The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,135

cure …

Why had he and Mary been spared?

As his brain began to cramp up on that one, he had to shut the thoughts down. He didn’t want to go mad down here all by himself.

Yeah, he thought wryly. ’Cuz it was so much better to share that with your loved ones.

Scary times. Scary times.

If deaths came in threes … he thought numbly. Who was going to be the third one?

FORTY-THREE

As Xcor walked away from the cottage’s main room, Layla was prepared to follow him outside and make him feed on what passed for a lawn if she had to. But just as she was about to heft herself off the sofa, she heard the sound of … the shower.

Continuing through on the vertical impulse, she went across and around the corner to stand in front of the closed door of the bathroom.

“…fuck…” he muttered on the far side.

“Xcor?”

“Leave me be. I shall return in a moment.”

As another curse floated out through the gaps around the doorjamb, she took hold of the latch, and pulled things open.

Xcor was standing before the sink, his shirt half on and half off, his torso turned at a wrong angle as he tried to get the button down over his head—without hurting the bullet wound in his side.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. Through the folds of black fabric.

For a moment, all she could do was stare at his ribbed abdomen, the muscles striated across his belly and cut so deeply they threw shadows. But then there were his hips, hollow and jutting out from under his skin, his combat pants hanging so low only the huge muscles of his thighs were keeping them on.

He was unbelievably powerful. But also too thin.

Shaking herself into focus, she said, “I’m going to help you get that off.”

“I can handle it, just—” As he twisted again, he let out a groan of pain.

Ignoring him, she shut the door so what little heat was boiling up from the shower stayed in the bath. “Stop. You’re just going to hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

The instant she put her hand on his arm, he went dead still.

“Let me help you,” she whispered.

The good news was that he’d gotten the bulk of the shirt up over his head. So there was no way he saw her hands shake as she took hold and gently pulled upward, inching it up his arms, revealing to her eyes the fans of muscle that ran down the side of his torso and then the massive bulges of his pectorals.

His breath panted in and out of him, his chest rising and falling in a pump that got faster as she carried the shirt over his arms.

Heavy arms. Thick arms that narrowed at the elbow and then at the wrist, but plumped up everywhere else.

As what had covered him came loose, all she could think of was that he was a killer. A straight-up killer whose body reflected the work that he did.

“Wait for me out there.” He refused to meet her eyes. “I shall not take from you when I am unclean.”

“That’s a bad gash there.”

When she touched the warm, pale skin under the angry red stripe on his side, he flinched. But his voice remained strong. “It shall be healed by nightfall.”

“Only if you feed.”

The grunt she got in response was a dismissal if she’d ever heard one. And he followed it up with, “If you do not leave, you’re going to see a lot more than my chest.”

“You’re injured worse on your leg.” She eyed the ever-growing blood spot on those combats.

His hands went to the zipper of his fly. “Well?”

As if he were giving her one last chance.

“Well?” She shrugged. “Do you honestly think I’m going to let you get under that hot water without help? You’re white as a sheet. Your blood pressure is obviously low. You’re liable to pass out.”

“Oh, for the love of…”

Now he looked at her. And, with quick efficiency, released the fastening at his waist. The top part of the pants fell away. The bottom stuck in place over those thighs.

But something was revealed.

And it was … erect.

Xcor cocked a brow. “You can stop staring. I find it hard to believe you are enjoying the view.”

She tried to look away. She did. But her eyes had a mind of their own.

“You are so big,” she breathed.

He recoiled. As if that was the last thing in the world he’d expected her to say. And when he spoke next, his voice