Chapter 252: Reid
When Jake leaves, I slide an arm under her knees and another behind her back and lift. She makes that small breathy sound that always gets me, then laughs into my throat. “I can take the stairs, you know.”
“No way,” I murmur, mouth to her hair. “Not tonight.”
I carry her up, feel the careful weight of her, the new softness that comes after weeks of sharpened fear. In the bathroom, I set her on the bench and start with the zipper at her collarbone. Her breath hitches. Mine does too. She’s so goddamn beautiful I could drown in it—and I hate every yellowing bruise that blooms where my hands want to worship. I hate the thin ladder of stitches along her forearm, the fading fingerprints at her throat. They’re not part of her; they’re vandalism on a masterpiece.
She looks up at me through her lashes—steady, trusting, a little shy—and lifts her chin so I can peel her out of the rest. My hands are gentler than they’ve ever been. I take every piece of clothing off of her, taking my damn time because... fuck, because I missed seeing her. All of her. When she’s bare, all freckled light and stubborn strength, I strip too. Her lips part. Her gaze drags down my chest, lower, and color warms her cheeks. I can’t help the curl of my mouth.
“Still?” I tease, low.
“Always,” she whispers, and something hot and possessive growls in my ribs. I see the way her nipples harden into peaks, the goosebumps on her skin, the pink on her cheeks. She wants me as much as I want her and God I wish I could take her.
Not yet. She needs time, not hunger. I will my dick to calm the fuck down and hook my arm around her again and step us into the shower.
“Hands on the wall,” I say, turning her so the bandaged wrist is safe from the spray. “Keep them there for me, Trouble.”
Steam climbs. I run the water hot until the hospital smell is a ghost in the corners and the air smells like her—vanilla and something sweet that’s only Madeline. “Lean back,” I murmur, bracing her with a palm between her shoulders. She tips her head and I pour warmth over copper waves, finger-combing slow, slow, slow until the water sheets honey-slick over her scalp. Shampoo, her shampoo, lathers under my hands. I work it through carefully, protective as a prayer. Rinse. Conditioner. Time stretches thin and golden in the hiss and the heat.
“Good,” I tell her. “That’s my girl.”
The words come out rougher than I mean them. She shivers—not from cold—and presses her forehead to the tile. If this were any other time, if she wasn't hurt, I would still tell her to keep her hands on the wall, but I'd push myself inside and make her forget her own name. Again, I need to keep my dick under control.
I wash her like I’m learning her all over again: the slope of her shoulder, the soft angle of her waist, the delicate notch of hipbone my palm cups like it was made to fit there. Everywhere I touch, I map. Everywhere that hurts, I go lighter, reverent. The line of stitches gets nothing but the warm flat of my hand, held just above like a promise. I can’t see her face, but the way her breath evens, the way the tightness leaves her spine, tells me what I need to know.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur to the nape of her neck. “You’re safe.”
I wash myself fast, shut off the water, and pull a towel down around her, then another around me. She sinks into the cotton, boneless with clean. I lift her again—she fits against me like she's mine and mine only—and carry her to my room.
I dress quickly: joggers, a T-shirt. Then I step in front of her. “What do you want to wear?”
She smiles, lazy and wicked, and says, “You pick.”
I sift her bag until I find lace panties—soft, comfortable, pretty enough to make my chest ache—and then cross to my closet. The first shirt my hand lands on is my old team tee, worn thin from a hundred washes, letters cracked but still bold.
Her brows lift when I turn back. “My suitcase is right there, and you choose your clothes?”
“Nothing,” I say, kneeling between her knees, “pleases me more than seeing you swallowed up in my clothes.”
Color touches her cheekbones once more. She doesn’t argue.
“Lift,” I murmur, and she does, trusting, hands braced on the mattress while I ease the panties up the length of her legs. I kiss the inside of one knee—light, careful. I kiss the other. Up, slow, the sugar-sweet line of her thigh, the familiar silk of skin that’s gotten warm again, alive again. Over the soft plane of her belly: one kiss, two. I remind myself of the promise to put babies in there one day, if she wants it. I settle the shirt over her head, draw it down over bandages and bruises and the curve of her, and it swallows her just like I wanted, the hem skimming her thighs, my number glaring bright on her chest.
She peeks out of the collar, green eyes shining under damp lashes, and I swear the ground tilts.
I palm her jaw, thumb stroking the hinge, and lean in to press my mouth to her collarbone, to the place her pulse beats steady now, steady for me. “I love how warm your skin is now,” I tell her, voice gone dark and honest. “Feels like you again.”