Page 49 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)

“I need you to uncover my port.”

Taryn looked up at Ash. He stood in the doorway of her office. “Why?”

“I’ll need it to do the hack for Caspar.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “We have Hope. He doesn’t have leverage over you any longer.”

His sigh carried a wealth of frustration. “I know. But he knows I’m around and I don’t think he’ll stop coming for me.”

“What about when you leave town?” Getting the words out was painful.

His gray eyes met hers. “It doesn’t matter where I am physically when it comes to the network. He’ll always be looking for me, always watching. I don’t want to be always looking over my shoulder on a hack.” Caspar was one of many loose ends he needed to tie up.

She sighed. “I understand. Are you sure you need your port opened? Can’t you do this without being jacked right into the network?”

“I need every advantage I can get.” He kept his tone steady, not wanting to share his concerns. What if he’d forgotten how?

“Okay. Let’s get this over with.” She didn’t sound happy, but he was glad that she didn’t argue. He was afraid it might not be that hard to talk him out of it.

She led him to the small room she used as a clinic. It had a cot, a small cabinet that stored her first-aid supplies, and a tiny table and chairs. “Are you sure? I’ve cut trackers out of the girls, but I’ve never had any formal training.”

He swallowed hard, but didn’t change his mind.

“Take off your shirt and lie down while I get my tools ready.”

“I wish you weren’t telling me that with a scalpel in your hand.” She chuckled, but he was serious. This would be a lot more fun if he wasn’t about to head into battle.

Ash pulled his shirt over his head and wadded it into a ball. Then he settled on the cot, using his shirt as a makeshift pillow. Resting his head on his arm, he turned so he could watch her.

Taryn grabbed her equipment with efficient movements, then turned to place them on the table. Her breath caught when she met Ash’s gaze.

His lips curved into a smile. “If you wanted to see me shirtless sooner, all you had to do was ask.”

“Ha ha.” She stepped close and studied him.

Ash knew what she saw, but didn’t know how she felt about it. He wasn’t bulky and muscular like her bouncers. His body had always run to wiry. Black ink tattoos marked the skin along his torso and on his biceps.

Her eyes flickered to his back, to his favorite tattoo. The wings of a bird stretched from between his shoulder blades and curved lovingly over his shoulders. The bird’s tail feathers trailed in delicate swirls to the small of his back. Shapes reminiscent of flames surrounded the figure.

“Your back is spectacular. A firebird?”

“A phoenix.”

“That’s right, for your hacker name. May I?” she whispered.

“Yes.” His response was low, guttural. The thought of her hands on his skin... was nothing compared to the real thing.

Her fingers trailed over the shape—slowly, gently—burning him like the flames in the design. “Oh! It feels like metal. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“An alloy,” he corrected. “Tiny filaments laid into my skin. When I’m connected to the network, they light up.”

Taryn traced her fingers over the tattoo again, then lay her hand on his shoulder. He shivered under her touch. “That’s right, you told me. I’d like to see that someday.”

He eased out his breath. “If this works the way it should, I’ll let you.”

“Well, let’s do this right. The port’s in the back of your neck, right?”

“Yeah.” He shifted, lacing his fingers together and resting his head on them, exposing his neck.

She ran her fingers over the small scar. “Right here?”

“That’s it.” His voice was muffled. He tried to keep his breathing as shallow as he could and to move as little as possible.

A cool cloth with an antiseptic smell passed over the skin of his neck and upper back several times. “That was to clean the area and this should numb it.” Her touch was gentle as she smoothed a topical cream over the skin that covered the port and the surrounding area. “Do you feel the tingling?”

“Yes.” The tingling sensation was muted by the electricity of her touch.

“It won’t take all the pain away, but it should help.” Taryn kept her hand on his neck while she gave the cream some time to do its job.

She picked up the scalpel. “Ready?”

“Do what you need to do.” His voice was thick with emotion. Eyes closed, he took one final deep breath and then focused on separating his mind from his body, the way he did when he surfed the network.

“This will probably hurt like a son of a bitch.”

Ash sucked in a sharp breath when the point of her scalpel broke the skin. She paused and it was bearable until she moved the blade deeper. “Motherfucker!”

Her movements didn’t slow, but she placed her free hand briefly on his shoulder. “Relax. It’s worse when you tense up.”

Between the blade and her touch, he couldn’t believe that she expected him to remain calm. He tried to get out of his own head. When that didn’t work, he tried to imagine his life with the port open. He was getting everything he’d ever wanted over the last five years, but it was nothing like he’d expected.

After what seemed like forever, he finally felt the blade withdraw from his neck. The pain didn’t recede, though.

Taryn’s hand was back on his neck, this time with something soft. “Take a deep breath,” she instructed him.

After a few breaths, his muscles started to relax.

“You have a choice to make,” she said. “I can’t bandage the wound up because that defeats the purpose of uncovering the port.”

“Okay.” He shifted his head so he could see her. His neck was on fire, but he didn’t want to have a serious conversation like this, not without seeing her.

Her arm stretched to keep the temporary bandage in place. “I can put some salve on it and leave it open. It’s bleeding a little right now, but that should stop soon.”

His stomach turned at the thought of porting in with an active wound. “Gross. What’s my other choice?”

She paused. Her silence was long and ominous.

“Worse than the open-wound option?” What could be worse than that?

“Yes.” He’d asked as a joke, but her voice was completely serious.

“What is it?” Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t that bad.

“Cauterization.”

He was wrong. His skin crawled just thinking about it. “You’re fucking joking.”

“Sorry.” She sounded sincere, but that didn’t ease his concern on how awful it would be. “I have a laser. It’s not like I’d be using fire.”

“You want to use a laser on my wound to cauterize it?”

“Stop being such a baby.”

Easy for her to say—she didn’t have a gaping hole in the back of her neck and someone begging to laser it closed.

“Cauterization will lessen the chance of infection, too.”

Intellectually, he understood the argument. Emotionally? He was not ready for this. “Laser it,” he said before he could change his mind.

When the laser hit his skin, he flinched. It hurt so much, he couldn’t scream. He’d never felt pain like that before.

The next minutes were a blur. His shirt had teeth marks. His neck felt like he’d been branded. But that was nothing compared to the nausea that racked him.

“Can you sit up?”

“I think I’d rather die.” The truth slipped out.

“I can put numbing cream on the edges. Not sure if it will do more harm than good.” She leaned over him to inspect the wound. While her presence soothed his nerves, it didn’t help the waves of pain. “If you can sit up, I can give you a pain pill.”

Possibly the only thing she could have said to get him to move. “Fine. Help me sit up.”

Taryn stood beside him. She braced his head with her metal arm, carefully avoiding the area around his port. With her other hand she rolled him onto his side. “Bend your knees.”

He did as she instructed.

“When I start to lift your head and shoulder, swing your legs over the side of the bed. On three. One. Two. Three.”

They moved in unison. The pain was intense. Although he never wanted to move again, Taryn’s arm kept him steady.

He could see a future like that, her providing a steadying influence. She was a badass and he loved that about her.

He loved her.

Shit.

The words didn’t come with the sense of panic he expected. That surprised him, too. And made him sad. He wouldn’t be able to explore what loving Taryn every day meant.

“Okay?” She still watched him. He was glad that she couldn’t see what was going on in his head.

He nodded. A wave of pain raced around his neck. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“Don’t move. Let me get you that pill.” She moved her hand from his neck.

He swayed and gripped the side of the bed. “Please hurry.”

Pulling a bottle out of the cabinet, she read the ingredients to him. “One pill or two?”

“One.” Even though the pulses of pain were crying out for two, he would need his wits about him to deal with Caspar. The pain throbbed with every beat of his heart. He could think through it. Mostly.

She dropped the pill in his outstretched hand, then opened a bottle of water and handed it to him.

Popping the pill in his mouth was easy. Drinking from a bottle without bending his neck? Nearly impossible. More water rolled down his chest than made it into his mouth, but that was fine. He got enough to swallow the pill.

“Let me get you a towel.” Taryn’s eyes were glued to his chest. Of all the times for this to happen, this was the worst.

“Thank you.”

Her cheeks flushed before she turned away to grab a handful of paper towels. Eyes averted, she started to pat his chest dry.

He covered her hand with his, stopping her movements. “I think you got it all,” he said.

“You must think I’m an idiot.” She tugged her hand away and he let her go.

“Not at all. If I could move my neck, I’d kiss you.” He sighed. “But right now, I think I’d rather die.”

Taryn’s laughter filled the room. “How about a raincheck?”

He smiled, although he was too afraid to tilt his head to look at her. “I’d like that. A lot.”

“What do we do now?” she asked while retaking her seat.

“I’m going to sit here until the pain meds kick in, then I need to see a man about a computer.”