Page 95 of Savage Hearts

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his kneesand his hands hanging down, staring at the rug. It’s dark outside. All the candles in the cabin are lit, giving it a warm, homey glow.

When he doesn’t move or say anything else, I ask tentatively, “Did you mean now?”

As an answer, he rises, goes into the bathroom, and turns on the bathtub faucet. He comes back and picks me up in his arms.

I don’t argue that I should be walking. He’s not in the mood for my sass, that much I can tell. I just let him carry me into the bathroom and undress me, feeling hideously self-conscious again but trusting now that he won’t make it more awkward for me than it already is.

When I’m lying in the water and his hands are in my hair, he starts to speak to me again in Russian, like he did the last time he gave me a bath.

He talks and talks, his voice low, the cadence of the foreign words hypnotizing.

There’s emotion in his tone, but it’s not anger. If anything, it seems like the opposite. Like he’s trying to get me to understand something of vital importance to him.

I want to ask him what, but I don’t. I know he won’t answer.

When he’s rinsed me, dried me off, and put another of his huge clean shirts over my head, he announces it’s time for my stitches to come out.

“Oh. Okay. Do I have to go to a hospital for that?”

The look he gives me is insulted. He picks me up and brings me back to bed.

He fluffs the pillow under my head, pulls the sheets up to cover my crotch, lifts the shirt up to just under my breasts, and peels off the bandage. From a drawer in the nightstand, he removes large tweezers and a pair of surgical scissors, both wrapped in plastic.

Anxiety blooms over my skin like a rash. “Is this going to hurt?”

“No. You’ll feel a tug or two, but that’s all.”

I nod, knowing that he’d tell me if it was going to be painful.

He opens the tools, cleans them with a gauze pad and a sharp-smelling liquid from a brown bottle, then leans over me and goes to work.

After a moment, he says, “You’ve healed well. This scar won’t be bad.”

I’ve resisted looking at the wound until now, so that’s a relief to hear. When I lift my head and peek down at my uncovered stomach, however, the relief evaporates, replaced instantly by disgust.

“Not bad? It’s hideous!”

“You’re exaggerating again.”

“I’m Frankenstein! Look at that gash! It’s a foot long! And why the hell is it shaped like a lightning bolt? Had the surgeon been drinking?”

“He had to go around your belly button.”

“Couldn’t he have made a crescent moon? I look like Harry fucking Potter times ten!”

“Stop shouting.”

Groaning, I let my head fall back to the pillow. “So much for wearing bikinis.”

“You could get a tattoo to cover it up. Add to your collection.”

His voice remains even when he says that, but there’s an echo of warmth in it that gives me pause.

“I’m sensing you have something you’d like to say about my tattoos, Mal.”

Snipping and tugging at the ugly black stitches, he quirks his lips. “Just curious.”

I sigh and roll my eyes. “Where do you want me to start?”