Chapter 5
SHAYNE RUSHED HER INTO the bathroom. He couldn't say which one of them was shaking the most. Anna was awake, and he could see the effects of the head injury. Her eyes were opened wide, and her pupils were dilated. Even though he'd spent years immortal, he knew it wasn’t a good sign.
“Put me down,” she ordered, then winced from the pain.
The lights came on automatically, flooding the room in light. He finally let her slide down. Anna wobbled as she yanked herself away from him.
“Sit down over there,” Shayne ordered, indicating a bathroom seat. She crossed her arms and glared. “I’m not going anywhere until I've examined your head,” he explained, in an exasperated tone of voice.
Turning her around, he peered at the area that was already turning black and blue. However, there wasn't any blood. “Figures,” he said, sarcastically. “You have a damned hard head.”
Anna continued to glare at him. He couldn't help but grin. “Oh, if looks could kill,” he added, meeting her eyes. “I see you're not only awake but alert as well.” He was worried. Head injuries could be dangerous.
He decided then and there that he would stay up and watch over her. Once they were in Las Vegas, she’d be seen by the best doctor they had. The endurers had a lot of people on staff, ranging from doctors to zoologists. The tricky part was keeping a person alive until one of them could help.
Anna was in pain, scared, and filthy, yet she'd managed to retain her composure and hadn’t fallen apart. He respected that. Most women would have been hysterical.
Shayne grabbed her torn sweater, attempting to pull it off of her. “You don’t need to be alone,” he explained, as he threw it to the side. She swatted at his hands when he reached for her pants and then winced as the pain jarred her head. “I can undress myself,” she replied, her face red. “I’m not a baby. Just leave.”
Ignoring her, he walked to the giant bathtub and started the water. Another man would have been fooled by the harshness of her words and her fierce attitude. He wasn’t just another man, though. Shayne had looked in her eyes and seen the fear. That fear wasn’t just from attacks. It came from the fear of rejection. She had lost all hope in men. Perhaps even humanity itself. Someone had hurt her badly.
As he watched the tub fill, Shayne wondered about her history. Then he wondered why he felt as if he understood her so well. Usually their gifts didn’t extend to any type of mind reading, but he felt like he understood her completely, and that puzzled him.
In a moment of clarity, he knew how a society steeped in perfection would have branded her. A plump and gorgeous woman like Anna would have found it hellish in modern-day times. Society would have picked apart every ounce of self-esteem she had and left her feeling inadequate.
He glared at the tub in silence. Slender female peers would have always felt they were better or more attractive than she was, simply because she had size. The men weren’t even worth mentioning. It was pretty obvious that none had manned up, or she wouldn’t still be single.
Shayne felt anger that she would have been subjected to something like that. Anna was truly more precious than rubies, and the men wouldn’t have had the sense to realize it. Certainly none of them would have been what she needed. Shayne felt positive it had made a negative impact on the way she felt about herself, and the way she viewed sex and relationships in general.
Turning back to watch her, he saw she had picked up the torn sweater and was holding it in front of her luscious body like a shield. Her expressive eyes watched his every movement, torn between pain, fascination, and anxiety. The lighting behind her made her reddish-blonde hair glow as it cascaded down her back. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, and she looked at him as if she felt the exact same way.
Need suddenly rode him hard. If it weren’t for the concussion, he would have tasted her lips and not been able to stop. At that moment, he wanted to kiss her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, and it made it hard for him to leave.
With a sigh, he ran his hand over his hair and headed toward the door. “Let me know if you need anything else,” he said sincerely, before he gently shut it behind him.
ANNA’S EYES CLOSED in relief, ignoring the longing running throughout her body. For just a brief moment, she'd been tempted to toss her clothing to the side and stand naked in front of him. Shaking her head, though, she realized it was a foolish idea. The head injury was playing tricks with her mind. She cringed at the thought of her belly and thighs without the clothing that covered them. It would have sent Shayne running for the door.
Anna knew what she looked like, and guys like him were never interested in overweight women like her. Not seriously. He was the type of man who would only want a relationship with a body-conscious woman. Her lips twisted in a grimace as she imagined his perfect woman. She would be the exact opposite of her.
She began undressing as she thought more about the man in the other room. In an alternate universe, he would be the perfect man for her. Kind, compassionate, and strong, he had many qualities she was truly attracted to. Maybe if she were a size four instead of twenty-four, she would have made a play for him, and maybe, just maybe, he would have accepted.
In this universe, though, she was just asking for trouble by even thinking about it. She closed her eyes as some
