“That looks better,” she said, stepping back and observing her work. She glanced around the room. “Do you have something I could cut up to make a new bandage?”
I nodded toward a pile of clothes, heaped in a plastic basket. “Those are clean.”
“Okay.” She dug in the laundry and chose a white T-shirt. Sitting down next to me, she took the scissors and bent her head, cutting a neat, long strip of fabric. “Give me your arm again,” she said, moving my hand to her lap.
“Oh, shit,” I complained through gritted teeth as she wound the new bandage around my broken bone.
“Tristen!” she chided me, but softly. And when she turned her face to mine, I saw a trace of amusement in her eyes, in spite of the awful circumstances. “That’s enough.”
“I’ll try harder,” I promised, digging the fingers of my good hand into the mattress as Jill returned to caring for me, tenderly but firmly moving my hand until it aligned better with my arm. The pain was almost unbearable, and to keep myself from passing out, I tried to focus on her profile. The faint flush of nervous exertion on her cheek, the way she bit her pale, pink lower lip as she concentrated, the serious furrow of her brow as if she suffered, too, to cause me pain: I focused on all those things, reminding myself that I needed to be alert to protect her if the beast returned and found us there.
“I think we’re done, Tristen,” Jill finally said, tying off the bandage and standing. “You should rest now.”
I didn’t argue and lay back on the bed, closing my eyes, thinking that in a few minutes I would feel stronger, and then I really would send Jill on her way.
I listened as she cleaned up the bloody cloth and the unused fabric. Then, while my eyes were still closed—before I could tell her to go—the mattress creaked and sagged next to me, and I felt a small warm, strong body lie down next to mine, and a tentative arm drape across my chest so lightly that I barely felt the pressure.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I soon found myself drifting toward sleep again, dozing lightly, awakening now and then to feel Jill’s arm still resting on me. At least, I thought I merely dozed, and that only minutes passed. Yet when I awoke fully, feeling more rested than I had in a long time, I realized that the room had started to grow dim—and Jill’s arm was tighter around me, her body pressed even closer to mine.
How far Jill had come since that night at her house when I’d first tried to kiss her and felt her shyness, her inexperience. And then there had been that strange night in the lab . . .
I shifted and turned to Jill, suddenly uneasy, as if I might find myself face-to-face on the pillow with that frantic creature, whom I nearly hadn’t recognized.
But no, I saw nothing more than sweetness in her eyes, which blinked at me, inches away. Sweetness and tenderness and a hint of the uncertainty that I’d expected she would have when the time came for us to be together like this.
Neither of us speaking—both understanding what was happening—I stroked her cheek with my bandaged hand, not really caring that it ached to touch her. At my very subtle pressure against her shoulder, Jill shifted more to her back, and I managed to rise up, relying on my good arm to brace myself but resting a little heavily on her as we began to kiss, lips barely brushing, not rushing, just savoring being together.
This . . . this was how I wanted to be with her. Not the way she’d been on that first night in the lab, when we’d both gone a little insane.
“Tristen,” she murmured as I settled more completely against her, sliding my hand under the hem of her blouse, caressing the soft skin just above her hip. “Oh, Tristen.” She rested her hand against my bicep, testing my muscle—and tensed beneath me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, reassuring her, wondering if she’d flashed back to the terrible, wonderful night when we’d first kissed. “It’s okay,” I promised again, and felt her relax, soften. She was so, so soft. Her breath against mine, the trace of skin above her hip, her own touch on my skin.
We lay that way for a long time, kissing more deeply, more intensely, Jill slowly gaining confidence, moving her hand into my hair, stroking it as our tongues met again and again, but still I didn’t try to go further. Not yet. She would let me know when she was ready. She would give me some small sign, and until that time I would content myself with giving her what she wanted and nothing more. I would never be that monster again, would not even come close to pressuring her.
“Tristen.” She murmured my name when our lips parted. “Tristen?”
I drew back, moving my injured hand to stroke her cheek again, and she opened her eyes. “What, Jill?” I whispered, mesmerized by the changeable color of those remarkable eyes. “What is it?”
I waited expectantly.
I wanted to hear her say what I saw in those eyes. That she loved me.
I’d thought of saying those words to Jill a dozen times as we’d kissed but ultimately held back. I could tell that Jill, too, was on the verge and—selfish me—I wanted to be told first, not hear my words echoed back to me.
“Tristen,” she whispered, caressing my face, too, her eyes filling with tears. Good tears. The kind of tears that Jill Jekel deserved. Not a torrent of stinging salt water into an open grave but the slightest trickle onto my pillow.
