prick her ears up. Of course, with Caroline being a student, and as new in the hospital as she was, she was never out of Sarah's earshot, which meant that she heard nearly everything.

More than that, her supervisor had a bedside manner that was as polite as could be; at least, on the surface, which was where it really counted. Below the surface was another matter entirely, and she wasn't afraid to show her hand if she thought that someone was talking back.

She would put on a sweet smile, and then call them 'dear,' and then remind them who decided which needles got used when it came time to draw blood or give injections.

That had a tendency to shut people up real quick, Caroline noticed. She wasn't sure how much of Sarah's attitude was because of who she was and how much was the result of the job, but she had no trouble believing that the older woman hadn't exactly struggled to get 'into character', so to speak.

So when her face darkened as they walked down the hall, Caroline picked up on it because for all of Sarah's skills, abilities and experience, subtlety wasn't particularly one of them.

Is something wrong?

Sarah's face brightened for the exact span of time that it took to turn to Caroline and answer. Nothing at all, dear. You're doing fine.

Caroline wondered if she was starting to pick up on some of Sarah's sharpness of hearing when she heard the older woman mutter softly to herself. You'll see soon enough.

Whatever it was that she was going to see, it wasn't hard to figure out what it was going to be. Sarah stopped outside of a patient room and held herself upright with one hand on the wall, and took a breath.

Ready?

Caroline nodded and followed her supervisor inside. The bed was empty, which was a surprise. This was intensive care; most of the patients here were too injured to move, and if they could, then they rarely made any effort to do so.

Sarah sucked in air through her teeth and bit off a curse that began with God. Then she turned and looked at the bathroom. The door was open and the lights turned off. She pressed the intercom button by the bed and spoke into it with her voice hard and frustrated.

Has anyone seen the patient in 314-A?

A moment passed before there was a response. Mr. O'Brien has been in his room all day, as far as I know. Why, is he not there now?

No, Sarah responded, as if that was a curse word, too. Let's go look for him, I guess.

Caroline watched Sarah leave. There was something about the room that was setting her on edge. Something she couldn't quite place. She swept aside the curtain. An elderly woman slept in the bed beside the missing patient's.

She turned. There was no use in looking blindly, she'd always felt. When you looked, you should look someplace specific. The place that you most expect to find someone. In this case, she expected that he couldn't have gotten far. The bedpan by the bed seemed to confirm this idea, if the nurses didn't expect him to get up to use the bathroom in the night.

She wet her lips with her tongue and closed her eyes a moment and thought. Where would she go? And why? If he was a prisoner then there should at the very least have been a policeman guarding the door. If he wasn't, then he was, in theory, free to leave any time.

Why would he go out of his way to escape in secret? She frowned. Because they wouldn't let him go, maybe? Why would that even be?

There were a thousand reasons, she knew. The nurses wanted the doctor to release any patients that were outgoing. If he were at risk, or his wounds hadn't healed properly, then the doctor would refuse. If he had indicated any intention to harm himself, then he wouldn't be allowed to leave until a 48-hour observation period was up.

She didn't think he would kill himself, though. Nothing about the man had seemed suicidal. The thought suddenly occurred to her, all at once.

There was still a stack of personal belongings on the bedside table. Which meant, wherever he'd gone, he hadn't gone far. She frowned and walked over. A phone, plugged into the wall as if he weren't worried about it.

A western novel, the spine broken in so many places that it was a wonder that it had managed to stay together this long. And beside it, a clipboard. She frowned. The clipboard seemed odd.

She took a deep breath. Odd, indeed. That one was an easy problem to solve, though. She turned it over, and confirmed what she already expected to find. It was a hospital clipboard. She couldn't read the initials, but that was typical. The nurses scrawled rather than wrote them half the time.

She took a deep breath. So he was gone with a nurse, then. At least he wasn't at risk of hurting himself. She went to the locker room. It was only a few rooms down, and there was a map on the wall. The layout of the hospital was still new, and she didn't really know the quickest route to the nurse's station.

As she opened the door she heard the noise before she realized what it was, and her momentum carried her inside, the door closing behind her. Whatever noise she made, which sounded impossibly loud to her, it didn't interrupt the hard, husky breathing coming from further inside. Breathing punctuated with a woman's voice, hoarse and muffled.

The woman was another newbie, Caroline thought. She'd been there longer than Caroline, but she wasn't anywhere near an institution of the hospital. And as her breasts swayed forward with every thrust of the man's hips behind her, Caroline thought that she wasn't likely to become one.

He was wearing nothing at all, a hospital gown discarded on the ground, and it gave her a view that she didn't want to see, and one she couldn't look away from. He was tall, with dark hair that glinted the bareliest hints of red as it moved in the light, his cheeks high and defined, a well shaped mouth, and a jaw that narrowed to a square, blocky chin.

Not only that, but he barely had an ounce of fat on him; she'd seen less-defined physiques in anatomy textbooks. Every muscle tightened and relaxed in concert as he moved. His fingers dug into the nurse's hips, his arms nearly pulling her feet off the floor with every thrust.

The nurse yelped, and Caroline yelped too, in surprise as much as anything.

The door hadn't gotten their attention, but that had. The nurse scrambled to cover herself, but the man behind her, his chest wrapped up in thick gauze bandages, thrust again, and the nurse let out another hoarse moan. The man's pace never slowed as she watched. Caroline realized dimly that her mouth had dropped open but she couldn't stop.

Then he pulled himself free and let out a groan as he spent himself on the nurse's backside.

I know, he said, his voice conversational and not at all embarrassed as far as she could detect. I need to get back to my room right away, and I've been a very bad boy.

Caroline swallowed and stared up at him, and tried to ignore the tingling in her lady parts. She raised her voice enough to be heard from, she hoped, quite a distance.

I've found him!

2

Caroline's eyes scanned over the bills, strewn out across what was supposed to be a dining table. She hadn't eaten at it in some time, and she wasn't sure when she was going to.

Dad had always insisted on sitting to eat, on the two of them eating together, sitting, like a proper meal, like a proper family. Maybe Mom would have joined them too, once, but if she had then it was a long time ago. Too long for anything but vague memories that were long past faded, like every memory that she had of Mom except for little snippets.

A day where she'd been making eggs, and they'd been wildly out of date, and the stench of sulfur filled the tiny apartment that she remembered, in some dim part of her mind, having lived in when she was not only too young to recall her age, but at an age where numbers still lacked meaning.

Memories of Mom giving her un-toasted Pop Tarts because that was how Caroline preferred them, and it was how she still preferred them. Memories of a Christmas tree too big for the little apartment.

The other things Caroline remembered weren't memories, so much as they were recitations of facts she believed to be true, though she couldn't say where she might have heard any of them. Dad certainly never spoke about Mom, after she'd passed away, but Caroline couldn't remember her smile; only that she remembered Mom smiling a lot. She couldn't remember what her cooking had tasted like, only that aside from that one morning, she was quite a good cook.

Dad was in the hospital now, and in another twenty years, maybe he would be relegated to similar patchwork memories and lists of facts that she believed she had known about the man who had been with her and taken care of her since she learned her first words.

She let out a long breath and wrote the number at the bottom of the letter down on a lined legal pad, and then folded it back into threes, and moved on to the next sheet in the unread stack.

The stack wasn't high; now that she lived alone (temporarily, she reminded herself; Dad was going to get back out of the hospital any day now) she had no problem keeping the bills minimal.

At the very bottom of the sheet she tallied up her numbers and frowned at the total with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. She wasn't making much money from the hospital; most of her income was in the form of college credit and in the form of being work towards her degree, which would eventually pay for itself on some level. That was the idea, at least. She hoped that was how it worked.

As it stood, she had $1500 a month coming from Dad's social security, another $1200 a month, before taxes, coming from her time at the hospital, far too much of it for such a small sum. After taxes were removed it was barely $900 a month.

$2400 was enough to do quite a bit, when it was on its own. In less than a year, she'd be able to buy a brand new car, if she were thrifty. In a year and a half, she might be able to buy one that was quite attractive.

The problem was that between now and then she would have to eat at some point. She would have to keep the electricity running, she would have to keep her cellular phone connected, and more than anything she would have to find some way to keep the hospital from kicking Dad out on the street for lack of payment.

Once all those bills were accounted for, she had almost $50 for paying the rent, which was enough for a night at the movies and not much more, because if she actually tried to pay that money to the landlord she knew that he'd laugh in her face.

There were answers, of course. There were always answers. For example, she could cut down on food costs. It was far too convenient to buy food while she was at work, rather than bringing food in. It would change the numbers quite a bit if she were more careful with food. That opened up her income.

Then there was the cell phone. She had already been doing the math on it, and now that she'd quadruple-checked her numbers, it was clear that was going to be reduced, as well.

They were little things, here and there, and with all of it together she could make it work.

Well, that wasn't accurate. She could make it work... if her rent were only half what it actually was. If her electricity bill were only half what it was. Water and heat were covered by the apartment.

She smiled to herself, glad that the answer was obvious. The weight on her shoulders lifted a little bit. Long enough that the rest of her almost threatened to forget about how worried she was going to have to be about work the next day, because 12-hour shifts were hard no matter how much you thought that you were catching on.

She could post an advertisement, and after her shift tomorrow, she'd get a nice long rest and make some calls the following morning. Easy as can be. She sidled up into her chair, started typing out an ad for a roommate. She wasn't much of a photographer but she could at least take a few shots with her phone to give people an idea of the space.

Then to post, nice and easy. She laid her head back for only a moment before she threw a tray of quesadillas onto a tray and put it into the oven. When they finished she should try actually sitting down at the table for something that wasn't completely miserable, she thought. It would be a delightful change of pace from the TV tray in front of the couch.

As she waited, standing by the oven rather than finding a better seat in spite of the fifteen minutes it would take, her phone buzzed in her hip pocket. Probably spam, she thought, but she checked it anyways. She wasn't going to get many chances tomorrow.

Caroline's eyebrow raised. She'd expected some takers, but she'd expected them to filter in over the next day and a half. Not one within ten minutes.

She opened the email and scanned over it. The image of a thick-skinned Irish girl, tough and streetwise, immediately flashed in her head as she read through. The name at the top fit perfectly. Hell, it almost single-handedly created the image.

Shannen O'Brien sounded like just the sort of woman that Caroline could get along with. Independent, tough, and no-nonsense. Which was why, against her better judgment, she agreed to meet in the morning before her shift. The sooner that she had someone else paying rent, the sooner that she could breathe easy about the dwindling numbers in her bank account.

The sooner that they came and saw the place, the sooner that she could start making friends with this girl, and the sooner that she could start thinking beyond just solving the little day-to-day problems like money.

The timer on the microwave beeped loudly, and she sent her reply before pulling the food out. There was a lot to look forward to. Things were finally looking up. The boorish patient had been ejected and wasn't on her route any more. Sarah was beginning to treat her a bit less like she was a small, skiddish animal. And she was finally going to have a roommate, after distantly imagining what it might be like for all this time.

Things were looking up so much that she forgot to turn off the oven until she started to notice the smell as she went through the house flicking off lights. So perhaps not everything was looking up.

But at least it was only a very small fire. Nobody would notice, and nothing seemed permanently damaged, she hoped. She was pleased, though, with one thing at least. It didn't damage her attitude one bit, because tomorrow morning she'd meet her new room-mate, and Shannen was going to be her new best friend.

3

Caroline's night wasn't as grand as she might have hoped for. She rarely hoped much at all; it was the same most nights. Come home, from class or from the hospital, the sun already down and dinner barely an afterthought in her mind. She just wanted to sleep, and after sucking down a remarkably unhealthy microwaveable meal, complete with enough sodium to fill a salt shaker, she would pass out on the bed.

It was small, for anyone, but for her it almost worked. She was not a tall woman, and at only five-one she was able to fit without her legs dangling uncomfortably off the end of the bed.

The night was supposed to be a little pre-roommate celebration. She'd bought a bottle of wine and everything, for herself, so she could drink it by herself while she watched old romcoms and thought about the future and how it wasn't a complete wreck any more. That was a good thing, at least.

Instead, at some point she had made a microwave dinner and passed out on the couch. Her phone beeped loudly at her that it was six in the morning and it was time to get up. The sun, for its part, hadn't risen yet. Why should she be up before the sun? Couldn't sick people just wait a few hours so that she could keep reasonable hours?

Caroline forced herself up and moved mechanically to get herself into her clothes. The phone beeped a message, but she ignored it for the time being. Too many morning chores to deal with.

She hopped into the shower, her clothes on the floor in a heap until she remembered, as soon as the hot water hit her, that she was expecting someone to come by in a little bit. She leaned out, dripping water all over the floor, far enough to snag the clothes and toss them into a hamper.

She was quick in the shower. The entire thing was a necessary part of waking up, and it wasn't the last one on the list. She padded out of the bathroom, enjoying her ability to go naked one last time before she had to share the house with someone else, and clicked the button to start the coffee brewing.

While it poured out, she went and got herself dressed. She could just about hear the sound of the water starting to gurgle as it ran out by the time she had pulled on a fresh set of scrubs. She picked up the phone first and checked it. There were three messages from a number she didn't recognize right away.

Caroline clicked it open and headed for the coffee. It was healthier to drink it black, though some she knew that some of the health blogs she followed were talking about how great and effective it was to put butter in. Supposedly, it provided long-lasting energy, and given how fats are processed by the body, it probably was.

Instead, she poured in a tablespoon of sugar and stirred the cup idly with a knife as she read.

The first text read 'On my way, still on for this morning?' The second read 'hello?' The third said 'I'm outside'; By that point, Caroline had finally managed to take a sip of coffee, and with the surge of awareness that came along with it came the memory of a girl who had messaged her about the room. Shannon, she thought?

Luckily, the last text hadn't been a long time ago. Her fingers scrambled to tap away at the phone. 'OMG I'm sorry, I'll be outside in a sec to show you around. Just getting ready for work.'

Caroline drank another sip of coffee, set the cup aside, and grabbed her little bottle of pepper spray. She tucked it into a pocket, dropped her key ring into the other pocket, and opened the front door.

The man outside was startlingly unlike the girl that Caroline had imagined. He was tall, handsome, muscular without being too bulky. He looked up as the door opened, already beginning a smiling greeting.

His smile and hers dropped at nearly the exact same moment, because in addition to all of those things, he was something else: he was awfully familiar.

Caroline spoke first. I thought Shannon was coming. The room's only for one, so...

I'm Shannen. We spoke last night about a room.

She wanted to answer that Shannon, however you spelled it, was a girls' name. He didn't look like the sort of man that would take particularly kindly to that kind of talk, though. She swallowed.

I'm sorry, I... misunderstood.

I need a place to stay, he told her. I'm kind of on the street right now, so... I won't bother you, and I can pay you an extra hundred for rent, but please. I need a place to stay. Hell, I'll take the couch if you want.

She looked at him and all she could see was his body, hard and tight, shadows stark under the severe fluorescent lights, grunting as he thrust into Deborah. All she could see was the look on Deborah's face, desperate for more.

Her body started reacting before her mouth did. She should have turned him away, she knew, but the look on his face was nothing like the cocky expression that she'd seen before.

Well...

I won't cause you any trouble at all, he said, his voice almost pleading. It was a strange change from the first time that they had met.

I need to get to work, Caroline countered, hoping that would get her out of the situation. Hoping that she could get herself time to think about it, at least.

Let me give you a ride, he told her. She pinched her lips together, looked over at his car and thought of the beat-up junker in her garage.

I'll need a ride home tonight.

Just say a time.

Look, I'm not saying I'll agree to anything, but I'll think about it.

He seemed to accept that. She stepped inside, grabbed her purse, drank her coffee in a deep, burning-hot mouthful, and stepped back out. Shannen O'Brien was already in his car, the lights illuminating the whole driveway, the passenger door standing open.

She settled in beside him. The leather seats were comfortable, but if he had no place to stay then it was much, much too small to sleep in, she thought.

Thank you, she said. I'm sorry if I was rude, I just—

I get that a lot, he said.

And I'd rather, you know, if you have to do stuff like...

Keep it quiet?

She'd meant to say 'Don't do it around me.' Yeah, she agreed.

Of course. They drove for a little while in silence. A mile and a half away from the hospital, his phone chirped, the display lighting up the inside of the car.

Caroline silently disapproved as he reached down and picked it up, swiping at the screen with his thumb.

Fuck, he said, seemingly unconscious of her presence. I gotta go.

Wait, what? You can't just drop me, I'm still thirty minutes away if I have to walk.

I'm really sorry about this, but it's on the other side of town and if I don't make it I'm so fucked.

Caroline stared at him wide-eyed as he pulled over.

I'll make it up to you, he said. She somehow wasn't sure how in the world he was going to make anything up to her, but if he managed it then she was going to be very surprised.

4

Caroline ignored the fact that her feet hurt; it was part of her life, now, and the sooner that she got used to it, the better. Some time in the past century, she'd been left to walk to work, but it was so long ago that it felt like nothing more than another item in the pile of things that needed to be dealt with.

So she did the same thing she did with everything else that was causing trouble: she closed off the memory, planned on an Uber ride home, and a long hot bath to scald away the soreness if she could be bothered to do any of it.

There was, after all, that bottle of wine, still left open. There was always something that she had to lean on to get herself through the day and today, that was what she was going to use, right or wrong.

She let out a long breath and followed behind. Her duties were no different than they had been any of the previous days, and she was finally starting, just a bit, to feel as if she were starting to figure out how she was supposed to go about them.

The phone that buzzed in her pocket was a surprise. She pulled it loose and settled back against a wall. A moment's much-needed rest was all she could ask for, at this point.

Do you need me for anything else? Caroline hoped she didn't sound too hopeful.

Go on, Sarah said. You're free.

The older woman turned back to her papers, making marks with a ballpoint pen, and for a moment Caroline almost felt bad. Then again, she reasoned, it wasn't as if Sarah was 'on' either. Her hair was down, her eyes a little out of focus, and she gave every impression of being minutes from walking out the door herself.

Sarah thumbed across the screen and the message popped up. She still didn't recognize the number, but this time she at least recognized the messenger, no matter how tired she was. 'Work going alright?' Her head started to hurt in frustration.

It was going better than it had when she'd had to deal with him, that was for certain.

'Why, you hoping to drop me in the middle of nowhere again?'

Caroline started working her hair free of the ponytail she'd pulled it into, shaking her scalp to try to get at least a little bit of blood flowing into it again. There were two separate places she could get coffee on the way to the front entrance and she'd need to hit at least one of them.

'I said I'm sorry. What do I have to do to make it up to you? I'll buy dinner.'

She made another face and dropped the phone into her pocket, poured the coffee into a Styrofoam cup, added a liberal amount of sugar, and decided to text back.

'Come get me, then.'

She didn't much expect how quickly he'd text back that he was waiting outside. She hurried her pace and drank deeply from the coffee. It was only barely warm, which did wonders for her ability to drink it quickly. As she tossed the cup into a trash bin, she saw him outside.

Shannen O'Brien stood by his low-slung coupe watching her as she came out with an expression that looked startlingly like interest. He was probably thinking about that room he was hoping for, but she couldn't help wondering what else he planned on getting out of his stay there.

Caroline reminded herself more than she was planning to remind him, that he wasn't going to get anything else out of it. Assuming he didn't piss her off enough again to get herself out of a room altogether.

You have a decent day?

It started a little slow.

He made a pained expression and looked at the ground. Yeah.

That's it?

It's not really worth talking about. You getting in, or what?

She got in, dropping her stuff into the foot well behind her before she pulled the seat belt across her body. He watched her openly, and pins and needles spread across her body decidedly without her permission.

Where are you taking me for dinner, then, boss-man?

What do you like?

I like someone else paying for my dinner.

She left out the part where she would barely be able to pay for her own supper more than once a year on her birthday. It was a treat and a half and as much as she appreciated it, it was also the only thing keeping her from sending him packing.

So how's the hospital?

Why do you care?

I don't. You worked there long?

Only a week now, she answered, truthfully.

And what about, uh... Lara?

Deborah?

Is that her name? I know it ended with an 'a.'

She's probably going to be fine when she finds another place that will hire someone who sleeps with patients.

That's a shame, he answered, but his conversational tone told her that he didn't feel especially bad. It was like someone who's lost a television on an earthquake: a shame, but not something anyone could have helped.

Yeah, I guess. I can't imagine what she was thinking. She couldn't have just not realized.

I might have had something to do with it, he said. There was the bareliest shadow of a smile on his face, like he'd done something to be pleased with himself for.

She soured. I thought you wanted to stay at my place.

I'll be on my best behavior, scout's honor.

She looked over at him as he raised his hands in a three-fingered salute. He didn't look anything like a boy scout, and even now all she could convince herself of was that he was making a perverse mockery of the entire organization.

Just make sure you don't get any ideas about what you think I might be interested in.

Of course, he replied, his voice solemn to the point that she suspected him of bullshitting. I wouldn't dream of it, Miss Boss.

Don't call me Miss Boss. If you're going to call me anything, call me Caroline, and be a little more obedient than you were in the hospital. What happened anyways?

He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. Why does it matter?

Why won't you tell me?

I'll tell you if it matters, but far as I was concerned it wasn't a big deal. Honestly, y'all kept me too long. If you just let me go when I'm feeling better, maybe I don't get bored and start going after your pretty lady-nurses.

I'm sure that somehow, you'll be able to figure out how to keep your hands to yourself, eventually.

Oh, if I'd seen you beforehand, I'd have known to keep my hands to myself, at least a little longer. He winked and laughed, and Caroline couldn't keep her sour attitude up much longer.

He had confidence, she had to give him that. There were plenty of other things that Caroline didn't doubt for a minute that he'd rather that she give him, but she wasn't about to make that mistake.

As long as at least one of them knew where to draw the line, she could afford to enjoy the attention, even if it was just for a little bit.

He set his hands back on the wheel and that was when she noticed them. His knuckles were split wide open, and the thin gauze and athletic tape that covered them wasn't enough to cover up the dark stain of blood on them.

Caroline shivered at the thought of what he'd done with his hands to make them look like that. If he wasn't going to tell her then he wasn't going to tell her. There was no getting around that. But how long would it be before she found out how he got those injuries? And when she did, how bad could it turn out to be?

5

Caroline's jaw set and she sucked in a breath. She'd been in hospitals almost every day for the better part of three weeks now. Before that, it had only been most days, and she'd been studying for longer than that. Years. But somehow, this part of it never got any easier. Everything else was easy, compared to the visits she made on her day off.

No matter what else she did, no matter how hard the work was, she was able to manage it. Sarah was a big help, in that regard. Having a woman around who was as tough as nails and never seemed to let any of it touch her. Well, mostly never did, at least.

She'd let one thing touch her. After a week with Shannen in the spare room, it wasn't hard to imagine what had set her on edge about going to check on him. He was terminally allergic to being agreeable in any way, shape, or form. That was as his roommate; she could only imagine how bad it must have been to have him as a responsibility.

Seeing her father, though, was an entirely different situation, and one that she wasn't happy about in the least bit. There was too much going on in her mind, too much that she didn't want to think about, and it was only with a great cost that she managed to hide her constant worry.

It was one thing to feel okay about everything when she was away, when he was far away from her. When she was just trying to accept her place in the whole situation. It was entirely another to look down at him, at his rapidly-fading body, and remind herself that he'd be as right as rain any day now, as long as she just kept the faith.

She cursed herself for not having gone to church in months. It wasn't so hard to justify to herself that she needed the time, that she was too busy. School, work, and everything all came together to make her far, far too busy. At least, that was what she told herself.

The reality, she feared, was something a little bit different. She couldn't lie to herself forever, even if she wanted to. She could lie to anyone else, to Dad and to Sarah and to Shannen, but deep down, she would always know that she was panicking.

She took her deep breath, held her stomach tight, and forced herself to step into the room.

Dad, hey.

He looked up at her with a smile that was reserved for these visits, and then he looked away as a cough started to rack his chest, harder than she had realized was even possible for a man of his now diminutive size.

Caroline.

You're looking good. It was a lie, but she had to say it. She couldn't pretend halfway. If she was lying then she was lying.

He coughed again. Good, he said. His voice was rough like sandpaper, which was the way it should have been. Everything else about him had changed so much, but that had stayed the same. Because I feel like shit.

She laughed, and for a moment she thought she was going to lose her composure and with it, any hope that she could keep a happy face on for him.

Did I tell you I got a roommate?

Oh yeah?

Yeah, she said. Then, all of a sudden, the entire conversation seemed like it was a very perfectly bad idea. She wasn't exactly going to tell him who she had living at the house, was she? She wasn't going to tell him that some big, muscular guy was sleeping in the bed across the hall.

What about her?

I don't know, Caroline answered, glad that he'd taken the liberty of assuming the gender. Shannen is, well, something else, I guess.

Oh yeah?

I don't know how to put it exactly. Different.

Different good?

I don't really know, Caroline answered, truthfully. It was the first honest thing that she'd said to her father the entire time, and as much as it embarrassed her to have to admit that, she didn't exactly have any other way to do it, either. Different.

Nice? Something in Caroline's expression must have answered the question for him, because a moment later he decided to rephrase the question. I mean, she's not a horrid bitch or anything, right?

No, I don't think that's right. Caroline made an effort to choose her words carefully. She's just, I don't know. Complicated. Tough, hard to read. 'Taciturn.'

He raised an eyebrow. And how do you spell that?

Why, Caroline teased. Going to write it down in your diary?

Maybe; you don't know. He turned to the TV. You know, they let me change the channel to whatever I want. Somehow, now matter how badly I want to change it, I keep watching this damn soap opera that's been running since before you were born. Why's that, I wonder?

Good taste?

He barked a laugh, dry and rasping and full of vinegar. Hardly. Your mother used to watch it. I always told her it would rot her brain.

That's exactly what it'll do. You should watch something else.

Dad's head laid back on the pillow. I'm sorry, sweety; I'm a little tired. You mind if I just turn over and sleep a little bit?

He looked tired, she thought, as she looked at him. Too tired. She tried to ignore that fact as she kissed him goodbye, tried to ignore it as she went home.

Taciturn was one word for Shannen. He was a thousand things, all at once, and none of them fit right together. He was quiet and distant, and at the same time he was exuberant and friendly. He was energetic and he was lethargic at the same time.

In spite of herself, she wanted to talk to him. Wanted to tell him about her trip to Dad's room. Maybe, if she talked about it, she wouldn't have to worry. He could reassure her, maybe, she hoped. There was work to be done in the morning, but she couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, even for a moment, all she could see was the positively skeletal figure of her father, his eyes drifting shut even as he tried to hold them open for her.

He was going to be alright, she reminded herself. He didn't have much else choice, no matter what he thought. He was going to be alright because she wasn't going to let him die. She still hadn't even gotten married yet, and she wasn't going to have a child never meet her grandparents.

She'd never had any herself, and that was enough to tell Caroline that every child should probably have some. From both sides of the family, preferably.

Her shoulders slumped as she looked over at the clock. It read 12:32, and her body hurt from tiredness. Her eyes hurt. She had to be gone in the morning, and no doubt, so did Shannen. He was gone as often as not before she had even woken, the sound of his car door slamming shut waking her from her sleep a minute or two before her alarm did.

Today, though, he wasn't home, and he certainly wasn't beating her to bed. She frowned and looked at the clock again. 12:33, and she was up far too late. Her eyes stung with lack of sleep but she forced them to stay open as long as she could.

Which, as it turned out, was not much longer. She couldn't have said when she fell asleep, but she could say when she woke up, which was exactly when the alarm started blaring in her jeans' pocket, beeping simultaneously with low battery.

She cursed herself, plugged the phone in, and hoped that thirty minutes' charge would get her through the day somehow. She had things to worry about, but Shannen, home or not, wasn't on the menu. She couldn't afford to worry about him when she had work to get ready for, and things that needed forgetting.

His cock, of course, did make that list.

6

Caroline's eyes drifted shut as she sat in the passenger seat of the little coupe. She ought to have insisted on dinner. He would have given it to her, and she was hungry. The feeling was gnawing at her stomach, but her eyes just refused to stay open a moment longer than necessary without coffee, and she'd tried valiantly to convince herself that it was too late to drink any.

You know what? I changed my mind, she said, her voice loose and uncontrolled. He pulled over without a word, stepped out and when the door opened and closed again, he pressed something cold and glass into her hands.

Caroline twisted the cap off and drank deeply from the sweet, cold drink. The energy didn't hit her right away, but the knowledge that it wasn't going to be long until it did finally helped her find the motivation to open her eyes the rest of the way.

God, thank you. What do I owe you? He made a noncommittal noise and kept his eyes on the road. Okay, fine, then.

They drove a little ways in silence. She was the one to break it, for a second time.

You know what, if you don't talk to me I think I'm going to go insane. That, or I'm going to fall asleep right here, and you're going to have to carry me inside.

I'm not going to carry you inside, so you'd better get ready for the fancy coat and the padded walls.

See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

What do you even want me to talk about? I've got nothing to say to you. Nothing of any interest to you at all, really.

Anything. What is it that you, like, do exactly?

She braced herself for an answer she wasn't going to like. The first day she'd seen those knuckles, and the blood on them. Blood was a pretty specific indicator of a job that she wasn't going to like, no matter what it was that he did specifically.

She didn't want to let him know how she felt about violence in general because she wasn't about to kick someone out for what they did to earn the money that he paid to her. If she wasn't going to kick him out, then she wasn't going to cause tension if it wasn't necessary.

The only thing that made her even ask was that she had hopes, somewhere deep down in her gut, that she had interpreted the whole situation wrong from top to bottom in the first place. Maybe he wasn't any kind of rough and tumble knee-breaker for the mob.

Maybe he had gotten it scraping his hand at a construction site, and they'd, she thought, needed him on a job site.

That didn't really seem to fit him, though it was certainly masculine enough. She sighed as he drove on in silence. She forgot about the question entirely and watched the lights passing the car by, trying to pretend that she didn't feel the least bit offended that he wouldn't tell her anything. That he wouldn't even talk to her the least bit.

He had a bad habit of being quiet when he should talk, and talking when he should know to be quiet. She wanted to just slap him in his stupid face, but that wasn't exactly an option. She needed the money, after all. But all the money in the world didn't make it alright that he was a rude son of a gun. There was basic human decency to be considered, damn it.

I'm a fighter, he said. She'd asked so long ago that she wasn't even sure he was speaking to her when he said it, and when she decided he couldn't have been talking to anyone else, it still took her a minute to remember precisely what it was that he was supposed to be answering.

What, like...

A professional fighter. I'm in town for training, and I didn't exactly have a hotel room lined up.

Like, on television?

Not your television, he said, his voice darkly sarcastic. But yeah, like on television.

Is that good money?

He let out a breath and pulled off the freeway. You sure you don't want something to eat? I'm starved.

If you're hungry, I guess I could eat. It wasn't totally honest; after all, she was so hungry that she could eat a live cat. The only thing that had stopped her feeling it so far was the tiredness, and as that faded she found herself wanting food more and more. But she also knew that there were two chicken drumsticks in the freezer with her name on them, if he decided he wasn't interested in paying for two.

Well enough, I guess, he answered.

What?

The pay.

Oh, she said. She'd been perfectly ready to accept him changing the subject, and it was a surprise when he answered her, even if it