Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) by Sarah O'Rourke Page A

Crucial in a way that might just cripple me if you try and leave
me again.”
    Honor looked away
from him.  “I don’t have the energy to fight with you over this right now,” she
muttered.  “But for the record, I wasn’t leavin’ anybody.  I was run off the
blasted road.”
    Zeke laughed. 
“Yeah, we’re gonna talk about that later.  For now, how about you stop fighting
the idea of there being an ‘us’ and just accept the way things are?  That
being, I need you as much as I need food, water, and air,” Zeke explained as he
saw Honor’s face tighten in agony again, the pain beginning to overwhelm her. 
“Just hang on for me, Kitten,” he urged, lifting her hand and holding it
between both of hers as he watched her try to take a few deep breaths.  “Your
body has been through it today.  You were in surgery for hours.”
    “Surgery?  That
would explain why it feels like my insides have been rent in two,” Honor
surmised faintly.  Slowly rolling her head toward him, she whispered, “How bad
this time?”
    He hated that
she’d tacked on the words ‘this time’, but he couldn’t blame her.  It wasn’t
the first time she’d woken up in a hospital both in pain and disoriented with
him by her bedside.  “Kitten, you’re going to be okay,” he felt the need to
reiterate.
    She merely stared
back at him, waiting.
    Fuck, he knew that
look.  She’d stare at him all night until he gave her the answer to her
question.  “It wasn’t good, Honor,” he affirmed quietly.  “But it could have
been so much fuckin’ worse, baby.”
    “Details,
Ezekiel.  I want details,” she prodded.  “It is my body after all.  I deserve
to know what’s wrong with it.”
    “You remember the
wreck, yeah?” he asked gently.
    Breathing slowly,
Honor inclined her head slightly.  “We went off the road into the creek.  Abel
got Patience out, but I was…Oh, god,” she said, gasping as she shuddered.  “I
was pinned to the seat by that tree branch.  It was stabbing me,” she said
between barely-moving lips.  Suddenly jerking her gaze to Zeke, she narrowed
her eyes.  “The engine was on fire and you wouldn’t leave me, you stubborn
fool.”
    “Leaving you never
has been and never will be an option I’m willing to consider, Kitten,” Zeke
reminded her with a gentle tolerance he’d built over time.  “You know that,
baby.”
    “Idiot.  You could
have been killed,” she railed at him despite the pain running through her small
body.  “What kind of moron takes that kind of risk?”
    “One that loves
you.  Sooner or later, you’ll understand that,” Zeke replied with a careless
shrug.
    “I don’t want
that!” Honor yelled, her voice frail.
    “There won’t be
many times in life that I’ll say this to you, Kitten, but right now, I could
care less what you want.  I wasn’t going to leave you there.  I’d rather have
died with you than lived without you.”
    Sinking her top
teeth into her lower lip, Honor squeezed her eyes shut.  “You can’t make those
kind of irrational decisions, Ezekiel.  People depend on you to be the smart
one.”
    Zeke laughed
softly.  “I am smart.  Smart enough to know that a life without you isn’t
something I want to contemplate.”
    “God!  You’ve got
to stop doing that,” she insisted furiously, thumping a closed fist against the
bed even though it made her wince in pain.
    “What?” Zeke asked
calmly.
    “Stop being so…
so… sweet! I can’t handle it.”
    Huffing out an
irritable breath, Zeke rolled his eyes.  “You’ll learn,” he said simply before
leveling the woman in the bed with an intense look.  “I’m done waitin’ for you
to be ready for me, Kitten.  Done wastin’ time tiptoeing around what I feel for
you because I’m afraid it’ll scare you.  You’re gonna be scared, regardless.  I
might as well be blunt about things.  I want you.  I need you.  I love you. 
Three simple truths that you’re just gonna have