All Chapters of He had always been mine : Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

BRANDON POV I heard the elevator before I saw him.Remington’s confirmation had already come through—en route, ten minutes—so I did not bother with a shirt that required a tie or a face that required the office. I was in black joggers and an old soft crewneck, sleeves pushed to my forearms, barefoot on the warm floor of the penthouse. A cigarette burned between my fingers. Smoke drifted toward the open terrace door and thinned in the high air. The city glittered beyond the glass like something I could buy in pieces.The foyer light changed. Footsteps. Then Killian was there.Hospital still clung to him even a week out from the worst of it—the posture of a man who had been living in chairs that did not recline, the shadows under his eyes, the way he scanned a room for exits before he fully entered it. Jacket. Jeans. The same stubborn mouth. He stopped just inside the living space and did not come closer.I looked at him.I looked at him for a long time and did not speak, because speech

BRANDON POV I stepped back before I finished myself in my own hand.Killian was still standing in the black, nipples tight and abused from his own fingers, eyes locked on mine because I had not given him permission to look away. His chest rose and fell too fast. Hate sat clean and bright in his face. Under it, something shakier lived—humiliation, debt, the knowledge that the hospital lights were still on across the city because of the man in front of him.I crossed to the couch and sat. Spread my knees. My cock stood hard and wet against my stomach where I had left it, the joggers shoved down, no pretense left of patience.“Crawl.”The word hit the quiet like a slap.Killian’s whole body went rigid. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”“Crawl to me.” I rested one arm along the back of the couch, the other loose on my thigh, and watched him. “On your hands and knees. Across my floor. Or I decide the after costs more than lingerie and a show.”For a long second I thought he would refuse

KILLIAN POV The water kept falling after I had nothing left to give it.I stayed on the shower floor with my palm flat against the stone and my other hand useless in my lap, the black lingerie a soaked ruin, my breathing stuck somewhere between a sob and a silence I refused to break. Brandon’s shadow blocked part of the spray. Then the water shut off. The sudden quiet was almost worse.He stepped out, came back with towels, and crouched in front of me.I expected another order. Another claim spoken like law.Instead he draped the first towel over my shoulders and started drying my hair with a care that did not match the last hour of my life. His hands were firm. Unhurried. He wiped water from my face like I might break if he pressed too hard, and the gentleness of it sat on top of the violence like a second humiliation I did not know how to carry.“Easy,” he said quietly. “I’ve got you.”I did not answer.He peeled the soaked fabric off me with the same steady attention—no performanc

KILLIAN POV The cardiologist came in after lunch with a tablet and a look that was almost a smile.Almost, in a hospital, was enough to change the air.“She’s tracking the way we want,” he said, standing at the foot of Leigh’s bed while Maya and I hovered on either side like people who had forgotten how to stand normally. “Wound looks clean. Rhythm is steady. She’s tolerating the meds. If the next two days stay quiet, we start talking seriously about discharge—not tomorrow, not a surprise, but soon. Home with close follow-up. You’ll have a list longer than your arm and a number to call for anything that feels wrong.”Leigh, who had been pretending not to listen while she colored a paper tiger, lifted her head. “Home?”“Soon,” Maya said before hope could turn into a promise the doctor had not made. She smoothed Leigh’s hair. “If you keep being this tough.”Leigh considered that, then nodded as if toughness were a job she had already accepted. “Can I bring the hospital pudding home.”“

KILLIAN POVThey discharged us just after lunch.No big speech. No balloons. No one standing in the doorway to say we had earned this. Just a nurse with a thick folder, a paper bag of meds that rattled when she set it down, and a yellow sheet of follow-up numbers taped to the top like a warning. Leigh sat in the required wheelchair until the elevator doors, tiger clamped under one arm, already arguing that she could walk fine and that the chair was for babies. Maya walked on one side with the bag and the discharge papers. I pushed the chair and tried to look like a man who had only been tired for too many days—not a man carrying something heavier under his clothes, something that did not belong to the hospital and would not stay behind when we left.Outside, the air smelled like the city again. Exhaust. Fried food from a cart on the corner. Someone cutting fruit, the sweet sharp scent of mango cutting through the rest. Leigh tipped her face up and squinted like she had forgotten what