Love, Guns, or Knives? Ch. 01

"Five more minutes, and then I'll finally be home!"

It had been a tough day for Arinn. Endless meetings all day at the office meant that she hadn't gotten any one moment to be by herself, or to eat. "I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get home, too." Arinn sighed to herself. "I'm going to light a few candles, relax in the tub, and then watch a few romantic movies in the dark. Now all that's missing is a handsome man to watch the movies with...and to hold me..."

Arinn Trinner was only 27, but she was already the CEO of her company, 'Unknown Nonsense inc.' They specialized in selling random artists and writers works. The company had 35 stores already over the country, and were in the process of expanding even more. Arinn was happy that she had the job that she did, and that it paid well, but when it came to all the meetings, that's where the fun ended.

Arinn was almost shocked to death when she made out the shape of a man lying on the road, unmoving. Slamming on the tire, she honked her horn, hoping that she could wake up whoever it was. Still, the person didn't move. Eventually she gave up and got out of her car to help the person. "Hello?" she called to the body. All she got in answer was a long, low moan, that made her shiver down to her soles in terror. She tried patting the person on their back to get their attention, but that only made it worse as she pulled her blood covered hand away.

Arinn was about to scream bloody murder any minute, literally. "Oh my god!" she started mumbling to herself; It was the only way that she knew to stop herself from screaming, and to make sense of things. "The man isn't dead, but he will be soon if he's loosing all that blood! Oh, god! My hand is covered in the stuff! Get a grip Arinn, this man needs your help!" Arinn reached down and picked the bloody person up. He was gurgling a little in the back of his throat, sounding like he was going to drown on his own spit.

It took 10 minutes to get to the hospital, and she had called on the way, so people came out with a gurney to retreive him. They picked the still bleeding man up, putting him on the gurney and pushing it into the emergency room. She followed them until she was held back by nurses, and then followed them, sobbing, into the waiting rooms.

After Arinn had been crying for a while, a nurse came over, asking her questions that she wouldn't know about. Once the nurse finally accepted that Arinn seriously didn't know the man, she was left alone again, until the cops showed up. For Arinn the night was full of unanswerable questions.

~~~*~~~

Arinn awoke early the next morning on her couch, wondering what had happened last night. When she looked down and saw that she was still in her work clothes, she headed to her room to change. Making her way to the bathroom to wash up first, she started to remember. There was a heavily bleeding man in the road that she had taken to the hospital. She had cried for most of the night, and eventually left, deciding that she desperately needed a drink. Her next hour was spent drinking her tears away. She'd been a little tipsy when she left, but she made it home safely, and fell on the sofa as soon as she got close to it.

When she finally got the tub filled, Arinn relaxed and tried to take her mind off of what had happened last night. The water slipped against her skin nicely, and she leaned back in the bath a little more. Suddenly she opened her eyes to see she was in the hospital, naked, running to the room that they had placed him in, pushing past people as she went. When she got into the room, she hugged the man tightly, as a voice behind her whispered that he had just died.

Arinn sat up so quickly that some of the bath water splashed onto the floor. It had just been a dream, but Arinn knew she wouldn't sleep well until she saw him again and made sure he was okay. As she dried herself off and walked to her room to get some clothes, she mumbled to herself. "This is crazy. Why do I care so much about that random bloody guy I helped? I guess I'm just curious how he is..." but even as she said that, her mind reminded her that if that was true, then she wouldn't have cried so much yesterday.

Arinns car smelled of blood as she crawled inside it, and she knew there would be dried blood on the passenger seat. She looked it over to see how much had gotten on it, and found a brown wallet in the seat. "It must be his." she mumbled as she picked it up and pocketed it. She turned up the music on her radio, trying to drown out her thoughts of what she might find when she got to the hospital. She knew that this wouldn't stop until she knew whether or not the man was okay.

Arinn had to wait a few minutes before a nurse came to lead her to the mans room. She wondered how he had been so badly hurt, and began to ask the nurse, but all she got out of the woman was "It would be best if you asked the doctor. He would know more than I do on the situation."

Arinn opened the door to find a tall man standing near the bed, checking up on his patient. When he noticed Arinn, he shook hands with her, and said "Nice to meet you, I'm Dr. Madison. I presume that you're the young lady who found this man?"

Nodding, Arinn glanced over at the sleeping form, and walked over to get a better look at him. When she saw his face she had to stifle a gasp. She hadn't really looked at him before when she had saved him. He had short, curly chestnut brown hair framing his face, and long eyelashes that rested beautifully on the tops of his cheek bones. 'Oh, my god!' Arinn squealed in her head. 'He's gorgeous!'

Arinns mystery man still had bruises on his body, and was heavily bandaged on his right arm and chest, probably other places too, but at least he wasn't bloody anymore, and it seemed that he would heal. "Doctor, how serious are his injuries?" Arinn asked, almost not realizing that she had. The doctor, still standing next to her, listed his injuries.

"Let's see, he had been shot twice, once in the back, and once in the right arm. He had a concussion, seems like he had the back of his head hit pretty hard. His left leg had some stab marks on the back of it, but none that were too deep, and his wrists are broken. Seems like he must have been in a fight with some pretty nasty thugs."

"Yeah, sounds like he was pretty messed up. Must have been terrible trying to fix him up yesterday." Arinn said, shocking herself with how concerned she sounded.

The doctor shook his head and sighed. "Yes, the surgery seemed like it would never end. I lost a lot of sleep last night working on him, but I am glad that he pulled through. He may take about a week or two come around."

'I'll stay here as long as I have to until he's well again.' she thought. 'Wait a minute...Why did I just think that? I don't even know this man, and yet I'm already pledging to stay here until he's better? Why does he mean that much to me? Maybe I'm in need of someone in my life more than I know...'

The doctor said his goodbyes and left to see his other patients. Arinn sat down in the chair next to the bed and stared at the man in it. "I wonder what your name is mystery man." she said to herself. Suddenly she remembered the wallet she had found and pulled it out. 'Should I really look in his wallet?' Arinn wondered. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she opened it, revealing a number of cards. Credit cards, library cards, phone cards, and after carefully looking through them all, she found his drivers license.

The license had a very handsome picture of him, flashing a content and also a tiny bit cocky smirk at the camera. Somehow the picture made her blush as if his smile were meant for her. After staring at the picture and swooning for a few minutes she looked for his name. "Chase Grande." Arinn mumbled to herself. "Chase...His name is Chase..." She put his drivers license back and closed his wallet, placing it on the table next to the bed.

Arinn moved the chair she was sitting in closer to Chase's bed, and leaned over him. She lightly ran her hand over his cheek, feeling and caressing his soft skin. She jumped when his head turned towards her. Slumping backwards, Arinn stared at his face, and then put her hands over her eyes. "Chase...What happened to you? I hope you wake up soon..."

~~~*~~~

Walking into the hospital, Arinn felt happy. She was very used to coming here, as she had done since she checked up on him those two weeks ago. Chase had yet to wake up, but he was healing well, so that gave her some hope. The police had taken pictures of him, and put up posters with his name on it asking that anyone who knew him please come forward, but no one had.

As she entered the familiar room, and saw his familiar face, she beamed. Putting down her things, Arinn stood next to him, one hand petting his head. "Hi Chase, I came back again to see you. You're healing really well, so you should wake up soon, okay? Please wake up." She pet his head a little while longer until he turned his head towards her. 'Oh, I wonder...if he did wake up, how would he react to me? What...what if he fell in love with me?'

Arinn sat down and sighed. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night, and the room was so warm and comfy. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Then she was in his hospital bed with her back to Chase, his arms around her, his lips on her ear. She snuggled closer as he whispered loving things in her ear to her, and said that he would never let her go, or let her get hurt. One of his hands came up to a breast and lightly squeezed it. Arinn let out a needy moan and she could feel the wet feeling between her legs growing.

Chase's erection was pressing against her hip, and he was telling her how much he needed her, and how he wanted to hear her scream his name. She turned in his arms and put her head against his chest. "If you need me so badly..." she said, reaching down and cupping his member through his hospital gown, "then go ahead and take me." They kissed again as his hands moved under her skirt and touched the wet crotch of her panties.

"Miss..." a voice said as Chase slipped his hand inside her underwear and circled a finger around her clit. "Miss, please wake up...miss?" Arinn was suddenly shaken and her eyes snapped open. It had just been yet another of the dreams she had been having lately about the handsome stranger lying in front of her.

"I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep; It's just been a long day. What time is it?" she asked the nurse. The nurse smiled and shook her head.

"No, it's fine, it's just that I needed to know how long you plan to stay today."

"I'm not sure." Arinn said as she pulled out her cell phone and checked to see if anyone had called. "I might be here for one more hour, maybe two. Is that okay?" The nurse nodded and left Arinn alone to go about her business. "Whew..." Arinn sighed. 'I need to stop having those weird dreams. I don't act like this; I'm just a concerned business woman, not some obsessed groupie of a guy who's been asleep for two weeks.'

She pulled out her cell again and flipped through her numbers, coming to the one for her work place. "Maybe I need some time off of work to relax. I'm probably just really stressed and this is my body's way of relieving it." she mumbled to herself. She almost dropped her phone at the sudden deep moan from in front of her. Putting her phone in her bag, she stood up and looked down at Chase's tightly clenched eyelids.

~~~*~~~

Sorry, this is my first submission, and I don't know if I should continue posting more in this story... I want to, but if you guys say no, then I won't, okay? Please, tell me yea or nay. Thnx for reading this all the way through.