The panic that should have surged, didn’t.
Just that quiet. That easing in my chest.
Legs gave out.
Falling.
Her hands caught me. Lowered me carefully. Protecting my head. Protecting the shoulder.
Protecting me.
“I’ve got you, Xavier,” she said. Right there. Close.
Something about her voice. Her hands. The way she said my name like it mattered.
Made the falling less terrifying.
Made the pain matter less.
Darkness pulled me under.
Not drowning this time.
Just her hands, steady.
Just that quiet in my chest.
Just the sense, didn’t know why, that she wouldn’t let me fall.
Then nothing.
Chapter 4
Clare
His legs gave out the second I touched him.
Barely had time to drop the bags before his full weight collapsed against me. Solid muscle wrapped in fever-hot skin, his head falling to my shoulder as everything went slack.
Dead weight pressing into me at once.
My back hit the doorframe. Breath punched out. For one stunned heartbeat I just stood there with my arms around a dying man who’d tried to reach me, feeling the burn of fever through my coat, the rapid flutter of pulse at my throat.
My face flushed. Completely inappropriate awareness of his size, his weight, the intimacy of holding him like this.
Then his knees buckled completely, and we both went down.
Twisted, taking the impact on my hip, keeping his skull from cracking on the floor. We hit hard anyway. My shoulder screamed. He sprawled half across me, pinning me to worn wood.
“Perfect.” Sweat-damp skin, shallow breathing, the scent of infection. “He tried to get to me and nearly died doing it. Really great decision-making all around.”
No response. Unconscious again. Maybe for the best. Hard to explain the felonies while he was awake.
Shoved at his shoulder, carefully, the relocated one, and wriggled out from under him. Every muscle screamed protest. How long had I been gone? An hour? Felt like a lifetime compressed into sixty minutes of committing crimes and dodging police.
Getting him back to the bed was harder than getting him inside had been.
Grabbed him under the arms, planted my feet, and dragged. Bare skin stuck to the floor, a dead weight of solid muscle and terrible life choices. My thighs burned. My back threatened mutiny. Halfway across the room I had to stop, gasping, arms shaking.
