Claimed by the Demon

She stopped herself, her back to him, feeling the warmth suffusing her face. “If you’re a gentleman,” she said, “you’ll pretend I didn’t say that.”

The noise he made might have been amusement. “Relax,” he said, albeit through a rustling noise. “Beautiful as you are, I have my own plans for the night.”

She whirled on him, bedding in hand, mouth open on words already lost.

“Sometimes I say what I think, too,” he told her. He regarded the bloodied shirt in his hand and tossed it toward the wastebasket.

“Um,” she said, over the top of the pillow. And stood there as he took his newly stripped torso over to the sink, not quite sure if she was stunned by the beauty of said torso, muscle strapped over muscle and tightly defining the form of him, or by the damage done to it.

Okay, maybe you can have your way with me after all.

But thankfully, she didn’t say it out loud this time.

And thankfully, it wasn’t in her nature to mean it if she did. No one-night stands on irresponsible road trips with men picked up in a diner for her. No, sirree.

She did, however, drop her armload onto the bed, and by then it was clear enough he intended to do nothing more than rinse his mouth, splash water onto his face and let the rest of him quietly finish bleeding on its own.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You need to clean that...those...” She waved in the general direction of the bruises and abrasions and— “Is that... Did you get stabbed?”

“Huh.” He twisted to look at his ribs beneath his arm. “Maybe. A little.”

She found herself speechless. Pointing at the cut and its oozing blood and the stains all over his skin, gesturing at the sink and the water, unable to fathom his reaction to the entire situation. Finally she grabbed the desk chair and dragged it into the bathroom, pointing at the wound.

“You,” she said. “You’re delirious. That’s what. Sit there. I’m going to see what’s what. If I had my purse I’d have Band-Aids, but I don’t suppose—”

“It’ll be okay,” he said, gently—surprisingly gentle at that, in spite of his bleariness. Reassuring, as if she had been the one who’d been hurt—beyond the sting of skinned palms that were truly hers to own. “Nothing here is that bad. I just need some sleep. You need some sleep. Things will look different tomorrow.”

“My purse,” she muttered, “will still be stolen.” But she reached for the hotel washcloth—which would surely never be the same after this—and ran the hot water, ripping the teeny bar of soap free from its wrapping.

He hesitated another moment, just looking at her—enough so she stopped what she was doing to look back, finding herself rooted there. Just long enough to realize what the expression on his face meant—that he did find her beautiful, that he did want her, and that his hand, rising, was going to curl around the back of her head and twine through her hair and—

She blinked. He closed his eyes, clenched his fist; let it drop back to his side.

She remembered to breathe.

He didn’t, thank God, mutter some lame apology that would draw even more attention to the moment. He grabbed the chair and flipped it around, sitting backward on it to rest his arms along the top.

Gwen stuck a hand under the water, found it blistering, and jerked away. How long had that moment lasted, anyway? She added cold, filled the sink, and soaked the washcloth.

And then she knew better than to pretend that it didn’t affect her to touch him—not his beauty, not his pain. She started with the spots that didn’t look too bad and moved carefully to the abrasions, washing off dried blood to reveal the truth of what lay beneath, discovering the strange little twist of a tattoo over his heart and keeping the washcloth as warm and soothing as possible. “Sorry,” she murmured when he twitched, and “This is a bad one,” and “Face, please.”

He lifted it for her, the full light on the cuts and bruises, displaying remarkably little swelling aside from one puffy eye and the corner of his mouth.

Not that he made it easy. Oh, no. He watched her.

Her heart beat just a little faster, and she tipped a finger under his chin to examine her work. Right. Stormy grey-blue eyes, no longer hiding in shadow and no longer hiding weariness of the deepest kind—or even the expression that still smoldered from when he’d almost— almost—touched her. She eyed the cut of his mouth, unexpectedly sweet in repose and just begging for another gentle brush of the washcloth...or her thumb.

What the hell is wrong with me? She closed her eyes and turned away, her hand settling on her necklace and clenching it, if ever so briefly, tight in her fist. “You’re right,” she said. “Except for that, you know, maybe a little stab wound, nothing there is too bad. It’s just that there’s so much of it.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said, but his voice had faded, and when she turned back she found the connection between them had faded, too, and his eyes were half-closed. He shook himself, reached for a hand towel, and pushed away from the chair. “I’ve got to sleep. Make yourself at home. You won’t bother me.”

He only staggered a little on the way to the bed. There he put down the towel to protect the bedspread from his short but gaping cut and its trickling blood, flopped on top of it, flung a forearm over his eyes and, to all appearances, fell instantly asleep.

Gwen stood beside the bed, caught in the surrealism of it all.

A stranger’s hotel room.

A beautiful stranger she could hardly stop herself from touching even as he stretched out asleep, completely unaware of her.

Apparently trusting her.

Or not having any choice in the matter, from the looks of him.

She held her hands out under the light of the sink area...his blood stained them; her own blood stained them. Not the smartest thing she could have done.

She cleaned up, replacing the chair, wringing out the stained washcloth and neatly hanging it, wiping down the sink counter. She pondered her hands; she pondered the shower, sending a glance at her erstwhile host.

He slept on. He hadn’t moved so much as a muscle twitch. She approached him, her hand hovering over his shoulder. Strong, well-formed bones beneath working muscle and gleaming skin.

Heat radiated back at her.

She shook her head—and, glancing at the blanket she’d dumped, decided against spreading it over him just yet.

Instead she headed for the shower. Not without trepidation—she’d wash her underwear and hang it to dry, but it would leave her commando in her slacks. And the hotel shampoo? No way was it going to do well by her hair. No comb, no leave-in conditioner...

She settled on a good sponge bath and felt much the better for it, the commando situation notwithstanding.

When she came out of the bathroom, he hadn’t moved.

Slowly, she sank down by the side of the bed, resting her chin on the mattress, her arms folded in front of her. From here, she could watch him breathe.

She could make sure he was in fact doing it.

Absurd, the comfort that gave her.

Her hand crept to the pendant at her neck. He’d noticed it, she was sure. Inevitably, he’d ask about it. Everyone did. So obviously old, so obviously heavy with metal and meaning.

She knew that story by heart.

I am nine years old, and something is wrong with my father. My daddy. My mommy is dead and has been for years. Daddy changed on the night she died. He always carries a knife; he won’t let me see it. He acts like he knows how to use it, but my daddy is a briefcase man with a briefcase job.

He was. Now he is something else. Someone else.

He presses a pendant into my hand, cold and heavy, incised with symbols so worn I can’t read them.