Page 49 of Vital Signs

"Everyone does." His fingers found a new path along my collarbone. "You don't."

"Should I?" I asked.

"No." His touch moved across my chest, mapping the geography of scars and ink. "I've already been broken. What I need now is someone who won't pretend I'm made of glass."

"Cold?" I asked.

"Getting there." His breath fogged between us. "But this helps."

"What's this one?" he asked, finger touching the letters tattooed below my left collarbone.

DNR/DNI. The black ink stood out stark against my skin.

"Do not resuscitate. Do not intubate." The words tasted bitter.

Misha's finger stilled against the tattoo. "You have medical directives tattooed on your body?"

"Seemed necessary." I let the smoke settle in my lungs before continuing. "I've cracked ribs doing chest compressions on people who died anyway. Watched families cry over bodies kept alive by machines when there was nothing left of the person inside."

His fingers traced each letter like he were reading braille. "So you don't want to be saved."

"I don't want to be trapped," I corrected. "You know what happens when they 'save' someone like me? Best-case scenario, I wake up on a ventilator with broken ribs and brain fog, get discharged to some facility where I die slower and more expensively."

Misha was quiet, his touch gentle against the stark black letters.

"Worst case, I survive with enough brain damage to need round-the-clock care but not enough to stop understanding what I've lost."

"And you won't let them make that choice for you."

"Exactly. This body's mine. Been the only thing I've had control over since everything went to shit." I met his eyes. "If I go down, I go down on my terms. Not theirs."

Misha pressed closer. "I understand that impulse to control the terms of your own destruction. But I'm glad you're here now. Alive. With me."

Something in his tone made me look at him more carefully. There was pain there, carefully hidden but unmistakable once you knew to look for it.

"What happened to you in Paris?" I asked.

His hand stilled completely against my chest. For a second, I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he spoke, voice going flat and distant.

"I told you I was held captive by someone who collected beautiful things. A fashion designer named Roche who believed that people were most beautiful in their moment of death." Misha's fingers resumed their movement, but the touch had changed. Less exploring, more seeking comfort. "They developed a process to capture and preserve that moment. Kept me as... decoration. A trophy to show off while they decided when I'd be beautiful enough to preserve permanently."

My chest tightened. "How long?"

"Over a year." His voice never wavered, but his breathing had gone shallow. "They kept me drugged most of the time. Used my body however they wanted. Threatened to ruin it in ways that would make me wish for death."

The flat language couldn't hide what he was describing. I'd seen enough trauma in the ER to read between those carefully chosen words. This Roche bastard had kept him as a living doll, violated him systematically while promising worse.

"They're dead now?" I asked.

For a split second, I imagined wrapping my hands around Roche's throat myself.

"Very." Satisfaction colored his voice. "Xander and I used their own methods. Seemed fitting." Misha's hand flattened against my chest, palm covering my heart. "Touch used to be simple,"Misha said. "Roche weaponized that. Made me afraid of physical connection."

"So now you're taking it back."

"Trying to."

The raw honesty in what he'd just said hit something deep in my chest. This beautiful, dangerous man, who could destroy people with a look, just wanted to enjoy the simple miracle of human connection without it being weaponized.