But, on the second night, I arrive home from work to find him sitting up in bed.
“You know if you let me out of this cuff, you wouldn’t have to do that,” he says as I remove his bedpan, first thing first.
I almost laugh. Clearing a few bedpans is a way better alternative than letting a predator roam free in my apartment.
“I’m good, thanks,” I answer.
After dealing with his bedpan, I shower and then fix dinner—a reheat of the soup I made on my last day off.
I can feel his eyes on me as I move around the kitchen. And I try to act like I don’t notice he’s tracking me.
But I notice. I notice too much. And I’m almost grateful when his eyes start drooping halfway through his meal.
“I was going to bring out the stuff for a sponge bath, but we can save it for tomorrow morning before I go to work if you want.”
He lifts his brows, and his eyes become a lot less tired as he answers with a string of Spanish.
“All I understood was the ‘little angel’ part,” I admit with a grimace as I take the tray away.
He tilts his head. “Your brother runs a Latin street gang, but you don’t speak Spanish?”
“Ant and I came into our foster home situation from two different backgrounds, and far as I know, I’m all black with zero Hispanic heritage.”
I carry our dishes over to the sink and turn the water on to wash them by hand. “It’s on my list of languages to learn, though. I’m kicking myself for not trying to speak it with Ant when we lived in the same house. But I didn’t know I was going to become a nurse down the line.”
“I didn’t speak that much Spanish growing up either. But it’s come in handy for sure.”
I’ve been trying to resist, but curiosity wins out in the end. I have to ask him, “Where are you from?”
“Tennessee, but I live in Iowa.”
Well, that explains the southern accent.
“How did you end up in Iowa?”
He grits his jaw. “Long story.”
So, he’s a guy with secrets.
But I don’t ask any follow-up questions. Instead, I clean the rest of the dishes by hand and try for what feels like the umpteenth time since his arrival not to wonder about him.
I get everything ready for a sponge bath when I’m at the kitchen sink, but when I bring over the supplies, I find him slumped over in bed, dead asleep, his hair hanging down over his closed eyes.
He barely stirs when I straighten him out, and it occurs to me, I could give the top half of him a quick sponge bath without it being as awkward as it would be with him awake and regarding me with his intense blue stare.
But first, I go through the whole clean and redress routine with his wound. The bullet’s getting closer to the surface. There’s a chance it will safely work itself out over the next few days.
Then I can stitch him up and send him on his way. No more tiger in my apartment. I’d be done with him, and we’d probably never see each other again.
And once he’s gone, I can put all my after-work energy where it belongs—in getting Jonathan to unpause our relationship.
I wait for the relief that should come with the thought of that hopeful outcome. But it never arrives.
Okay, don’t think about that, I advise myself. I just need to get this top half sponge bath done. Then I can curl up on the couch with my latest T.S. Joyce shifter novel and spend another night pretending I don’t have a biker gang criminal handcuffed to my bed.
With that mission placed firmly in the front of my mind, I dip the washcloth in the bowl of water and run it over his chest. Efficiently. Coldly.
At least I try. A hard zap of his strange energy hits me as soon as I touch him, and a tugging heaviness settles in the bottom-most part of my pelvis.
The same annoying heaviness that sometimes makes it hard to sleep when I’m ovulating or had too much to drink after a club night with Sierra. Only ten times worse.
And in this case, getting rid of the unwanted arousal with the help of the pocket vibrator I used to keep in the nightstand before I replaced it with a bedpan isn’t an option.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
I clear my throat and avert my eyes with that question echoing in my head.
Big mistake.
The biker might be asleep, but another part of him is wholly awake. Thick, long, and rising up like a mountain range along the side seam of his sweatpants.
My mouth dries, and I quickly raise my eyes back up to this face—the only place it’s safe to look.