Page 61 of Kill for a Kiss

Sterling kneels beside the tub, the line of his shoulders tense but controlled. He picks up a cloth, dips it into the water, and wrings it out. Then he waits, his gray gaze on me.

I nod, and a second later, he touches my shoulder, only barely. The cloth is warm, soothing, and he moves slowly, as if every inch of me is fragile.

Neither of us speaks. The silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken words. I watch the strength in his forearms as he wrings out the cloth again.

There’s a loose curl that’s fallen forward onto his brow. It slipped from the neatness he usually keeps. It doesn’t matter. That single strand makes him feel more human, more here.

Sterling is more than handsome. He’s striking, clean angles and cut glass. He’s stillness and gravity, presence and tension. He’s a force that doesn’t need to move to be felt. And I feel him now, in every breath I take.

With every slow pass of the cloth across my skin, I feel everything more. His heat, my ache, and the unspoken truth blooming between us. It builds, gathering weight inside my chest until my heart has no room left to pretend.

But the moment I let myself lean into it, even as a whisper of a thought, guilt slithers up the back of my throat. Because I’ve been reaching for someone else in the dark. Because I remember a smile that felt like sunshine, a laugh that made fear retreat, and the warmth of someone else when everything felt uncertain. I remember Stan, and his smile that pulled sunlight into every shadow. When the fever broke me open and scattered me into pieces, it was his name I called. I know it was. But it’s not Stan beside me now. It’s Sterling.

He runs the cloth gently against the curve of my neck. His hand lingers near the hollow of my throat, close enough that I forget how to breathe. My pulse stutters from the feel of his fingertips.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

The words fall out of me. They tremble in the air, cracked and wet. I taste salt at the corner of my mouth and realize, too late, that I’ve been crying.

My gaze falls. I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes. There’s something unbearable about the thought of him seeing me likethis—curled in pain, streaked with tears, fragile in ways I wish I could hide.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t look away. His hands stay steady, still moving the cloth over my skin with the same careful strokes. He treats me like my brokenness doesn’t scare him.

The guilt grows worse with every second I let myself fall into his care. I know I said Stan’s name when the fever was at its worst. When the pain twisted everything out of shape, I reached for the memory that once made me feel safe.

But Stan isn’t the one taking care of me now.

It’sSterlingwho’s stayed. Who’s helped me sit up. Who’s whispered reminders and brought me water and warmth. Who’s seen the worst of me and stayed right here, silent and certain.

A pulse of pain digs into the base of my skull, and I feel it claw its way forward. My vision swims. My breath catches.

“Elle.” His voice reaches me through the fog, close and calm.

I open my eyes and see him watching me.

“Let me know if it’s too much,” he murmurs.

It is too much. The pain, the guilt, the grief beneath both. But his presence never is.

It takes effort, but I nod.

He continues. His touch is still slow and careful.

“You doing okay?” he asks, quiet.

I nod once more, and this time the answer settles deeper in my chest. I still ache. I’m still unraveling in ways I don’t fully understand. But with him here, I feel like I can put myself back together.

In times like this, when the pain feels as if it can drag me under, I lose myself in Sterling. I take in every detail about him. How the candlelight catches his profile, his strong jaw, the silver in his hair, the elegant slope of his mouth. How kissable he seems… How soft those lips must feel…

The guilt comes back, thudding at my chest. My gaze goes down, watching as he dips the cloth. Then he runs it up my arm, then my other shoulder. My breath hitches. My skin wakes beneath his touch. A hush settles into my chest, warm and shivering all at once.

He pauses for a mere second, then keeps going as though he didn’t notice. Or maybe he did and chose silence instead. When he lifts my hair and draws the cloth along the nape of my neck, the sensation stirs something that isn’t pain. It builds slowly, settling low and quiet. Longing, maybe. It’s hard to tell in the haze.

He trails down my back, and then he moves to my legs next, drawing the cloth along the shape of my calf, behind my knee, down to my ankle. I feel each pass like an admission I haven’t dared to make. Each motion draws out a feeling from deep inside of me. My pulse beats louder now, and I grip the edge of the tub to steady myself.

He lifts my foot and brushes the cloth over my scars, one at a time, as though they hold stories he wants to learn. The bathwater has cooled slightly. The steam has thinned. But I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave the closeness we’ve found in the quiet.

“You okay?” he asks again, even softer.