Honor

“She said he ruined her life, that her husband left her because of him. She’s a little wacky and not making much sense. She banged her head pretty good when she rammed into the Bentley, so she might not be operating on all cylinders.”

I couldn’t care less about how she was or if she was right in the head. I wanted to punch her in the face, and if Nassir was fatally injured no amount of police presence was going to keep me from ripping her apart. I was going to tell this to the cop, but voices started moving closer to the top of the hill, so I shook him off and rushed to the point where the road turned into grass. I almost collapsed back onto my already dirty knees. Not only was Nassir breathing and in one piece, he was standing wobbly on his feet and arguing with a paramedic that was trying to tell him that he needed to wait for the stretcher and backboard to be rolled down the hill.

I dashed back down the hill before the cop could snatch my arm again. I’d ditched my heels the first time I rushed down the embankment to see if he was okay, so the ground was cold under my bare feet, but all I felt was heat when Nassir’s bronze gaze hit me. It wasn’t as shiny and as lit up as it normally was, but I could see him in there, foggy with pain and dulled with confusion, but he was still my unbreakable, resilient devil.

I pushed a paramedic out of the way so that I could get to him, hearing myself sworn at and seeing myself glared at in the process. I put my hands on each of his cheeks and my fingers immediately got slick and red with the blood that was coating his face and running from the top of his head. He had multiple cuts on his face from the broken glass and a particularly nasty-looking slice right above the collar of his shirt that was leaking a steady trickle of crimson down the curve of his neck. But his chest was rising and falling with strong and steady breaths, and even though his skin was cold where I touched him, he was still vital and very much alive.

“You passed out and wouldn’t wake up. You suck.”

He lifted his hands and I could see them shaking. He was going to pull me to him, but at the last second he stopped himself and let them drop to his sides limply. Even as battered and barely holding himself upright as he was, his will to keep me, to challenge me, was stronger than the pain clearly stamped across his face.

“I was stuck upside down. All the blood rushed to my head. Let’s get out of here.” He grunted and lurched a few steps forward on wobbly legs.

“Hey, man, you need to head to the hospital. You’re all kinds of messed up,” one of the young paramedics called out to Nassir as he determinedly put one foot in front of the other. I slipped an arm around his waist and tugged on his arm until he wrapped it around my shoulder.

“I’m not going to the hospital.” Nassir stumbled a little and almost pulled both of us to the ground. I squeezed him tighter as we took one slow step at a time.

“You need to get your head checked out, man. The roof of that car came right down on your head when you landed. You probably have a concussion, and you need stitches for sure.” The paramedic sounded nervous as he followed behind our slow progress.

Nassir’s muscles started to twitch as we hit the incline that led back up the road, but he didn’t stop moving forward. He turned his head to look at the worried EMT and told him, “I’ll be fine. I’m not going with you.”

The guy obviously thought that was a bad idea, but as we finally crested the hill he just shook his head in defeat. “Okay, you can refuse further medical care, but you have to understand it isn’t advisable. You need to see a doctor. You’re going to have to sign a Refusal of Medical Assistance form before we can let you leave the scene.”

Nassir listed really hard to the side and it took all my strength to keep him upright. I thought maybe I should just shove him in the back of the ambulance for his own good. His fingers curled around my own where I was clutching his hand and I abandoned that idea. I knew there was no forcing Nassir to do anything he didn’t want to do.

“I’ll sign whatever. I just want to go home.”

“Okay, I’ll get one, and we need one of the cops on the scene to witness it.”

Nassir grunted and the EMT hurried off. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes and let him go as we reached the Honda so he could rest against the side of the car.

“You really are a mess, Nassir.”

“Just banged up. This is nothing.” He lifted an arm and rubbed the edge of his sleeve across his bloody face. I saw him wince when it came away redder than my hair. “They have any idea who ran me off the road?”

From anyone else, it would come across as simple curiosity, but I knew that coming from him, it was the beginning of his mind working toward payback and revenge.

“Some lady. She looked like a kindergarten teacher. She told the cops you ruined her life and that her husband left her because of you. You have any idea who that is?”

He bit out a word in a language I didn’t understand and then let his head fall forward on his neck. I thought maybe he was going to pass out again, so I pressed myself up against the front of him and put my hands on the roof of the car behind him, making a cage out of my body. He looked down at me and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“She’s the wife that went after her husband with the beer bottle. She’s a piece of work, but I didn’t think she’d be stupid enough to come after me.”

“You do tend to bring out the worst in people.” His chest rattled with something that was a rough and broken version of a laugh. Slowly his head fell forward until our foreheads were touching. I couldn’t stop the sigh that fluttered out of me. For some reason, this moment felt more intimate than when I kissed him or when I had my hand around his dick.