Unless he’s pretending he doesn’t.
But then who was in the tunnels?
Nadine found herself reaching—up, for his neck. Even though it pushed her breasts against the damp heat of his chest, and deeper into this embrace that felt anything but safe. She needed to feel. Needed to know that he wasn’t the one.
Cal caught her by the wrist and lowered her hand gently to her side, clasped with his.
“Come with me.”
Nadine didn’t resist as he pulled her into his room, and there was just enough force in the gesture to make it feel more like a command than a suggestion. Even though she was aware that going with him was a bad idea and that his room was the very last place she should be, she went anyway, and found that the cedar scent enveloping him had permeated this very room.
He had already told her he was dangerous. She believed that he was. But right now, she was too exhausted to care. Her arms and legs were burning, stinging from sweat and dirt, and the blood of her attacker was drying in her nailbeds. All she wanted, right now, was for someone to take care of her and just let her be small.
Because oh, god, she felt so fucking small.
“You’re not even going to fight?” he remarked, sounding surprised.
“I already did,” she said brokenly.
A strange look flickered over his face but he didn’t ask her to elaborate. Later, she would wonder why. Now, she was glad he didn’t. The one-sided interrogation from Gideon Crocker had sapped something vital from her, and after that hot trudge of shame, she felt so damn tired.
“You poor thing.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders, thumbing her collarbones gently before pushing her down on his bed with enough force that her knees immediately buckled. The move was so smooth that it occurred to her he must have done it before to someone else, exactly like this.
Probably before he fucked them, said her unhelpful brain.
She gripped his mattress, digging her fingers into those soft midnight sheets, when he opened a drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a clear, expensive-looking bottle of alcohol.
“Sometimes I can’t sleep,” he said, when she looked at it.
So even rich boys drink alone.
“Do you dream?” she whispered dully.
“If I do, I don’t remember.’
Cal opened another drawer—this one appeared to contain underwear, which made her look away to hide her stinging blush—and from the corner of her cracked eye, she saw him take out a few clean handkerchiefs. Made of fabric. Andmonogrammed.
“It’s going to hurt,” he cautioned, when he noticed her peeking.
“I don’t care if it hurts.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I’m pleased to hear that.”
She hissed when the alcohol-dampened rag first made contact. His grip on her arm tightened immediately, keeping her from pulling back as he doused every scrape and cut. Unlike the EMT, Cal wasn’t apologetic or moved to pity by the sounds she was making, and his hands remained steady, even when the white cloth turned pink.
She looked away as her vision got blurry, her eyes focusing on the midnight and gilt fleur-de-lis wallpaper. “Blood doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” he said. “Not at all.”
He’s probably used to it. He is a hunter, after all.
“You must see a lot of it,” she babbled. “Doing what you do.”
She winced—ouch. That one was deep. “Yes,” he said simply. “That’s true.”
“Someone hurt me.” Her voice was almost pleading now. “I can’t stand blood. The sight of it. The smell of it. But it was all I could smell in the dark. I thought I was going to die.”
