Page 19 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

The winter night was brutal without the heater running.

"Can't run the generator," Misha said, rubbing his hands together. "Too loud. We can't risk drawing attention."

Smart. Also fucking freezing.

Which left us with one option.

"Body heat it is," I said, gathering the blankets around us.

Misha didn't hesitate. He pressed against my side like it was the most natural thing in the world, one leg hooking over mine while his arm settled across my chest. His fingers found the edge of my dragon tattoo where it curved around my collarbone, tracing the scales absently.

The contact sent my brain into overdrive. All I could focus on was his thumb drawing circles on my skin and the way his breathing tickled my neck. His hair smelled like expensive shampoo even after everything we'd done tonight.

This had to be foreplay, right? Except my cock wasn't getting the message. Still soft, still uninterested despite having this beautiful man draped over me like a living blanket. The fentanyl had done its job too well.

Something else was happening too. A low-level restlessness that had nothing to do with arousal. My muscles were starting to tighten, wound up in ways that meant withdrawal was creeping closer. But Misha's constant touching kept me from focusing on that creeping discomfort.

He shifted against me, and I thought he was just getting more comfortable until his hand stretched across my chest toward something on the floor.

"Your phone," he said, fingers closing around it.

"What about it?"

Instead of answering, he unlocked it with my thumbprint, then held it up between us. The camera app opened with a soft chime.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm giving you something to look at when I'm not around," he said, taking a few photos before handing the phone back.

"You're in my phone now," I said, voice rougher than intended. I saved the photos to a private folder, possessive satisfaction flooding through me. Mine. Nobody else would ever see him like this, flushed and perfect and choosing to give this to me.

"Problem?"

"No." My thumb lingered on the screen, studying every detail of his face. "Just making sure nobody else gets to see what's mine."

He looked satisfied with that answer. He settled back against me, fingers resuming their exploration of my tattoo. This time his touch moved lower, following the dragon's body as it wrapped around my ribs.

From his jacket pocket, Misha pulled out a perfectly rolled joint. The paper was pristine, the roll expertly crafted, nothing like the sloppy joints I'd rolled behind gas stations when I couldn't afford anything stronger.

"For the nightmares," he said, catching my look. "PTSD management."

He lit it with a silver Zippo, taking a long drag before passing it to me.

PTSD management. Right. When Misha used cannabis for trauma, it was therapeutic.

When I used fentanyl for the same fucking thing, I was a dirty junkie who'd lost his medical license.

Both of us self-medicated with chemicals to make existence bearable, but his drug came with social approval and mine came with felony charges.

The cannabis was smooth, high quality. It settled into my lungs without the burn of cheap weed, spreading warmth through my chest. I passed it back, watching Misha's lips wrap around the filter where mine had just been.

"Your drug is medicine. Mine makes me subhuman," I said, gesturing at the joint.

"The difference is arbitrary.” Misha's hand found mine in the darkness. "You're not a moral failure."

My throat tightened. I turned away, focusing on the joint between my fingers instead of the way Misha was looking at me like I was more than a cautionary tale with track marks.

I brought the joint to my lips, needing something to do with my hands.

Misha caught my wrist.

He guided me forward. "Take a long drag. Don't exhale." When he breathed in the smoke I exhaled. The intimacy was electric.

Misha's eyes stayed locked on mine the entire time, pupils dilating as the cannabis hit his system. When he'd taken every bit of smoke from my lungs, he pulled back just enough to let me breathe, his thumb stroking along my jaw.

"Good?" he asked, voice rough and satisfied.

My heart was hammering against my ribs. The intimacy of it, the trust, the sheer fucking heat of breathing into each other's mouths. It was better than half the sex I'd had in my life.

"Yeah," I managed. "Really good."

When it was his turn, I watched with fascination as his lips wrapped around the joint, taking a slow, unhurried drag. The way he looked at me while holding the smoke in his lungs was pure seduction.

His mouth was soft and warm when it met mine, the smoke passing between us like a shared secret.

I tasted cannabis and something purely him that made my head spin.

When I breathed in what he offered, our lips brushed just slightly, and I had to fight every instinct not to close the distance completely.

The intimate exchange left us both breathing harder. Misha's pupils were dilated from more than just cannabis. The air crackled between us.

Misha settled back against me, his head on my chest, his hand finding mine in the darkness. Our fingers laced together, his thumb stroking across my knuckles.

I could feel his heartbeat against my ribs. Steady. Real. Proof that this wasn't just a drug dream, that he was actually here, choosing to stay even though every smart person in his life had told him to run.

"Your family's going to be pissed you disappeared," I said, trying to get my racing pulse under control.

"Let them worry." Misha passed the joint back. "They made their position clear at dinner. I'm damaged goods to be managed, not a partner to be trusted."

Something in his tone made me look at him more carefully. "They treat you like you might break."

"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.

And if he needed to reclaim what had been stolen from him, maybe I could help with that.

Misha started to pull back slightly, his hand stilling against my chest. "Fuck, sorry for being so needy and philosophical. I get that way when I'm stoned."

"You're not needy. You're just human." I caught his wrist before he could retreat further. "Also, you're French. Being philosophical about everything is basically in your DNA."

I lifted my hand, hesitant at first, then settled it on his back, massaging gently.

Misha made a soft sound, almost purring. His whole body seemed to melt into my touch, tension draining away like water.

"That's good," he murmured against my chest. "Keep doing that."

So I did. My fingers mapped the lean muscle of his back, the sharp angles of his shoulder blades, the vulnerable curve of his neck. Each touch made him relax further into me, made his own movements gentler against my skin.

A distant sound made us both freeze. A car engine on the main road, headlights sweeping briefly through the trees before continuing on. Paranoia spiked through me for a moment. Wright's people? Police? Someone hunting for the van that had been at the clinic when alarms went off?

The car passed without slowing, but the reminder was there. We'd stolen Wright's secrets, declared war on him. By morning, he'd know what we'd done. And men like Wright didn't just call lawyers when their secrets got stolen.

But immediate threats weren't the only thing on a countdown timer.

"I need to score soon," I said, more to distract myself from that thought than anything else.

"How soon?" His hand stilled against my ribs.

"Few hours. Maybe less." I closed my eyes, counting the seconds until the next wave of need would hit. "Withdrawal's predictable. Starts slow, builds fast."

"And then?"

"Then I turn into something you don't want to be around."

Misha was quiet for a moment before saying, "What if you stayed?"

The question caught me off guard. "Stay where?"

"Here. With me." He sat up. "What if instead of running off to score, you stayed and let me help you through it?"

"You don't understand what withdrawal looks like. What I become."

"I understand suffering. I understand what it means to need something so badly it consumes everything else. Maybe I understand better than you think."

The offer tempted me more than it had any right to. The idea of not being alone through the worst of it. Of having someone who wouldn't judge the shaking, the sweating, the desperate bargaining my brain would do for chemical relief.

But withdrawal made me mean. Made me willing to hurt anyone, including people I cared about, if it meant ending the suffering faster.

And I was starting to care about Misha more than was safe for either of us.

"You might regret that offer," I said.

"Let me worry about my own regrets." His hand moved to my throat, fingers resting against my pulse. "Stay."

The single word hung between us like a challenge. Or a promise.

My heartbeat hammered against his fingers, time measured in pulse points and shared breath.

Outside the van, wind rattled through dead trees. Inside, Misha's fingers mapped the geography of my throat, learning the rhythm of my blood.

I'd been alone through every withdrawal for four years. Suffered through the shaking and sweating and desperate need in solitude, telling myself it was better that way. Safer. No one to hurt when the chemicals turned me into something unrecognizable.

But lying here with Misha's touch anchoring me to something other than need, I realized how tired I was of being alone.

"Okay," I said. "I'll stay."

Misha's fingers pressed harder against my pulse, and I could feel his smile against my chest. "Good. Because I wasn't planning to let you leave anyway."