Carefully, I reached out to brush a strand of sandy hair from Connor's forehead. His skin was cooler now, the unnatural flush of the drug beginning to fade. His eyelids fluttered at my touch, but didn't open.
Whatever his mother had given him was finally releasing its hold, allowing him to slip into genuine sleep rather than drug-induced unconsciousness.
"What am I going to do with you?" I whispered, not expecting an answer.
Connor made a small sound in his sleep, shifting closer to my warmth. The trusting gesture tugged at something inside me—something I'd thought calcified by three years of boardroom battles and rehabilitation struggles.
My analytical mind, never quiet for long, began cycling through the implications of what had just happened between us.
I had experienced an erection—sustained, responsive—for the first time since the accident. That alone was medically significant, a development that challenged the prognosis I'd been given and accepted. But more than that, I had connected with another person in a way I'd convinced myself was no longer possible or necessary.
What did that mean for the careful life I'd constructed? For the controlled, orderly existence I'd built around my limitations? For the walls I'd erected to keep others at a safe, professional distance?
Connor murmured something unintelligible, his face peaceful in sleep. Looking at him now, it was hard to reconcile this vulnerable young man with the determined seducer of hours before. His features were softer in repose, younger somehow.
The drug was nearly gone from his system, his breathing deep and regular, his body occasionally twitching with the natural movements of deep sleep.
I should wake him, I thought. Call for medical assistance to ensure the drug left no lasting effects. Contact authorities about his mother's actions. Begin addressing this situation with the clinical efficiency I applied to every other problem.
Instead, I found myself studying the curve of his jaw, the fan of his eyelashes against his cheeks, the slight part of his lips as he breathed. Memorizing details as if they were crucial data points for some future analysis.
Our connection had been born of extraordinary circumstances—his desperate flight, my unexpected protection, the chemical lowering of inhibitions that might otherwise have kept us apart.
Yet there had been something genuine in our interaction, something that transcended the unusual context. I had felt seen in a way I hadn't experienced since before the accident, when people still looked at me rather than through me or around me.
And I had seen him too—not just his physical attractiveness, but the courage that had driven him to escape his mother's betrayal, the determination that had kept him moving despite being drugged, the vulnerability beneath his bold advances.
Was this what they called Stockholm syndrome in reverse? The protector developing feelings for the protected? Or was it simpler than that—two lonely people finding unexpected connection in the midst of crisis?
I shifted slightly, careful not to wake him, and reached for tissues from the nightstand to clean us both. The practical task anchored me, gave my hands purpose while my mind continued its relentless analysis.
As I gently wiped away the evidence of our encounter from his skin, Connor sighed in his sleep, turning instinctively toward my touch.
The simple gesture of trust made my throat tight with an emotion I couldn't name. Or perhaps wouldn't name, knowing how dangerous such feelings could be in these circumstances.
When had I last allowed someone to sleep beside me? Before the accident, certainly. Perhaps not since Elizabeth, the womanI'd been seeing when my car had collided with a drunk driver's, forever dividing my life into before and after.
She'd visited me in the hospital exactly twice before disappearing from my life, unable to reconcile her image of me with the broken man in the hospital bed.
I couldn't blame her. I'd spent three years unable to reconcile those two versions of myself.
Yet Connor, drugged and desperate as he was, had seen past the wheelchair, past the scars. He had wanted me—damaged and incomplete—with a hunger that had awakened my own.
My fingers moved of their own accord, lightly tracing patterns on his skin as he slept. I outlined the curve of his shoulder, the line of his collarbone, committing the topography of him to memory.
For whatever reason—the unusual circumstances, the unexpected response of my body, the vulnerability in his eyes—this night felt significant. A turning point I hadn't seen coming.
But what happened when morning came? When the drug completely cleared his system and he looked at me with fully lucid eyes? Would he regret what had passed between us? Would he see me differently in the harsh light of day—see the wheelchair beside the bed, the scars more clearly, the fifteen-year age gap between us?
And what about the people pursuing him? His mother and this Harris person—they wouldn't simply give up. Whatever their plans for Connor had been, they would likely try again.
I needed to contact Michael, arrange protection, investigate what exactly Connor had stumbled into.
Yet these practical concerns seemed distant as I watched him sleep, his face peaceful for the first time since he'd burst into my room. For now, at least, he was safe. For now, we existed in this suspended moment, outside the complications that awaited us both.
The presidential suite was quiet except for our breathing, the city lights visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows casting soft, shifting shadows across the bed. I should sleep too, I knew.
Tomorrow would bring challenges that required clear thinking. But I found myself reluctant to close my eyes, to end this night that had changed something fundamental inside me.
