Meet Cute, Elise Faber [audio ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“You could have been killed.”

“So could you.”

Talbot stopped, considered that, then abruptly shook his head, nudging me to lie back on the mattress again. Normally, I would have never allowed it, but my head was still a bit fuzzy and my arm was starting to hurt in earnest.

“I’m going to grab you pain medicine and some food to put in your stomach. You’re going to keep that adorable, sexy, competent ass in my bed. Otherwise, I’ll rustle up some handcuffs and see how you like being on the receiving end of them.”

Then he was gone, sweeping from the room in a flurry of male fury.

“My bed?” I mouthed, my eyes taking in the space under a whole new lens. His bed. Talbot’s bed.

Talbot’s. Bed.

Sweet Christ.

In fact, that detail took me so long to process—I was blaming the aching arm and swirling head and not that curl of heat in my stomach, between my thighs—that I hardly processed the order, the threat of handcuffs.

Until I did.

“Motherfucker,” I hissed, shoving myself up again and seeing that my feet were bare, taking a moment to let my brain settle before I searched the room for my shoes.

There.

Lined up neatly by the door.

Squinting against my eddying vision, I took a few deep breaths. “Thinks he can give me orders,” I muttered. “As fucking if.”

But my eyes didn’t clear, and my arm was hurting more by the minute.

Clearly, even if my car wasn’t part of a crime scene, I couldn’t safely drive.

“What did I say?”

It was a snapped-out question, one that was paired with Talbot stalking across the room, setting a mug of what smelled like tea on the nightstand, along with toast covered in cinnamon and sugar.

Both of which smelled delicious.

Not that it mattered.

I needed to get out of here. Because the longer I spent in this man’s presence, the more I was at risk of remembering who he was . . . and who I was. I needed to call a Lyft. STAT.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, doing some snapping of my own when he went to no doubt nudge me back onto the mattress again.

He lifted his hands, though those golden eyes were heated to molten metal. “You look like you’re going to pass out,” he growled. Yes. Growled, and I was momentarily stunned by how lovely that rasping sound felt as it flitted through the airwaves, brushed lightly over my skin.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need to get back to my hotel and sleep it off.”

He laughed, loud and long, and it was a fucking beautiful sound.

“What?” I asked when he’d quieted.

“You are absolutely fucking insane if you think that I’m letting you leave when you’re like this. You can’t drive—”

“I didn’t say I was going to,” I muttered.

“Hell, if I called a car for you, you’d pass out in the back seat before you even had the chance to make it to your hotel.” His voice gentled, those eyes turning more into sunshine than metal. “You need to eat a little something so you can take the pain meds, and then you need to rest.”

“I’m not taking drugs from a stranger.”

A brow lifting, a perfect arched rainbow above the shining sun of his eyes. “I could hardly be considered a stranger,” he muttered. “I’ve known Maggie for years.”

That was true.

But I didn’t know this man.

“Should I call Dr. Stevens back? Will you trust the medication if it’s from a doctor?” He pulled out his cell. “Or Maggie?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Don’t ruin Maggie’s night. She was having such a good time, and I don’t want her to worry or to leave. She deserves this.” And I didn’t want to ruin it, especially when she and Aaron’s road to their happy ending had been so long and arduous.

“Okay,” he said. “So, I’ll get Dr. Stevens to come back.”

Shit.

And make the poor woman turn around this late at night?

“No,” I said. “Don’t do that, either.”

He knelt by the bed. “Then what do you want to do?”

My heart prickled. My eyes narrowed.

“Because obviously,” he pointed out, “if you won’t let me call Mags or Dr. Stevens, we’re at a stalemate.”

I resisted the urge to cross my arms.

“I’m not going to force the pain pills down your throat.”

As if he even could.

And yes, that was delusion talking, considering this man could easily overpower me in my current state.

“I can FaceTime Dr. Stevens to confirm the pills are from her.”

I wrinkled my nose.

“I can promise they are, in fact, just pain pills and not some sort of illicit drug.”

“And that is exactly what an illicit drug dealer would say,” I muttered.

“So, FaceTime with the good doctor then?”

“No,” I muttered, grabbing the pill bottle from the nightstand and squinting to read the label with my still-hazy vision. Oxycontin, ten milligrams every four hours, and the issuer was Dr. Stevens. “What?” I asked, still muttering. “Does she give this stuff out like candy?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “This was the first time I’ve used her, but considering that there are only enough pills in there for three days, I doubt it.”

I kept squinting, saw that indeed the number eighteen was written under quantity. Then sighed and knew I’d lost this battle. My arm felt like it had gone six rounds with a flamethrower, and fatigue was creeping in to join my stuffing-filled head. I needed food, pills, and sleep.

In that order, even if my body was telling me that I needed it in the opposite.

“What’d you poison the toast with?” I grumbled, setting the pill bottle down and picking up one of the pieces.

“Only a little arsenic,” he said, playing along.

I chuckled, even though I didn’t want to. “Tasty,” I said dryly.

“I did my best. My personal chef has the night off.”

The toast stopped two inches from my mouth, my eyebrow went up.

“I’m kidding,” he said. “I like to cook.” A shrug. “I do have someone stock my fridge for me so it’s full when I’m home. But no chef.”

Hmm.

His fingers circled my wrist, pushed