He smiled a little. "You remind me of Bu-my best friend."
"You mean Red Sox?"
"Yeah, he's always got the comeback."
"Did you know wit is a sign of intelligence?"
The patient dropped his arm. "I never doubted yours. Not for an instant."
Jane had to catch her breath. There was such respect shining in his eyes, and all she could do as she took it in was curse to herself. There was nothing more attractive to her than when a man was into smart women.
Crap.
Stockholm. Stockholm. Stockholm-
"I would love a bath," he said. Then he tacked on, "Please."
Jane cleared her throat. "Okay. Right."
She went through the medical supply duffels, found a large bedpan, and headed for the bathroom. After she filled the basin full of warm water and grabbed a washcloth, she went back out and set herself up on the bedside table on the left. As she wet the little towel and squeezed off the excess, water chimed through the silent room.
She hesitated. Dipped the washcloth again. Squeezed.
Come on, now, you opened up his chest and went into him. You can do this. No problem.
Just think of him as the hood of a car, nothing but surface area.
"Okay." Jane reached out, put the warm cloth to his upper arm, and the patient flinched. All over. "Too hot?"
"No."
"Then what's with the grimace?"
"Nothing."
Under different circumstances she would have pressed, but she had her own problems. His bicep was damn impressive, his tan skin revealing the very cords of the muscle. The same was true of his heavy shoulder and the slope leading down to his pectoral. He was in sublime physical condition, not an ounce of fat on him, lean as a Thoroughbred, muscular as a lion.
When she crossed the pads of his pecs, she paused at the scar on the left one. The circular mark was embedded in the flesh, as if it had been pounded in.
"Why didn't this heal smoothly?" she asked.
"Salt." He fidgeted as if encouraging her to get on with the bath. "Seals the wound."
"So it was deliberate?"
"Yeah."
She dipped the cloth in the water, wrung it out, and awkwardly leaned over him to reach his other arm. When she drew the cloth downward, he pulled away. "Don't want you near that hand of mine. Even if it's gloved."
"Why is-"
"I'm not talking about it. So don't even ask."
Okaaaay. "It nearly killed one of my nurses, you know."
"I'm not surprised." He glared at the glove. "I'd cut it off if I had the chance."
"I wouldn't advise that."
"Of course you wouldn't. You don't know what it's like to live with this nightmare on the end of your arm-"
"No, I meant I'd have someone else do the cutting if I were you. You're more likely to get the job done that way."
There was a beat of silence; then the patient barked out a laugh. "Smart-ass."
Jane hid the smile that popped up on her face by doing another dip/rinse routine. "Just rendering a medical opinion."
As she swept the washcloth down his stomach, laughter rippled through his chest and belly, his muscles going rock-tight, then releasing. Through the terry cloth she could feel the warmth of his body and sense the potency in his blood.
And suddenly he wasn't laughing anymore. She heard what sounded like a hiss come out of his mouth, and his six-pack flexed, his lower body moving under the bedding.
"That knife wound feeling okay?" she asked.
As he made a noise that sounded like an unconvincing yes, she felt bad. She'd been so concerned about his chest, she hadn't paid much attention to the stabbing issue. Lifting the bandage at his side, she saw that he was fully healed, nothing but a faint pink line showing where he'd been injured.
"I'm taking this off." She peeled the white gauze free, folded it in half, and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. "You're amazing, you know that? The healing you can do is just… yeah."
While rerinsing the washcloth, she debated whether she wanted to head farther south. Like, way south. Like… all the way south. The last thing she needed was more intimate knowledge about how perfect his body was, but she wanted to finish the job… if only to prove to herself that he was no different from any of her other patients.
She could do this.
Except when she went to move the covers lower, he grabbed the duvet and held it in place. "Don't think you're going to want to go there."
"It's nothing I haven't seen before." When his lids dropped and he didn't reply, she said in a quiet voice, "I operated on you, so I'm aware that you're partially castrated. I'm not a date, I'm a doctor. I promise that I have no opinion about your body other than what it represents to me clinically."
He winced before he could hide the reaction. "No opinion?"
"Just let me wash you. It's not a big deal."
"Fine." That diamond gaze narrowed. "Suit yourself."
She pulled the sheets away. "There's nothing to be-"
Holy shit…! The patient was fully erect. Massively erect. Lying straight up his lower belly, stretching from his groin to above his navel, was a spectacular arousal.
"No big deal, remember?" he drawled.
"Ah…" She cleared her throat. "Well… I'm just going to keep going."
"Fine with me."
Trouble was, she couldn't precisely recall what she was supposed to be doing with the washcloth. And she was staring. She was seriously staring.
Which was what you did when you got a gander at a man who was hung like a Louisville Slugger.
Oh, God, did she really just think that?
"Since you've already seen what was done to me," he said in a dry voice, "I can only guess you're checking my navel for lint."
Yeah. Right.
Jane got back with the program, running the cloth down his ribs. "So… how did it happen?"
When he didn't answer, she glanced at his face. His eyes were focused across the room, and they were flat, lifeless. She'd seen that look before in patients who'd been attacked, and knew he was remembering a horror.
"Michael," she murmured, "who hurt you?"
He frowned. "Michael?"
"Not your name?" She took the washcloth back to the bowl. "Why am I not surprised?"
"V."
"I'm sorry?"
"Call me V. Please."
She brought the cloth back to his side. "V it is, then."
She tilted her head and watched her hand rise up his torso, then slide down again. She was stalling, not going lower. Because in spite of his distraction with the ugly past, he was still erect. Totally erect.
Okay, time to get moving downward. Hello, she was an adult. A physician. She'd had a couple of lovers. What she was witnessing was just a biological function that resulted in a pooling of blood in his incredibly large-
That was so not where her thoughts needed to go.
As Jane took the cloth down over his hip, she tried to ignore the fact that he shifted as she went along, his back arching, that heavy arousal on his belly pushing forward, then falling back into place.
The tip of it wept a glossy, tempting tear.
She looked up at him… and froze. His eyes were on her throat, and they were burning with a lust that wasn't just sexual.
Any attraction she might have felt for him disappeared. This was a male of another species, not a man. And he was dangerous.
His stare dropped to her hand in the cloth. "I won't bite you."
"Good, because I don't want you to." This she was clear on. Hell, she was glad he'd looked at her like that, because it had jarred her back to reality. "Listen, not that I want to know personally, but does it hurt?"
"Don't know. Never been bitten myself."