Warmth spread from my chest to my fingers and toes, and I surrendered to the pounding desire to kiss him.
My dry lips met his, and I pulled him as close as I could. Every little movement hurt, but the pain didn’t stop me. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted the reminder I was alive, that I had lived because of him, that I would continue to live.For him.
I fell backward, and he followed, trying to be gentle. But I didn’t want gentle. I only wantedhim.
“Sophia, you’re barely healed.” He spoke the words against my lips.
“I don’t care. I almost died. You saved me.”
“It took me hours to fix you. You’re finally getting some color back. Please be careful.”
I clawed my fingers into his skin, trying to keep him close, even as he withdrew. Despite the pain medications painting fog over my reality, I still wanted him next to me, on top of me, inside me. I’d thought those wounds would kill me. This dangerous, morally ambiguous man gave me his own blood to keep me alive.
I wanted him.
But he wasn’t wrong about my wounds.
“How did you fix me?” I murmured as the pain ratcheted up.
“I told you. I’m a doctor, remember?”
My hazy focus landed on him, and I waited for the joke, but it never came. “You—are?”
His mouth quirked in that wry smile. “Another thing you thought I was lying about?”
Words deserted me.
He pressed his palm to my forehead. “You feel feverish again.”
Each blink dragged me closer to the void, my body telling me to rest. “I think it’s you,” I slurred. “You make me hot.” My eyes closed against my will. “Don’t leave.”
I was almost asleep when he whispered, “You’ll never be rid of me now, Sophia.”
When I woke again,the light in the room had changed, and he was gone.
He wasgone.
I writhed on the bed, panicking at the loneliness, the abandonment. At my single whimper, he popped up from the bench at the end of the bed.
My body stilled when I found him, the anxiety drowned by a wave of relief.
He hadn’t left.
He’d stayed, like he promised.
His stare froze on my hand when I reached for him. Slowly, he moved to stand next to me, taking hold of my fingers.
With protesting, sleepy noises, I demanded he lie beside me, tugging on his arm with all my failing strength.
Color flickered in his eyes as he caught my meaning. He crawled onto the bed beside me and settled against the pillows while I turned toward him. My fingers interlaced with his on his chest, and exhaustion lulled me back under. I drifted off to him tracing shapes on my knuckles.
The next time, I woke enfolded in his warmth. I’d wiggled my way right next to him, my head on his chest, his arms around me. I turned my face into him, breathing him in.
“Lucas?”
“Mmm?”
“Stay with me.”
