Chapter 27

Olivia's warm, tentative hand slid up Nate's arm and he pinched his eyes tighter, gripped the edge of the sink in her suite's kitchen harder. He tensed at the pleasure/pain combo her touch forever instilled and hunched to defend himself. Or her.

For going on three days, he'd watched her lying in bed, pale as a corpse, and sick to his gut with abject fear she wouldn't wake up. Every concussion check by Mae or Amy or Nakos that first night had been goddamn torture until she'd briefly opened her eyes, muttered a few syllables, and drifted off again.

And mercy. That fever? The need for an IV? Her drenched in sweat and hotter than the damn desert he'd escaped? He'd thought he'd die. Shit, death would've been preferable. He'd almost redecorated her bedroom by punching holes through the drywall upwards of a thousand times.

None of his experiences had prepared him for that. Nearly starved as a child in foster care...subordinate to countless violent acts in that gang as a teen...holding Justin's hand while he'd slowly, painfully slipped away. Christ. Nate would gladly relive every second of his crappy life if it meant he wouldn't have to spend one more second at her bedside like he'd done the last couple nights.

Powerless to do a thing. Utterly...fucking...helpless.

There had been no outlet for the mutinous assault then and there wasn't one now. Insects burrowing under his skin. Knives piercing his chest. A vise squeezing his lungs. Sandpaper grating his throat. Images upon countless images strobing through his mind.

If this was what caring about someone was like, what the hell was he supposed to do? Because he couldn't handle it, couldn't live like this.

She ducked under his arm and stepped between him and the sink.

He didn't dare move, not even to open his eyes. "Olivia, baby, I'm at serious risk for coming unhinged."

Her arms wrapped around his waist and she brought herself flush against him. While he struggled with depleting oxygen levels, she rose on her toes and pressed her face into the crook of his neck.

Warm, soft body. Her scent of rain. Her hot, shallow exhalations caressing his skin.

Funny, he'd always thought he was headed straight for hell, but Olivia Cattenach was everything that embodied heaven, minus the wings. She probably had those stored away somewhere for future use.

"You're okay," she whispered.

Why the hell was she telling him the platitude when it was her who'd been sick and injured? Why would

"You're okay," she repeated. "You're safe."

Shit. Because it was the exact thing he'd needed to hear, that's why.

Filling his lungs with much-needed air, he wrapped an arm around her back and shoved his shaking hand in her hair. Holding the back of her head, he pulled her close enough the holy ghost couldn't have come between them and...

Yes. Finally. His heart stopped relocating ribs and something close to normal respirations returned. The knots in his gut unraveled. His shoulders released the steel strain encasing his muscles.

Once he figured he could speak, he leaned back and looked at her. "Are you feeling better now that you ate something?"

"Yes. Come take a nap with me. You need to rest and I'm tired, too."

She'd been unconscious two days and wanted more? "Sleeping together is not a good idea."

"Not this again." She rolled her eyes with an impish smile and walked her fingers down his back. "I meant actual sleep. But if you're"

"So did I." He reached around and halted her hands before she got to his ass. "I don't trust myself not to accidentally hurt you while I'm still experiencing nightmares."

"Oh." Blink, blink. Pout. "Are things out of place when you wake up? The room destroyed?"

"No."

"Is Bones still catching you before they get too bad?"

"Yes." He narrowed his eyes. She was trapping him again, but the idea of lying next to her was too damn tempting. Especially now that he was blessedly calming down and she was out of the woods. "I can crash on the couch if you promise not to roam around while I'm zonked out or get yourself into trouble."

"You can monitor potential naughty behavior from next to me." She ducked under his arm and moved around him, only to stop short and grab her head. Swayed. "Note to self. Don't do that anymore."

Christ. He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, depositing her on the bed. He climbed in after her and covered them with blankets. The dog trotted in, jumped onto the mattress, and curled up by their feet.

She rolled on her side to face him. "You changed my sheets."

He grunted. "While you were in the bath. Figured you'd want clean ones." He brushed a strand of hair away from her stitches, noting the swelling had gone down and the site looked less angry. An ugly bruise surrounded the area, though. "Go to sleep, baby."

With a sigh, she closed her eyes, and he propped his head in his hand to watch her. Because he liked the calm it brought him, he lightly ran his fingers through her auburn strands.

Her jaw and cheekbones had a fragile quality to them, especially while she slept. He'd noticed while endlessly monitoring her the past couple days, but he was much closer now and it punctuated the point. Little button nose. Full lips just this side of sulky and with a naturally dark hue. She didn't need a swipe of cosmetics to be lovely. In fact, he couldn't remember seeing her wear any.

"Stop staring at me and go to sleep."

He smiled. "How can you tell with your eyes closed?"

"Because you know my eyes are closed, that's how." Her lips curved in a wistful ghost of a smile. "Besides, your lashes are criminally long and create a tornado every time you blink."

A laugh pushed past his lips. "Is that right?"

She hummed. "Seriously, Nate. I'm fine. You're fine. The dog's right there."

If she said it a zillion more times, he might believe her. Yet, he was exhausted and the adrenaline crash was wearing off.

He rested his head on the pillow and draped his arm over her waist. He'd never slept with anyone before and found he didn't mind. There was no suffocating sense of smothering or lack of privacy he'd expected. She wouldn't be a bad thing to wake up to first thing, either. He glanced at her injury, the sutures and bruise, and that was enough to speed his pulse all over again.

Her facedown on the creek bank. All that blood. Blue lips and chattering teeth.

She'd inadvertently replaced awful PTSD images with worse ones and hadn't realized it. There wasn't an hour that went by where Justin's face didn't shove to mind, followed by crippling guilt. And now her with a gun to her head or bleeding and hypothermic on the ground added to the mix.

The Cattenachs were kryptonite. Had to be. Both siblings had wormed their way in and burrowed so deep he'd never extract them. He didn't know whether to be pissed off or grateful.

She opened one eye. "Do I need to call Hank for that sedative after all?"

"What?"

"Hank offered to knock you out with drugs." When he couldn't find something to say, she inched closer until their noses brushed. "I thought she was dead. Hank said you kept repeating that."

Damn. He sighed, at a loss.

She lifted his arm and pressed his palm to her chest. "Feel that? My heart's beating."

Proof didn't erase memory. "I feel it." He felt her every-fucking-where and all the time.

"Close your eyes. Do it." He complied, and she slipped her thigh between his, then idly traced patterns on his pec with her fingers. "Remember the first time we kissed?"

As if he'd ever forget. "On your couch in your living room."

"And it's a good memory?"

He lifted his lids and was rendered mute by her cornflower eyes, the cajoling touch of her fingertips, and her rain scent.

"Was it?"

He cleared his throat. "Yes." He didn't have many good things to hold onto or drum up from memory at will, but kissing her was at the top of the short stack. Not just because it had been hot as hell, but it had been one of the only instances where he'd done anything so intimate. Or wanted to. "Scary and frustrating, but good."

At some point, he might even get used to the way his brain detached from his mouth around her. The crap she continuously got him to admit was downright humiliating.

"Close your eyes, think of that, and go to sleep." Shekissed his nose and resettled. Her lids drifted shut as if an exclamation point to her rhetoric.

Fine. Securing her against him with an arm around her back, he pressed his lips to her forehead and closed his eyes. When he opened them, her room was dark, night had fallen outside her window, and he was hard.

She had her face buried in his neck like she so often preferred to do and every supple curve of her was molded to him. Still on their sides facing each other, they were a tangled knot under the sheets. There was no way to extradite himself without waking her.

How long had they been out? He glanced at the alarm clock, shocked as shit it was past midnight. Ten or so hours. No nightmares, either.

Something pinched inside his chest. Not altogether unpleasant, but a new sensation nonetheless. He couldn't recall ever being interested insnuggling. Or whatever it was they were doing. Stranger yet was the fact he didn't want to move.

The dog had other ideas. Bones stood at the end of the mattress, stretched, and hopped onto the floor to curl up in the doorway.

Olivia made a mewling noise and stirred. Her hand, trapped between their bodies, slid from his abs and dipped under his shirt. Fingernails traced his ribs and up to his chest.

He couldn't tell if she was asleep or screwing with him, so he kept quiet and unmoving until those goddamn wonderful fingers started to descend again. "Olivia, what are you doing?"

"If you can't tell, I'm more out of practice than I thought."