Payne whipped her head around and stared up into her healer’s face. “He . . . sired young?”
“Yup. He can drive a car . . . he can have sex, obviously . . . and he lives a fuller life than most people who have two working legs. He’s an entrepreneur and an athlete and a hell of a man, and I’m proud to call him friend.”
As he spoke, her healer moved that black thing around and the pictures changed. There were ones of the man in other athletic contests, and then smiling by some kind of large building construction, and then with him seated before a red ribbon with a big pair of golden scissors in his hand.
“Paul is the mayor of Caldwell.” Her healer gently turned her face back to his. “Listen to me . . . and I want you to remember this. Your legs are part of you, but not all of you or what you are. So wherever we go after tonight, I need you to know that you are no less for the injury. Even if you are in a chair, you still stand as tall as you ever did. Height is just a vertical number—it doesn’t mean shit when it comes to your character or the kind of life you live.”
He was dead serious, and if she were to be truthful with herself, she fell a little in love with him in that moment.
“Can you move the . . . that thing?” she whispered. “So that I may see more?”
“Here—you work the mouse.” He took her hand and placed it on the warm, oblong scooter. “Left and right . . . up and down . . . See? It shifts the arrow on the screen. Click this when you want to see something.”
It took her a couple of tries, but then she got the knack of it . . . and it was absurd, but just making her way around the different areas on the screen and choosing what she wanted to look at gave her a dizzy sense of energy.
“I can do this,” she said. Except then she got embarrassed. Considering how simple it was, it was too small a victory to crow over.
“That’s the point,” her healer said in her ear. “You can do
She shivered at that. Or likely it was because of more than merely his words.
Refocusing on the computer, she liked the pictures of the man in the races best. His expression of agonized effort and indomitable willpower was something she had long felt burning in her own chest. But then the one of the family together was also among her favorites. They were humans, but the bonds seemed so strong between them. There was love, such love there.
“What do you say?” her healer murmured.
“I think you came at the perfect time. That’s what I say.”
She shifted in his strong arms and stared up at him. As she sat in his lap, she wished she could feel more of him. All of him. But from the waist down there was only a nonspecific warmth, one that was better than the chill that had persisted since the operation, yes . . . but there was so much more to be had.
“Healer . . .” she whispered, her eyes going to his mouth.
His lids lowered and he seemed to stop breathing. “Yeah . . . ?”
“May I . . .” She licked her lips. “May I kiss you?”
He seemed to wince, as if in pain, but that scent he carried roared, so she knew that he wanted what she did.
“Jesus . . . Christ,” he bit out.
“Your body wants this,” she said, bringing her hand up to the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
“And that’s the problem.” At her look of confusion, he leveled a hot stare right at her breasts. “It wants a hell of a lot more than just a kiss.”
Suddenly, there was a shift inside her body, one so subtle it was hard to pin down. But she felt something different throughout her torso and all her limbs. A tingling? She was too wrapped up in the sexual energy between them to worry about defining it.
Snaking another arm around his neck, she said, “What else does it want.”
Her healer groaned deep in his throat, and the sound gave her the same shot of power as when she’d a weapon in her hand. To feel that again? It was like a drug.
“Tell me, healer,” she demanded. “What else does it want.”
His mahogany eyes were on fire as they locked on her own. “Everything. It wants every square inch of you— outside . . . and on the inside. To the point where I’m not sure you’re ready for how much I’m after.”
“I decide,” she countered, a strange, pounding need taking root in her gut. “I decide what I can and cannot handle, yes?”
His half smile was all evil. In a good way. “Yes, ma’am.”
As a low, rhythmic sound filled the air, she was surprised to realize it was her. Purring. “Do I have to ask again, healer?”
There was a pause. And then he slowly shook his head back and forth. “Nope. I’ll give you . . . exactly what you want.”
TWENTY-ONE
When Vishous pushed open the door to the exam room, he got a gander at the kind of seating arrangement that made him think fondly of castration.
Which, considering his own experience with the knife-on-the-’nads routine, was saying a lot.
Then again, his sister was all but straddling that ass-wipe human’s Mr. Happy, the man’s arms around her, their heads all nestled in. Except they weren’t looking at each other—and that was the only reason he didn’t break up the party: They were staring at the computer screen . . . at a man in a wheelchair racing a bunch of other guys.
“. . . Height is just a vertical number—it doesn’t mean shit when it comes to your character or the kind of life you live.”
“Can you move the . . . that thing?”
For some reason, V’s heart pounded as the human showed his sister how to work a mouse. And then he heard something that gave him reason for hope:
“I can do this,” she said.
“That’s the point,” Manello said softly. “You can do
Well, shit—the gamble had come up aces, hadn’t it: V had been willing to throw that human back into the mix briefly, just to get her past the suicidal impulse. Except he’d never once thought the guy would give her anything more than a case of puppy love.
And yet, here the motherfucker was . . . showing her so much more than how to kiss.
V had wanted to be the one to save her—and he supposed by bringing in Manello, he might have, but why hadn’t he done more sooner? Why hadn’t Jane? They should have gotten her out of this place, taken her to the mansion . . . had meals and talked with her.
Shown her that her future was different, but not disappeared.
V rubbed his face as anger tackled him to the ground. Goddamn Jane . . . how could she not know that patients required more than pain meds and sponge baths? His twin had needed a fucking horizon—anyone would go mad stuck in that room.
Fucking hell.
He glanced back at his sister and the human. The pair of them had locked eyes and it was looking like it would take a crowbar to get their heads apart.
Kinda got V back to wanting to kill the bastard.
As his gloved hand went into his pocket for a hand-rolled, he had half a mind to clear his throat loudly. Either that or take his dagger and end-over-end it at the human’s head. Trouble was, that surgeon was a tool to be used until he wasn’t needed anymore—and they hadn’t reached that point yet.
V forced himself to back out of the doorway—
“How’re they doing?”
As he wheeled around, he dropped his fucking cigarette.
Butch picked it up. “Need a light?”
