I didn’t know what time it was when I finally woke up, But I was tucked against Lev’s entire side, and he was warm. Not too warm, just warm enough to make me want to get away from him, and his heat. His threat was still in my head, and I moved over towards the colder sheets. If I was going to have to share a bed with this man again, the temperature of the room was going to drop. It was too hot to be under the blankets with this man. 

Sleeping beside him was weird, but I also understood that there was nowhere else for him to sleep right now, where I wasn’t worried he would take off again. Not to mention, for whatever reason, he was concerned about my lack of sleep. 

“Where are you going?” He groaned. The pain in his voice was enough to wake me up completely. He had his eyebrows furrowed and looked so uncomfortable. 

“I’m going to get you some pain medication. You’re clearly in pain.”

“I’m fine. Go back to sleep. You need it.”

“God damn it Lev, you’re in pain. Fuck my sleep. I’m going to get pain medication.”

Getting out of bed, I didn’t miss Lev’s annoyed sigh. I didn’t get why he was concerned about me, but I didn’t like that he was ignoring his own wellbeing. I darted down the hall, out of the door, down towards the stairs to the first basement. Rounding the corner, I slammed into someone. Whoever it was reached out and grabbed me, holding me up. 

Looking finally to see who it was, Alexi, Creed and my dad stood there.

“Where the hell are you going at that speed?” Alexi asked, clearly the one I smacked into. 

“Lev needs pain medication. When we woke up, he was in pain, but he was more worried about me and my sleep.”

“We?”

“We shared the bed last night. I couldn’t sleep on the couch and I would not let him sleep there.”

I couldn’t ignore the look on my dad’s face at hearing he had slept beside me in the bed. I was wasting time, though. 

“I can talk about this later. He needs pain medication.”

My dad grabbed me before I could dart away again. 

“When you’re done, come see me. I have the day off. You two are going to need food.”

“Alexi and I can make you a couple of things too. That way, you won’t have to worry about food for Lev and you.”

“I appreciate that, But I really have to go.”

I shook off Dad’s hand and bolted down the hall and down the stairs. In my panic, I forgot my phone and had to use the keypad on the door. Opening the door when the lock flipped, I walked right into the office and found the keys for the medicine cabinet where the good painkillers and other things were. I wasn’t sure the level of pain Lev was in, but I grabbed the same pills that I gave Sasha for his spine. I wasn’t worried about overdosing Lev with two pills like Ryer had done to Sasha. Lev was larger than Sasha. 

With pills in hand and everything back where it was supposed to be, I bolted back up to Caleb’s wing. Creed was just heading in the door when I came down the hall. He held the door open for me, and I ducked under his arm. He had a change of clothing in his hand for Lev. 

“Thanks Creed. I forgot my phone.”

“I figured so.”

“Where’s Alexi? Didn’t feel like coming too?”

“He has a meeting with Maddox. They are discussing putting new houses on the property. A couple of smaller single-family homes, like the ones they used to have but a little different, It would free up a bit more space in the complex. Maddox is also looking at purchasing an apartment building on the edge of town for more of the guys working for us.”

“Ah. I did not know that.”

“Yeah, So Alexi is moving around money.”

“Ah, so he is good and stressed out.”

“Yes, that’s why he has been pretty dead to the world.”

“Makes sense.”

“When are you returning full time to work? I know Maddox alerted us that all major injuries that can be looked after in the regular hospital with little to no questions should go there.”

“As soon as possible, I told Maddox when Lev came in that I was good with working full time again, but he won’t let me. He is only allowing me to do follow-up appointments and stitches, though he knows I can handle more.”

“He is probably worried about overwhelming you while you’re dealing with your loss.”

“It’s hard to throw myself into work to forget about Caleb when I’m not allowed to throw myself into work.”

I grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge and walked to the bedroom. Lev was crunched up, his hand on his side. He was clearly in distress. 

“Creed in the office, grab the medical bag!”

I heard him running past the bedroom door. 

“Lev. I have the medication. You need to sit up so you can take two pills. Please.”

“Hurts. Fucking hurts.”

“It will. Fuck. I should have never let you leave the medical room. This is my fault for not using my brain.”

“Shut up.”

He slowly moved and sat up. He was clearly in a lot of pain. I handed him the bottle and two pills as Creed walked in with the medical bag. He set it on the bed beside me. 

“Lev man, you look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“You were stabbed. It will not feel like a walk in the park.” I muttered. 

“Alessio’s right man, someone tried to mix your insides.”

He said nothing. He just shot Creed his middle finger. I peeled the dressing back on his wound and he hissed. The wound looked fine; it looked great actually; it was probably just tender because he was moving and didn’t have pain pills for when the other ones wore off. 

I found another great waterproof bandage inside the medical bag, along with clean gloves. After putting them on, and after peeling the old bandage off and cleaning the area; I applied the new one. 

Creed brought the change of clothing in and set it on the dresser. 

“Brought you some clothing to change into. I would stay longer, but my angry lover texted me, so I have to go.”

“Thank you Creed. I appreciate you getting me the medical bag and the clothing for Lev.”

“No problem, anytime.”

Lev didn’t look happy with my choice to touch his wound and change the bandage while he was already in pain. 

“I’m convinced you’re evil.”

“I needed to look and make sure you weren’t in pain over things hidden under the bandage.”

“Fuck, this hurts.”

“The pain medication should kick in shortly.”

“Speaking of pain. What the fuck happened a last night? Why the fuck weren’t you sleeping like you were supposed to be?”

“I couldn’t sleep and I thought it would be the good time to get rid of some of Caleb’s things without losing my emotions and then I smacked my head off the bottom of the shelf and that bottle rolled off because of when i hit my head and it rolled and hit all my mother fucking toes.” I spat angrily, remembering the pain like it had just happened. 

“Well, that will teach you, won’t it?”

“Exactly. What will it teach me?” I narrowed my eyes at him. 

“You should sleep when you’re supposed to.”

“Oh my god, it’s just a little sleep, I’ll be fine.”

“Your dark circles say otherwise, taking lessons from Alexi?”

I sighed, ignoring his comment. Moving the bag off the bed, I laid back. The top of the blankets were cold, but I knew it was a lie. Under those blankets, it would be so fucking warm. Inching up the bed, I stretched to reach my phone off the nightstand. I felt Lev’s fingers trail down my hip and I dropped my phone on the floor. 

“Sorry. I wanted to see this tattoo too.”

“What?”

“The tattoo on your hip.”

“Oh!”

I was so used to it being completely covered that he caught me off guard about it. And when I stretched, it exposed my skin, making the tattoo visible. 

“Give me your damn phone. You made me drop mine and I’m too lazy to get it.”

He dropped the cold phone on the top of my stomach where the skin was exposed. I hissed at the icy feeling, snatching his phone off my skin. I used his phone to change the temperature in the room, dropping it ten degrees lower. Now I wouldn’t freeze or overheat while he was sharing a bed with me. 

I was used to sharing a bed with Caleb, so sharing with Lev wasn’t all that hard physically. Emotionally, it was a little harder. I knew eventually the scent of Caleb would fade away, even if I didn’t want to part with it.

“Alessio, my wallet? Where is it?”

“In the pocket of your stuff you came with. I brought it here.”

“Could you do me a favor? I have a hotel room in town. I need my things from the room. Could you see if someone could go get that stuff?”

“I’ll see if Creed or Sasha are free to do that for you.”

“Thank you. I have spare clothing, shower stuff, and some other things I don’t need to lose.”

Moving off the bed, I finally noticed Lev had been touching my hip the whole time, and I hadn’t really felt it at all. Grabbing my phone, I opened it and dialed Sasha and then Creed, asking them both if they could do that for Lev. Both of them agreed and came to get the hotel key card from me. 

I relaxed back into the bed. Lev was fading in and out of sleep. Thanks to the pain medication, he should have eaten with it, and I was worried about that. Even a couple of crackers would help keep the medication from hurting his stomach. 

I went and got him a couple of plain crackers from the kitchen, forced him to wake up and watched him eat them before he passed out again. I took this chance to fully have an in-depth look at him.