Lover Unbound

'It's nothing I haven't seen before.' When his lids dropped and he didn't reply, she said in a quiet voice, 'I operated on you, so I'm aware that you're partially castrated. I'm not a date, I'm a doctor. I promise that I have no opinion about your body other than what it represents to me clinically.'

He winced before he could hide the reaction. 'No opinion?'

'Just let me wash you. It's not a big deal.'

'Fine.' That diamond gaze narrowed. 'Suit yourself.'

She pulled the sheets away. 'There's nothing to be-'

Holy shit…! The patient was fully erect. Massively erect. Lying straight up his lower belly, stretching from his groin to above his navel, was a spectacular arousal.

'No big deal, remember?' he drawled.

'Ah…' She cleared her throat. 'Well… I'm just going to keep going.'

'Fine with me.'

Trouble was, she couldn't precisely recall what she was supposed to be doing with the washcloth. And she was staring. She was seriously staring.

Which was what you did when you got a gander at a man who was hung like a Louisville Slugger.

Oh, God, did she really just think that?

'Since you've already seen what was done to me,' he said in a dry voice, 'I can only guess you're checking my navel for lint.'

Yeah. Right.

Jane got back with the program, running the cloth down his ribs. 'So… how did it happen?'

When he didn't answer, she glanced at his face. His eyes were focused across the room, and they were flat, lifeless. She'd seen that look before in patients who'd been attacked, and knew he was remembering a horror.

'Michael,' she murmured, 'who hurt you?'

He frowned. 'Michael?'

'Not your name?' She took the washcloth back to the bowl. 'Why am I not surprised?'

'V.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Call me V. Please.'

She brought the cloth back to his side. 'V it is, then.'

She tilted her head and watched her hand rise up his torso, then slide down again. She was stalling, not going lower. Because in spite of his distraction with the ugly past, he was still erect. Totally erect.

Okay, time to get moving downward. Hello, she was an adult. A physician. She'd had a couple of lovers. What she was witnessing was just a biological function that resulted in a pooling of blood in his incredibly large-

That was so not where her thoughts needed to go.

As Jane took the cloth down over his hip, she tried to ignore the fact that he shifted as she went along, his back arching, that heavy arousal on his belly pushing forward, then falling back into place.

The tip of it wept a glossy, tempting tear.

She looked up at him… and froze. His eyes were on her throat, and they were burning with a lust that wasn't just sexual.

Any attraction she might have felt for him disappeared. This was a male of another species, not a man. And he was dangerous.

His stare dropped to her hand in the cloth. 'I won't bite you.'

'Good, because I don't want you to.' This she was clear on. Hell, she was glad he'd looked at her like that, because it had jarred her back to reality. 'Listen, not that I want to know personally, but does it hurt?'

'Don't know. Never been bitten myself.'

'I thought you said that-'

'I feed off females. But no one has ever fed off me.'

'Why?' As his mouth closed up tight, she shrugged. 'You might as well tell me. I'm not going to remember anything, right? So what will it cost you to talk?'

As silence stretched, she lost her nerve with his pelvic region and decided to try to work her way up from his feet. Down at the end of the bed, she ran the cloth up his soles then over his toes and he jumped a little like he was ticklish. She moved on to his ankles.

'My father didn't want me to reproduce,' the patient said abruptly.

Her eyes shot to his. 'What?'

He held up the hand that was gloved, then tapped the temple that had the tattoos around it. 'I'm not right. You know, normal. So my father tried to have me fixed like a dog. Of course, there was also the happy correlation of it being one hell of a punishment.' As her breath left her on a compassionate sigh, he pointed his forefinger at her. 'You show me any pity and I'm going to think twice about the no-bite vow I just gave you.'

'No pity. I promise,' she lied softly. 'But what does that have to do with you drinking from-'

'Just don't like to share.'

Himself, she thought. With anyone… except maybe Red Sox.

She gently eased the cloth up his shin. 'What were you punished for?'

'Can I call you Jane?'

'Yes.' She redipped the cloth and eased it under his calf. As he went silent again, she let him have his privacy. For now.

Under her hand, his knee flexed, the thigh above it contracting and releasing in a sensual flow. Her eyes flicked over his erection and she swallowed hard.

'So do your reproductive systems work the same as ours?' she asked.

'Pretty much.'

'Have you had human lovers?'

'I'm not into humans.'

She smiled awkwardly. 'I won't ask you who you're thinking of now, then.'

'Good. I don't think you'd feel comfortable with the answer.'

She thought of the way he looked at Red Sox. 'Are you gay?'

His eyes narrowed. 'Why do you ask?'

'You seem rather attached to your friend, the guy in the baseball hat.'

'You knew him, didn't you. From before, true?'

'Yeah, he looks familiar, but I can't quite place him.'

'Would that bother you?'

She ran the towel up his thigh to the cut juncture of his hips, then skirted away. 'You being gay? Not at all.'

'Because it would make you feel safer, right?'

'And because I'm open-minded. As a physician, I have a pretty good grip on how no matter our preferences, we're all alike on the inside.'

Well, the humans at least. She sat down on the bedside and pushed her hand up his leg again. As she got closer to his arousal, his breath caught and the hard length twitched. While his hips swiveled she looked up. He'd bitten down on his lower lip, his fangs cutting into the soft flesh.

Okay, that was really…

None of her business. But, man, he must be running a really hot fantasy about Red Sox right now.

Telling herself this was just a garden-variety sponge-bath situation, and not believing the lie for an instant, she drew her hand over his abdomen, up past the swollen head of him, and down the other side. As the very edge of the washcloth brushed up against his sex, he hissed.

So help her, God, she did it again, going slowly up and around him and letting the erection get stroked just a little.

His hands tightened on the sheets, and in a low rasp he said, 'If you keep this up, you're going to find out just how much I have in common with a human man.'

Good Christ, she wanted to see him-No, she didn't.

Yes, she did.

His voice dropped deeper. 'Do you want me to orgasm?'