Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

Red Sox hesitated until the patient groaned and started to swallow compulsively. "Umm, okay. Listen, before I go, can I get you something fresh to eat? Anything in particular you want?"

"You're kidding me, right? Like I'm supposed to forget the abduction and the mortal threat and give you a drive thru order?"

"No reason not to eat while you're here." He picked up the tray.

God, that voice of his... that rough, hoarse voice with the Boston accent. "I know you. I definitely know you from somewhere. Take the hat off. I want to see your face."

The guy went across the room with the wilted food. "I'll bring you something else to eat."

As the door shut and locked she had a childish urge to run at the thing and pound on it.

But the patient moaned and she looked at him. "You going to stop fighting the urge to throw up now?"

"Fuck... me..." Curling over on his side, the patient began retching.

No bedpan was needed, because he didn't have anything in his stomach, so Jane hauled herself into the bathroom, brought back a towel, and put it to his mouth. While he gagged miserably, he held on to the center of his chest as if he didn't want to pop his wound open.

"It's okay," she said as she put her hand on his smooth back. "You're healed up enough. You're not going to tear that scar open."

"Feels... like... I... Fuck - "

God, he was suffering, his face strained and red, sweat all over him, body heaving. "It's okay, just let it roll through you. The less you fight it, the easier it will be. Yeah... there you go... breathe between them. Okay, now..."

She stroked his spine and held the towel and couldn't help but keep murmuring to him. When it was over, the patient lay still, breathing through his mouth, his hand with the glove clenched around a tangle of sheets.

"That was so not fun," he rasped.

"We'll find you another painkiller," she murmured, brushing his hair from his eyes. "No more Dem for you. Listen, I want to check your wounds, okay?"

He nodded and eased onto his back, the expanse of his chest seeming as big as the damn bed. She was careful with the adhesive tape, gentle as she lifted the gauze. Good lord... The skin that had been perforated by the staples just fifteen minutes ago was completely healed. All that remained was a small pink line down his sternum.

"What are you?" she blurted.

Her patient rolled back toward her. "Tired."

Without even thinking about it she started stroking him again, the sound of her hand smoothing up and down his skin making a hushed noise. It wasn't long before she noticed that his shoulders were all hard muscle... and that what she was touching was warm and very male.

She took back her palm.

"Please." He caught her wrist with his unmarked hand - even though his eyes were closed. "Touch me or... shit, hold on to me, I'm... all adrift. Like I'm going to float away. I can't feel anything. Not the bed... not my body."

She looked down at where he held on to her, then measured his biceps and the breadth of his chest. She had the passing thought that he could snap her arm in two, but she knew he wouldn't. He'd been ready to rip the throat out of one of his nearest and dearest a half hour ago to protect her -

Stop it.

Do not feel safe with him. The Stockholm syndrome is not your friend.

"Please," he said on a shaky breath, shame constricting his voice.

God, she'd never understood how kidnapping victims developed relationships with their captors. It went against all logic as well as the laws of self-preservation: Your enemy cannot be your friend.

But denying him warmth was unthinkable. "I'll need my hand back."

"You have two. Use the other." With that he curled himself around the palm he held on to, the sheets getting pulled farther down his torso.

"Let me switch sides then," she muttered as she slid her hand out of his grip, replaced it, then laid her newly freed palm on his shoulder.

His skin was the golden brown of a summer tan and smooth... boy, it was smooth and supple. Following the curve of his spine she went up to his nape, and before she knew it she was stroking his glossy hair. Short in the back, long around his face - she wondered whether he wore it that way to hide the tattoos on his temple. Except they had to be for show - why else would he put them somewhere so noticeable?

He made a noise in the back of his throat, a purr that rolled through his chest and upper back; then he moved away, the shift tugging her arm. Clearly he wanted her stretched out next to him, but as she resisted, he eased off.

Staring at her arm in the tight clutch of his biceps, she thought about the last time she'd been entwined with a man. Long while. And it hadn't been that good, frankly.

Manello's dark eyes came to mind...

"Don't think of him."

Jane jerked. "How did you know who was on my mind?"

The patient released his hold on her and slowly shifted around so he faced away from her. "Sorry. Not my biz."

"How did you know?"

"I'm going to try to sleep now, okay?"

"Okay."

Jane got up and went back to her chair, thinking of his six-chambered heart. His untypeable blood. Those fangs of his in that blonde's wrist. Glancing over to the window, she wondered if what covered the glass panes was not just for security but also to keep out daylight.

Where did it all leave her? Locked in a room with a... vampire?

The rational side of her rejected the thought out of hand, but at her core she was logic driven. With a shake of the head, she recalled her favorite quote from Sherlock Holmes, paraphrasing it: If you eliminate all possible explanations, then the impossible is the answer. Logic and biology didn't lie, did they? It was one of the reasons why she'd chosen to become a physician in the first place.

She looked down at her patient, getting lost in the implications. The mind reeled at the evolutionary possibilities, but she also considered more practical matters. She thought about the drugs in that duffel bag and the fact that her patient had been out in a dangerous part of town when he'd been shot. And hello, they'd kidnapped her.

How could she possibly trust him or his word?

Jane put her hand in her pocket and felt for the razor. The answer to that one was easy. She couldn't.

Chapter Fourteen

Up in his bedroom at the big house, Phury sat with his back against his headboard and his blue velvet duvet over his legs. His prosthesis was off, and a blunt was smoldering in a heavy glass ashtray next to him. Mozart drifted out of a set of hidden Bose speakers.

The book of firearms in front of him was being used as a lap easel instead of reading material. A thick sheet of white paper was laid out on top of the thing, but he hadn't made any marks on it with his Ticonderoga No. 2 for a while. The portrait was complete. He'd finished it about an hour ago and was working up the courage to wad it up and throw it out.

Even though he was never satisfied with his drawings, he almost liked this one. From out of the blizzard-thick blankness of the page, a female's face and neck and hair had been revealed by strokes of lead. Bella was staring off to the left, a slight smile on her lips, a strand of her dark hair across her cheek. He'd caught sight of the pose at Last Meal this evening. She'd been looking at Zsadist, which explained the secret lift to her mouth.

In all the poses he'd drawn her in, Phury always sketched her with her eyes elsewhere. If she were staring out of the page, at him, that just seemed inappropriate. Hell, drawing her at all was inappropriate.

He flattened his hand over her face, prepared to crumple the paper.

At the last moment he went for the blunt instead, craving some artificial ease as his heart beat too hard. He was smoking a lot lately. More than ever. And though relying on the chemical calm made him feel dirty, the idea of stopping never crossed his mind. He couldn't imagine getting through the day without help.

As he took another hit and held on to the smoke with his lungs, he thought of his brush with heroin. Back in December the backflip off the H-cliff had been prevented not by his making a good choice, but because John Matthew happened to pick the right time to interrupt.

Phury exhaled and stared at the tip of the blunt. The temptation to try something more hard-core was back. He could feel the urge to go to Rehv and ask the male for another Baggie full of deep nod. Maybe then he'd get some peace.

A knock went off on his door and Z's voice said, "Can I come in?"

Phury stuffed the drawing into the belly of the firearms book. "Yeah."