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He braces his arms on the countertop, letting his head drop. The sinewy muscles of his traps and delts bulge in the warm light.

Very slowly, very gently, I peel off the bandages on his back, careful to go slow, careful not to pull at the skin. The wounds below are bad, but healing. Seeing them makes my body roll with agony. His pain is my pain. His hurt is my hurt.

I place the bandages from his back in the garbage as he slowly peels the others from his chest. The wounds on his back are worse, much worse.

But of course they are. Trent Reynolds has never run away from danger in his life. Not in my defense. And not in war either. “You were really lucky,” I say, dabbing a square of gauze with antiseptic.

He nods. Looks down. Doesn’t make eye contact. “It was bad, Kat. So bad.”

My emotions catch in my throat. I don’t know what to say, but I know that with him, silence is okay. We have never needed words to fill the space between us and we don’t now, either.

I dab at the torn flesh around the blue stitches. His body tightens as I do, but then relaxes again.

I am meticulous. By the time I’m finished there’s a pile of gauze on the countertop, and all four wounds are bandaged with waterproof dressings. “There. All done.”

Trent straightens up with the smallest of winces. I watch his every move, checking to see that he’s okay. He’s hurting, but I don’t want to break the silence. I gather up the bandage wrappers and place them in the garbage, as he turns and twists the handle on the glass-encased shower.

The room fills with steam and heat.

Warmth and closeness.

The familiar, comforting sound of running water rolls around my ears.

And just like that, I am back to the night before he left.

I turn to face him, looking into his eyes, as his fill with such hunger. Such need.

He glances my cheek with the backs of his fingers. A feather-touch. Soft as silk. But it lights a fuse that burns through me, leaving me breathless.

And that’s when I know we’re in trouble.

Thethump, thump, thumpof my heartbeat cancels out everything else until his whisper, “Fuck, you’re so beautiful when you blush.”

I count ten more heartbeats as we stand like statues.

When the room starts to spin and the edges of my vision blur, his arms engulf my waist, pulling me in a single hard tug against his naked torso.

“We can’t,” I manage, though the statement is empty. Unconvincing, even to me. “What will people think?”

He answers with a low growl. All greedy and possessive. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks.”

My body doesn’t care either; but my mind—Jesus, God help me. “This is wrong.”

“Is it?” he counters, licking his lips on a sniff.

I nod against his hand, and my eyes flutter shut.

A thousand words light up in conflict as I decide what to say next, but none of them matter when the nudge of his tongue opens my lips.

Trent’s tongue. Trent’s lips. Warm. Wet. A bit of pressure. A flavor I shouldn’t recognize but I do. You’d think he was kissing my clit with the involuntary shudder that renders me boneless.

I should push him back, fight, say no.

But I don’t. I can’t.

I do the opposite.

I open myself to him, my own tongue swirling over hiselicits a soul shattering groan from his core. Our tongues meet in a tense tangle, images of us in our younger years explode behind my eyelids as thewrong, wrong, wrongpounding in my head is snuffed out by theyes, yes, yesthrumming between my legs.