Just checking for fever. Making sure the infection hadn’t returned.
Right. Keep telling yourself that, Clare.
Skin carried heat but not fever when I made contact. The recovery was remarkable... what should have taken weeks was happening in days. His stomach wound had knit clean, his shoulder moved smoothly, even the gash on his scalp was barely visible.
Fingertips brushed his temple. Everything appeared fine. Recovery on track. No swelling, no inflammation, no...
Oh, who was I kidding?
This wasn’t medical. This was me craving contact.
Because yesterday people died and I needed to feel something alive. Someone who chose to stay.
My thumb grazed the scar through his eyebrow, wondering what had caused it. A blade? Impact? Someone’s fist splitting skin and leaving their mark?
He’d survived everything thrown at him. Built to endure, to keep going, to refuse surrender even when flesh should fail.
Kind of like me, actually. Though he was significantly better at the violence part.
Fingers slipped into his hair, soft and thick between my knuckles. He shifted, leaning into the contact. Trusting even unconscious.
Heat flared low in my belly. Sharp. Sudden.
Want.
Not the gentle kind. The ravenous kind. The kind that made my thighs clench and stole my air.
I needed this. Needed to feel something besides terror and the wet thud of bodies hitting pavement. Needed to prove I was still human, still capable of wanting something that didn’t involve survival.
Fingertips traced from hair to neck. His pulse beat steady and strong beneath them.
He’s not just someone you saved.
He’s someone you want.
Crave.
Outstanding. Lusting after a sleeping fugitive. Really living your best life, Clare.
But I kept going. Sliding to his shoulder, feeling the solid muscle beneath the shirt. The way he radiated warmth. The way he smelled, musky, male, him.
So close to my thigh. If I shifted, just a little...
You’re caressing a killer and getting wet. Therapy. You need so much therapy.
Arousal pulsed between my legs. Insistent. Impossible to ignore.
Right there. One movement and I could...
Control yourself. He’s asleep.
But I couldn’t stop. Tracing along the line of his neck, his collarbone, back up to his jaw. Claiming him.
Because that’s what this was. Not medical assessment. Not concern.
Hunger. Raw and simple.
And now I wanted...
