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“Ditto,” I laughed breathlessly. He grinned a little, then stopped as he seemed to take me in from top to toe.
“Much as I’m desperate to continue this, you’re hurt and exhausted,” he sighed.
“I’m fine.”
“Sweetheart, your head is bleeding and your legs are shaking like Jell-o. I think we have to take a raincheck and take care of you, yeah?”
I reached up and felt the cut on my head, and sure enough blood was trickling from it slowly.
“Fine,” I pouted. “But you have to get out of here. I can’t concentrate on anything but climbing you if you’re in here with me,” I admitted.
“Climbing me?” he laughed.
“How else would it work? You’re freaking huge nowadays,” I pointed out.
“Oh, it’ll work, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about that.” He had a shit eating grin on his face as he lowered my shaky legs to the tiled ground and stepped back away from me, his hands remaining stretched out between us like he expected me to just crumble the minute he let go.
“Out!” I scolded as I pointed to the glass door. “No more sexy smirks unless you’re gonna back them up with action.”
“Fine,” he was chuckling as he held his hands up in surrender. “You sure you’ll be okay, though? You’re pretty shaky?”
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll wait outside, so just call out if you need me, okay?” he said as he leant in and kissed the end of my nose, making me smile again as he slipped from the shower cubicle, his soaked clothes leaving a trail of drips behind him.
I sighed deeply as I turned my body to face the warm powerful spray. Harris was right. I was exhausted and hurting. It wasn’t the right time for us to take things any further, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. After everything that had happened I had just felt so good in his hold, his lips on mine. I’d felt more like myself than I had in so very long and I just didn’t want to let that feeling go.
As if reminding me of my reality, blood trickled down my face from the cut on my head and the perfect bubble Harris had built around me was burst.
I set to work stripping out of the mud covered, bloodied clothes which were now sodden too. It was hard work getting the wet garments off, and by the time I was naked, I was also shaking so hard I could barely stand. Too tired to care I sank down the wall until I landed on my ass, the spray of the water crashing down over my head rhythmically.
For a long while I just sat there, watching the water flow away from me across the white tiles, stained brown from the filth that covered my body and then pink from the blood that wouldn’t seem to stop flowing from the cut on my head. I realized I must have somehow caused it to open again when Harris and I were frantically sharing our kiss.
My legs and arms were covered in bruises and scratches from my sprint and walk through the woods, and my face was throbbing from the punch Soloman had landed there. There was a deep gash on my arm too, which I barely remembered the cause of, but at least that wasn’t bleeding.
I was a mess, but I meant what I had told the guys – I was whole. I had to be grateful for that. God only knew what Soloman had planned for me when he took me from the daycare, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. At best he planned to end me. At worst he was taking me back to that hell to torture me again, and I never would have survived that all over again – that I knew for a fact. No, I had to count my lucky stars that I’d gotten away, and I would, over and over again.
“Ev? You okay in there?” Harris asked over the sound of the shower, startling me from my thoughts. I looked up, but the glass was so thickly steamed up I couldn’t see out and knew he wouldn’t be able to see in either.
Before I could find the words in my exhausted, scrambled brain to reply, the door of the shower opened just a crack and Harris peeked in. His expression filled with worry as his eyes landed on where I sat on the ground, surrounded by my soaking, ruined clothes.
“Hey,” he said more softly as he opened the door and crouched to my level. “Are you doing okay?”
“Tired,” I sighed as I looked up at him with what I was sure was a lame attempt at a smile.
“You’re still bleeding?”
“Won’t stop,” I shrugged. All I wanted to do was climb into his warm, strong arms and go to sleep.
“Can I help you out? Once we get you dry, Kailan can take a look at that cut and see what we can do with it,” he suggested, and I nodded as I forced myself to shuffle closer to the door and to Harris.
He stood to shut off the shower and grab a towel, then he was facing me again, looking to me with hesitation and concern.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m just so tired. I think I crashed.”
“I think you’re allowed to be tired after the day and night you just had,” he assured me, then all of his hesitation seemed to leave him as he leaned in with the towel, and wrapped me in it. The second he stood with me in his arms, I lay the side of my head that wasn’t bleeding against his chest and my heavy eyes instantly started to close.
“Hey, no sleeping just yet, sweetheart. I want Kailan to check for signs of concussion before you sleep. Just stay with me, yeah?”
