Heading into the kitchen, I wondered for the twentieth time what in the hell I’d gotten myself into.
This whole situation was bad enough. I’d made promises—promises to people who mattered, to myself.
I couldn’t let all my sacrifices—all their sacrifices either—be in vain. I just had to keep my shit together until this being was out of my life. Even if I felt about two wrong moves away from having life blow up in my face.
I could worry about that later. In the meantime, I made his damn sandwich, which looked really good, and once I was done, I headed over with a turkey BLT with avocado. I set the plate on the coffee table still there in front of him and sat on the chair that hadn’t moved since he’d arrived either, planting my butt on it. Those dark, incredible eyes followed my movement.
I picked up the plate and held it up for him.
He stared.
God, I hoped his injury wasn’t worse than it seemed, I thought as I took the sandwich and held it to his mouth.
The man’s eyes bounced from the sandwich to my face and back, but he opened his mouth, showing off those strong, white teeth, and took a neat bite, chewing slowly, that intense gaze still steady on me.
Maybe he was feeling me out.
Or maybe he was in a bad wittle mood over what had happened to him.
I’d agreed to help, and I would. Stomachache or not. Worst mistake of my life or not.
After he’d quietly demolished the sandwich and drank another two glasses of water, he seemed to melt back into the wheelchair while it groaned under his weight. He let out one of those deep, rattling breaths that told me there was something very wrong, and I had no medical background.
As I set the plate on his thigh so I could stand up, my knees already stiff, The Defender’s voice rattled, all husky and irritated, “I want… to get out of this.”
“Out of the chair or your suit?” I asked him as I straightened, trying not to think of how unreal this conversation was.
“Both,” the man in the charcoal suit rumbled in the crabby tone I was starting to believe might be his usual one.
I blinked. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
The fan on the ceiling spun once before coming to a sudden stop like when the lights turned off.
Except they hadn’t.
I tensed. Was that a coincidence or…?
It started spinning again.
“You think I don’t know what I’m capable of?” The Defender whisper-hissed as he stared over at me.
Oh boy.
“I can get out of this chair,” he said slowly, his nostrils flaring. “Every bone in my body could be broken… and I would still be stronger… than every human on this planet.”
He’d saidhuman, hadn’t he?
With his gaze locked on mine, his fingers reached for the plate balanced on his leg. The Defender picked up the fork I had brought over to scoop up any food that fell out of the sandwich. Gaze on me, he set his thumb on one end, middle finger closer to the tines, and slowly folded it in half. Then, just as easily, he straightened it out and set it back.
It was hard to keep my face blank, but I did.
Becausereally?Suddenly his strength made up for the fact he hadn’t even been able to feed himself? Or that I’d had to help him into the chair in the first place? I’d been sheltered most of my life, but I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
I knew what he was capable of normally.
But he was starting to get on my nerves anyway.
I pressed my lips together and held up my hands. “All right, Hercules. You know your body better than I do. I can’t carry you. You’ll have to get up. There’s the couch and my bed. Your choice.”
