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“Sit,” she said softly, tugging the first aid kit open with one hand, the other already resting lightly on his chest.
He obeyed, slow and unresisting, dropping onto the edge of her bed while she knelt in front of him. The exposed, angry flush of red blooming across his collarbone like heat lightning trapped under skin was her focus.
She set the cloth down in the basin of cool water, let it soak for a beat, then wrung it out and pressed it gently to the burn.
He sucked in a breath between his teeth, more surprise than pain, but she didn’t pull back.
“It’s just first-degree,” she murmured. “Angry, but shallow. No blistering. You’ll live.” She grabbed the aloe and gently applied the gel to his skin.
“Maybe,” he rasped, his voice low, strained. “But you’re not making it easy.”
Her lips twitched. “I’m not trying to be easy.”
The heat of him bled through the terry as she worked, her palm resting against the uninjured side of his chest to anchor her as she dabbed at the burn. Every time he shifted, even slightly, her hand skimmed taut muscle and slow breath.
Maybe that was why it took her a second to notice the blood. The thin red line trailing from the curve of his cheekbone down toward his jaw. Her fingers tightened in the cool cloth.
“Nash,” she said gently, her other head reaching to tilt his face toward hers. He turned halfway, but his gaze didn’t find her.
“Hey.” Her voice softened, the thread of command slipping into something warmer. “Look at me.” He didn’t. Not fully. So, she reached up and cupped his jaw.
Her fingers were sure now. Her thumb brushed just under his ear as she guided his head back toward her, and the moment stretched, slow and molten and full of something that had nothing to do with gauze.
Their eyes met, and this time, he didn’t look away.
She let her touch linger for a heartbeat longer, then leaned in, examining the slice across his cheekbone. Shallow. Sharp. The kind of wound that looked worse than it was. She washed away the blood gently, set it back in the basin as the water turned pink.
“This might sting,” she warned, swiping an antiseptic wipe gently along the cut.
He flinched. Just a little.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine.” But his voice had gone gravel-rough. Like the restraint cost him more than he wanted to admit.
She pressed the butterfly bandage across the wound, smoothing it into place with care. Her thumb grazed the corner of his mouth as she finished, slow and deliberate.
Then, because she couldn’t help it, because something in her had already snapped loose, she let her hand slide down, palm resting once again at his chest, fingers brushing the edge of that burn.
She picked up the yam and crawled to the headboard. “Nash, come here.” She held out her arms and he turned, his muscles burnished against the light, hard, roped, ripped. His shoulders dropped and his chest heaved, and almost as if he was moving in slow motion, his bare back was against her chest. She sighed in pure, unadulterated pleasure.
She scooped up a generous amount of the rub and slipped one bare arm under his armpit and around his shoulder joint to hold him steady as she began to knead the muscles connecting to his shoulder. The scent drifted up, earthy and herbal, like crushed roots steeped in rain, with a faint medicinal coolness that lingered on the air.
He held himself off her by just a breath, his body taut. “Lean back, babe. Give me your weight.”
She pulled him toward her, and he sank into her. Her chin was just over the shoulder she was working. The scent of him rose around her as she pressed her nose into his skin, breathing in the rich and devastatingly familiar oud, deep and resinous, threaded through with the faint, haunting sweetness of crushed rose. As much a part of him as his language, his dark eyes and hair, the distinct curve of his face. It wasn’t anything crafted to impress. It was older than that. More elemental.
It hit her with a force she hadn't expected, dragging up memories buried under years of cold audits and silenced instincts, memories of heat shimmering over desert stone, of languages spoken in low, musical cadences that curled in her ears like promises. The scent of exotic spices drifting through narrow market alleys. The soft call to prayer rising over sun-baked rooftops at dusk.
She had loved it then, the warmth, the wildness, the sense of something bigger than herself, and she hadn't realized until now how much she had missed it.
Nash wasn't just a man sitting in front of her, wounded and still.He was the embodiment of everything she had once loved about that place. The living, breathing reminder of a world that had felt alive in her blood before it all went dark. Her fingers kneaded harder against his taut muscle, anchoring herself in the weight of him. In the scent of him. In the unbearable pull toward something she had spent too long pretending she no longer needed.
“Was it the explosion?” Reclining against her, he didn't respond. “Nash?”
“Huh?” he sighed.
“Your shoulder? The op?”