The awareness that had been building all this time slammed into me like a freight train.
Warm water sliding over his body under my fingers. The intimacy of touching him everywhere. How close I was. How naked he was under these covers. How much I wanted...
Heat flooded through my entire body. Froze mid-motion on his calf, water dripping onto the sheets.
I’d been touching his bare body this whole time. Washing him. Learning every inch of damaged skin. Getting closer and closer to crossing lines I couldn’t uncross.
And I wanted to cross them.
My mouth went dry. Pulse hammered in my throat.
This wasn’t clinical anymore. Hadn’t been for a while. Maybe hadn’t been since I first decided to bring him inside instead of leaving him to die.
He was staring at my face. Seeing me realize. Seeing the awareness crash over me like a wave.
He knew. Could see it written all over me: the flush crawling up my neck, the way my breathing had gone unsteady, the tremor in my fingers.
The want I couldn’t hide anymore.
I forced myself to keep going. Pushed through the awareness because stopping meant acknowledging it. Meant facing what this was becoming.
Up his shin, over his knee, across the hard muscle of his thigh. Each stroke felt electric now. Oversensitive. Every brush registering in ways that made my stomach clench.
His breathing changed too. Getting heavier. Studying me with an intensity that had nothing to do with fever.
Finished one leg. Started the other. Trying to maintain the clinical distance that had already shattered.
Reached for the waistband of his boxers, needing to complete the job, needing to push through before I lost my nerve entirely...
His hand shot out. Caught both my wrists.
Gentle but absolute. Fingers wrapped around my bones, his pulse racing against mine where our skin met. Water dripped between our palms.
His head shook.
No.
We stared at each other. Both breathing harder. Both aware of exactly what was happening between us. The charge in the air so thick I could taste it.
The want visible in his stare, in the tension coiling through his frame.
Relief and frustration hit simultaneously. Glad he’d stopped me. Terrified by how much I’d wanted to continue.
I pulled away. Immediately. Handed him the rag.
“Finish yourself.”
Rough. Unsteady.
He took it, his fingers brushing mine. I stood abruptly.
“I need a shower.” Too fast. Too obvious. “You need rest. Finish cleaning up. I’ll be back.”
Didn’t wait for acknowledgment. Couldn’t stay in this charged space another second, couldn’t keep feeling him study me, couldn’t face what I’d almost done.
What I’d wanted to do.
Walked toward the bathroom, aware of him following me with his stare. Aware my pulse was racing. Aware I was fleeing and didn’t care.
