Fear tried to crowd in again, but I gamely shoved it back. I couldn’t panic every time I thought of him. Especially not since I was still thinking about killing him.
“I’m sorry.”
“No reason.” He laid a hand on my throat and then grinned at me. “Maybe we can call it even now. I think, inch for inch, you did a lot more damage in the long run. You definitely got a pound of flesh and quart of blood.”
I surprised myself by laughing. “Hey, I can’t heal in the blink of an eye.” Staring past him to the shower, I swallowed. “Will…will you get in there with me? Please?”
The glow in his eyes flashed. A growl broke free—for just a second and then it was gone. He gave me a single, short nod then he caught my wrist, guided it up to the blanket. “Hold it a minute, kitten.”
The sound of the water coming up shouldn’t make me quake. It did.
I thought, oddly, of my grandmother.
Closing my eyes, I thought, She didn’t break me, damn it. I won’t let him do it, either.
Distantly, I heard the quiet whisper of him stripping off his jeans. “These things are wasted,” he muttered. The thud of them hitting the ground. Think about mundane things. Maybe even not mundane—I popped open one eye and stared at him.
Wow.
Very, very, wow.
Not mundane at all.
Blood streaked his chest, his arms. The lines of his tattoo shone through the dry red. I laid a hand on it. “How were you able to get this done?” I asked softly.
“Before I spiked. Healing is still close to human rate then.” He studied me. “You ready?” he asked, his voice quiet, soft. Gentle, I decided.
The world’s biggest asshole was gentling me into the shower.
And I wasn’t going to start crying again.
With a jerky nod, I let go of the blanket. My legs didn’t want to work. Nothing did. But I finally managed to climb in. I tensed at the feel of the water. Panic—
“It’s okay, Kit,” Damon murmured against my neck. “Nothing hurts you when I’m here. You got me?”
I made myself move deeper under the spray, watching as the water struck us both. It ran red as it washed away the blood. Heat curled around us, wrapping around us just as surely as his arms did. He pulled me against him and I went, sinking against his chest. I could lean on him, I realized. I really could. And it wasn’t so bad to do it.
“Why did you tell her to be quiet?”
Damon stroked my back. “You’ve had enough thrown at you tonight, baby girl. Haven’t you?”
Yes. I was pretty sure I’d had enough thrown at me for the next two hundred years. But I wasn’t going to sleep any better until I had a handle on all of this. I needed a better handle on all of this. It was driving me crazy.
“What in the hell does in rut mean?”
He growled and then the hand he’d be stroking up and down my back dropped down to my hip and he pulled me flush against him. Thick and hot, he throbbed against me. “Hell, little girl, what do you think it means?”
I snorted. “From what I’ve heard, it means more than you need to get laid.”
“Shit.”
He boosted me up until we were on eye level. “You really don’t have any clue what it means,” he muttered, staring at me, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. Against my chest, I could feel the racing of his heart and it met my own, beat for beat. “And trust me…right now, you’re wet, you’re naked, and I want you like I want my next breath, like I want my next shift. But you were just jacked over in the worst way and we don’t need to have this talk while you’re vulnerable.”
I wrapped my legs around him. “Then we don’t talk.”
“Kit…”
Twining my arms around his neck, I pulled him close. “Don’t talk. We can talk tomorrow. But right now…I need not to think.”
I could feel him between my legs. So close. So temptingly close.
“Damn it, baby girl…” he groaned. His head fell back and I saw the muscles of his body flex. Bulge. A shudder wracked him. “You’re certain, damn it?”
“Yes.” I leaned in, licked the water from his chest, tasted the lingering salt of his blood. I nipped him and he shuddered again, snarling so loud the sound of it bounced off the walls.