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A part of him hoped she would draw Giovanni, but the tingles that filled him told him that was a false hope. She was drawing him, drawing Luka, again. This time his eyes looked right, blank in his face. Her pencil sketched in the knife, and he realized she was drawing him as he had looked when he’d attacked her.
Shame flowed through him. The blank stare was more than accurate. The monster in him had lashed out in reaction to the pain Ivankov had inflicted, the pain that had been the only thing his mind could make sense of. “Sorry,” he forced out. Despite his reasons, he’d attacked a woman. He remembered the way his knife had entered the dead woman, and panic filled him. Even with his rules, he was no better than the one who had created him, not really. And it hadn’t been just any woman he’d attacked. It had been Alina. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, even though he knew his words weren’t enough.
Alina didn’t tell him it was okay, or that she forgave him. She let the pencil nub drop to the desk among the few that were left and then crossed to the bathroom. The sink turned on, and he listened to the sound of the water. Then she moved to the bed, gesturing toward his stomach.
“It’s time to change the bandage.” Her hands shook as she carefully pulled up the hem of his shirt to expose his wound. She had to touch his skin to ease the adhesive off. She knew it would bring pain, and she dreaded it. Alina wasn’t as similar to him as he’d first thought, not if she lacked that desire to cause harm.
And her touch did hurt. Luka’s hands fisted at his sides as her knuckles moved against him, her fingers working the strips holding down the bandage free. The stabbing arcs of pain from her touch mixed with a return of the tingling, equally uncomfortable but in a totally different way.
“It’s not as warm. That seems good.” Alina’s smile wasn’t the true one he’d seen, but the brittle and cracked one filled with nerves. “And no bleeding. My new stitches held.” She covered the wound with a new bandage. Her fingers brushed against him, the touch almost nonexistent but sending more of the mixture of pain and tingles through his entire body. It was made worse when her fingers smoothed over the new adhesive. Heat rushed to his groin as he looked away from her face, which was filled with concentration as she touched him again and again with each new strip of tape.
It was a pain he’d only experienced twice before, and his body struggled to absorb it as the urge to flee rose. Then she was finished and tugging his shirt down and the blanket up. He expected her to be disgusted by his sudden erection.
She didn’t glance at it once. She rose to gather the pills she’d given him before.
Luka still had the urge to run, but that would tear open the stitches she’d mentioned and ruin her good intentions.
“We’re out of pain relievers, but that should be fine now that your fever has broken,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. The sound of her voice had become like a caress, and more heat gathered. The blankets were thick, but still his erection tented them a little.
When she returned, her hands slipped behind his neck, and the pain and tingling mixed to a crescendo that had him groaning in shame as his body reacted.
“Sorry, almost there,” her voice said as she held the glass to his lips to help him swallow the pills. But with the words her fingers seemed to stroke a subtle sympathy that made him want to tell her to stop, but that also sent a shot of desire through him that could tear him apart. His sudden need for her was like a new form of torture, and his body embraced it greedily, making him shudder as the urge to escape renewed.
The memory of the first time he’d had an erection, when Giovanni had been using his own on his wife, caused some of his panic to subside. Giovanni hadn’t been hurting anyone. Luka wouldn’t either. He controlled his pain, and this was just a new version of it. It was an ache unlike anything else, and somehow more potent, but he could control it.
She pulled away and set the glass on the nightstand again. When she went to rise, her body swayed, and she sank onto the edge of the bed, squeezing her eyes shut.
His sudden concern gave him something else to focus on. He realized that each time he’d become aware, she’d also been awake, either caring for him or focused on her art or talking. She hadn’t slept for more than two days.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, her arm tensing as if she planned to push up again.
Luka’s fingers snaked around her wrist. Her wrist was so small, delicate feeling, but he knew that was misleading. She’d stabbed again and again with that hand. She’d also kept up those cooling strokes for hours.
The pain of touching someone was present, but concern for her overcame the heat from before.
“Rest,” he told her, tugging gently as he shifted his body until his arm had to stretch out to keep touching her.
She frowned down at his hand on her. “Doesn’t it hurt?” she mumbled, her eyelids already at half-mast.
“Rest,” he repeated, ignoring the question. Of course it hurt. He couldn’t imagine a time when touching someone or being touched wouldn’t hurt. The muddy mixture that touching Alina had become was confusing enough that he was content to ignore it. “I’ll live,” he said, though it wasn’t in response to her question. It was an assurance that she’d done enough, more than enough, to keep him alive.
“I know,” she murmured, but it was as if her body hadn’t known. His assurance drained the last of her tension. Her body melted into the bed, and she curled up on her side on top of the covers, taking up as little space as possible. “Fever… broke…” The words were a fading mumble as sleep claimed her with his fingers continuing to encircle her wrist.
Luka was unwilling to pull away despite the pain. Or maybe because of it. The tension in his body slowly switched to something more familiar. Each of her peaceful, even breaths drained more of his body’s unwholesome interest. The way she’d acknowledged that he’d live, with a contentment that underscored how much she wanted that to be so, made him happy, but it wasn’t just that.
She drifted off to sleep with him right there. That meant she trusted him despite his sudden violence while she’d cared for him. He didn’t understand her trust but was glad for it all the same.
He lay awake, watching her face and wishing there was a way he could thank her beyond meaningless words he would struggle to force free. His mind flipped through snippets of things she’d said to him while he’d been in and out of consciousness. She’d shared so many parts of herself. Even Willow hadn’t shared as much, mostly keeping her own silence, as if she assumed because he didn’t talk, he would prefer she didn’t.
Soon his body was calm and relaxed. He slipped into a restful sleep beside Alina, keeping his loose hold on her wrist.
Chapter 15
Alina didn’t sleep for long despite how exhausted she was. She jerked awake beside Luka, feeling his slackened fingers slip from around her wrist as she slipped off the bed.
Luka was a light sleeper. His hand patted as if to find her presence as his eyes slitted open, squinting against the sunlight that filtered through the window behind her. “Rest,” he said in that temptingly low tone that had seemed to melt her body before.
“You need to eat,” Alina said as she backed toward the doorway. She had the urge to lie beside him again, which was the worst kind of self-sabotage. Leaving the room felt a bit like escaping.
