Talk about your long silences. But then in the light that streamed in from over at the bed, he nodded.
“While you undress out there,” she said, “you can shut the door and I’ll use the loo.”
With that, she gripped the bar that was bolted into the wall and maneuvered herself over. There was another pause, and then John stepped back and the light source was dimmed.
After she took care of business, she dragged herself up and cracked the door.
What she got was that pad in her face:
“That’s okay. I’m hardly the shy kind.”
Although that proved to be not entirely accurate as the two of them got into the stall shower together. You’d think after all she’d been through that a little skin, in a darkened room, with a male she trusted and had already been with, wouldn’t have been a big deal. It was, though.
Especially as his body brushed against the back of her as he shut the glass door.
Concentrate on the water, she told herself, wondering if she’d lost her damn mind.
As she tilted her head up, she started to list to the side and his big hand slipped under her arm to hold her vertical.
“Thank you,” she said roughly.
Awkward as the situation was, the hot water felt great as it bled into her hair down to her scalp, and the idea that she could clean herself off was suddenly more of a priority than everything John Matthew wasn’t wearing.
“I forgot the soap, damn it.”
John pulled another lean and lunge, his hips pushing into hers. And although she tensed up, bracing herself for something sexual... he wasn’t aroused.
Which was a relief. After the stuff Lash had done to her—
As the soap was pressed into her palm, she locked down all thoughts of what had happened in that bedroom and just wet the bar under the spray. Wash herself. Dry off. Back to bed. That’s all she had to think about.
The strong, distinct smell of Dial wafted up and she had to blink fast.
It was exactly what she would have chosen herself.
Amazing, John thought as he stood behind Xhex.
If you looked down at your cock and balls and told them that if they behaved badly you would slice them up and bury them in the backyard, they actually listened to you.
He was going to have to remember this.
The shower stall was a generous size for a male, but it was close quarters with the two of them and he had to keep his ass pressed against the cool tile to make one hundred percent sure that Mr. Bright Idea and his twin sidekicks, Dumber and Dumberer, stayed away from her.
After all, the pep talk had done wonders, but he wasn’t going to push it.
Besides, he remained shocked that Xhex was so weak he needed to hold her upright—even after feeding. Then again, you didn’t just shake off four weeks of hell after a two-hour nap. Which was how long she’d been asleep, according to his watch.
As she hit the shampoo, she arched her back, her wet hair brushing against his chest before she turned around to rinse the suds. He switched his grip as necessary, holding first her right upper arm, then her left, then again her right.
Trouble hit when she bent over to wash her legs.
“Shit—” Her balance shifted so fast, his grip popped off her slick, soapy biceps and she fell right against his body.
He had a brief, vivid impression of slippery, wet, and warm and then he slammed himself back against the wall and scrambled for a less full-contact way of keeping her upright.
“I wish there was a seat here,” she said. “I can’t seem to keep my damn balance.”
There was a pause... and then he took the soap from her. Moving slowly, he traded places with her, easing her into the corner he’d parked his ass in, and putting her palms on his shoulders.
As he knelt down, he turned the Dial bar in his hands, working up a good froth while the water pounded on the back of his head and rivered down his spine. The tile was hard under his kneecaps and one set of his toes pressed into the drain as if the thing had teeth and was taking a nibble, but he didn’t care.
He was about to touch her. And that was all that mattered.
Wrapping his hand around her ankle, he gave her a gentle tug, and after a moment, she eased her weight to the opposite side and gave him her foot. He put the bar of soap down next to the door and smoothed over her sole and up onto her heel, massaging, cleaning...
Worshiping without expecting anything in return.
He went slowly, especially as he headed up onto her leg, pausing every now and again to make sure he didn’t push on any of the bruises. Her calf muscle was rock-hard, and the bones that went up into her knee seemed strong as a male’s, but she was dainty in her own way. At least compared to him.
As he went even higher, up onto her thigh, he gravitated to the outside. The last thing he wanted her to worry about was him coming on to her, and when he got to her hip, he stopped and picked up the soap again.
After rinsing the bottom of her foot off, he tapped her other ankle, and felt a spear of relief as she obligingly gave him a chance to repeat what he’d done.
Slow massages, slow hands, slow progress... and only on the outside up toward the top.
When he was finished, he stood, his knees cracking as he lifted to his full height and maneuvered her under the spray. Holding on to her arm again, he gave her the soap so she could wash whatever else there was to be done.
“John?” she said.
As it was dark, he whistled a
“You are such a male of worth, you know that. You really are.”
She reached up and cupped his face.
It happened so fast, he couldn’t believe it. Later, he would play and replay everything over and over again, stretching out the moment endlessly, reliving it and taking a strange kind of nourishment from the memory, again and again.
When it actually went down, though, it was just an instant. An impulse on her part. A chaste gift given in gratitude for a chaste gift received.
Xhex flexed up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his.
Oh, so soft. Her lips were incredibly soft. And gentle. And very warm.
The contact was far too fleeting, but then again, he was ready to go for hours and hours and call that almost long enough.
“Come lie with me,” she said, opening the door to the shower and stepping out. “I don’t like you on the floor. You deserve much better than that.”
Dimly, he shut off the water and followed her, accepting the towel she handed him. They dried off together, her wrapping her whole torso up, him covering his hips.
Outside, he got up on the hospital bed first and it felt like the most natural thing in the world for him to open his arms wide. If he’d thought about it, he wouldn’t have made the gesture, but he wasn’t thinking.
Which was okay.
Because she came to him as the spraying water in the shower had, drenching him in a warmth that leached through his skin and into his marrow.
But of course, Xhex went even farther through him than that. She always had.
Seemed like he’d lost his soul to her the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
As he clicked off the light and she settled even closer to him, it felt like she was burrowing right into his cold heart and setting up shop, her banked fire thawing his soul out until he took the first honest-to-God deep breath in months.
John closed his eyes, not expecting to sleep.
He did, though. And very, very well.
