He tested his arms and legs, then nodded.
Sitting him up, she swung his legs off the bed and helped him plant his feet. After a few false starts, she looped his arm around her shoulders and helped him to his feet. Step by step they made their way to the bathroom where she undressed him like a child. She helped him step into the tub and lowered him into the water.
“You had a fever,” she said. “A high fever. But it’s over now.”
“…Kill me,” he mumbled.
“No. I’m not going to kill you. It’s going to be okay.”
He shook his head. “You tried to kill me,” he said more clearly.
She sighed. “No. I did what I needed to do to start your recovery. I didn’t want to hurt you. We were supposed to do that gently, from a relaxed, seated position. In an ideal world, you would have let me in. But you forced my hand when you threatened me.”
Jason laid his head back on the side of the tub. “You could have just asked me to stop.”
“I did.”
He tried to think back, but all he remembered was the wolf, the overwhelming feeling of wanting her. Everything else was a blur, flashes and random images he could barely associate with the woman in front of him. He raised his wet hands to his face.
“I forgive you,” Selene said. “Don’t waste a second of your recovery thinking about it. I knew what I was getting myself into.”
He snorted, rolling his head to the side to give her a pointed glare. “Funny, it seems I didn’t.”
“As long as you continue to deny you have a problem, everything we do together is going to feel like a fight, and you’re the one who will wear the bruises,” she said firmly.
With his eyes tightly closed, Jason asked, “Did you find what you needed? Or did you almost kill me for nothing?”
Selene sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor. “I want to talk about Professor Matthews.”
The water splashed as Jason opened his eyes and unsuccessfully tried to sit up. “That’s what you decided to dig out of my head? Jill Matthews?”
“She was your trigger. You keep her in the darkest corner of your mind.”
He sighed. “If there was one thing Jill had in spades, it was darkness.”
“I watched her take advantage of you. It was obvious you didn’t want to be there but she mentioned you… signed up for something.”
He leaned his head back again. He remembered but it wasn’t something he liked to talk about. And it had absolutely nothing to do with his vice.
“She said the same thing to you as you said to me. ‘We’re just two people—’”
“‘Taking solace from an unforgiving world in the safety of each other’s arms.’ I forgot that was something Jill used to say.”
“I think it’s significant.”
“It was a long time ago, long before my vice was a problem.”
Selene said nothing, the silence growing weighted between them.
“I’d done it before.”
“Done what?”
“Slept with a teacher. The first one was named Bethany Vale. I met her at a bar before I knew who she was. We were close in age and things just happened. It had nothing to do with grades. But Professor Matthews found out. She said she’d tell the dean, have Bethany fired. I cared for her. It wasn’t just sex. Then Jill said there was another way.”
“You agreed to give her what she wanted in exchange for her silence,” Selene whispered.
Jason nodded slowly.
