She had their blood on her. It was too disgusting for words.
Helen felt a wave of nausea roll through her. She tried to fight it. She clenched her teeth and breathed through her nose.
Drake lifted her up into his arms and stood, then let her feet drop to the ground. She could see now that he’d been sitting on the lid of the toilet, which he raised, along with the seat. “You’re all right,” he told her. “Just breathe.”
She was. She was breathing and Drake was breathing with her, and slowly it started to work. She felt Drake’s rough thumb sliding along the inside of her arm, sending tendrils of comforting energy rushing through her. Her stomach settled enough that she was confident she wouldn’t puke, at least. And she was standing on her own two feet, which was an improvement as well. Drake still held her close and he still had his forearm wrapped around her, but he wasn’t holding her up. She was doing that all by herself. Thank God.
Helen needed to get clean. That was the next rational thought that went through her head. She wanted every bit of this . . . stuff—which she was not going to name—off her. “I’m fine now,” she told him. “Just give me a few minutes to bathe.”
He lifted her arm to show her his long fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Sorry. We’re connected again. Don’t worry. I’ll be a good boy and close my eyes.”
“Can’t you pull away again? Like you did before?”
“I could, but it would hurt. You don’t want me to hurt, do you?”
He was playing her, trying to make her feel guilty. And it was working.
Helen turned around and glared up at him. The sharp angles of his face were highlighted by the harsh light of the bare lightbulb over the sink. His shirt was gone and she could see the tattoo on his chest clearly now. It was a tree that ran all along his left side. The roots snaked down below his belt and the branches reached up until some of them stretched over his shoulder and partly down his left arm. The branches were mostly bare with only a few leaves left and the artwork was so perfectly lifelike that she imagined she could see the leaves sway with every breath he took. Amazing.
Beautiful.
Without realizing what she was doing, Helen reached out and ran her finger over the branches, down the trunk until it turned into thick roots. Heat and power sizzled beneath her fingertip and she felt herself growing stronger, more awake, with every second.
Drake’s stomach tightened until she could see ridges of muscle standing out, and his hand flattened over hers, trapping it against his muscles. Nice.
“If you go any lower, you won’t be the only one getting naked, sweetheart.”
For one insane moment, it sounded like a great idea—getting to see all that manly flesh naked, up close and personal. And then she remembered where she was. Who he was. She was getting the hots for a man who was worse than merely wrong for her. He’d be there when she died. Soon.
Helen’s face heated along with the rest of her and she had to suppress a shiver. He was staring down at her and she could swear those golden brown eyes of his were glowing from within. His gaze took in her blush, followed it down her neck and lower, where she could feel her nipples draw tight.
The muscles in his jaw bunched and his nostrils widened as he breathed in deep. “You sure do know how to tempt a man,” he told her in a rough voice. “And I’m more than happy to climb into that tub with you and make sure you’re clean all over, but we can’t wait any longer to get you out of those clothes.”
Oh, man. That all sounded good, every insane bit of it. It had been a long time since she’d felt like this for a man. Maybe she never had felt quite like this. Even so, she wasn’t about to let herself get involved with the man who was going to watch her die. Somehow that thought made the whole vision more horrible—put a spin on it that she’d never thought of before. It was one thing to have a stranger watch her die. It was completely different if the person standing there was one she cared about, one who was supposed to care about her.
A knock sounded on the door and Thomas’s voice drifted through the thick wood. “I got a fire going. We need to burn her clothes now.”
Helen felt her body tense at the mention of fire. She’d had more than enough of that for one night. The fire in the diner, then another in her home. Drake’s burned body. It was too much, so she just stopped thinking about it.
It took Helen a moment to clear her head and recap what he’d just said. Burn her clothes?
The blood. It drew the monsters to them.
Helen no longer cared that she had an audience. She shucked her shorts and tugged her tank top over her head and handed them to Drake. She’d knocked his hand away in her haste and he’d gasped in pain before he recaptured her wrist. “Sorry,” she told him with a grimace. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, opened the door a crack, and shoved the clothes out.
Helen looked down at her bra, panties, and socks, checking for signs of blood. “I don’t see any blood, do you?”
She wasn’t a fashionably skinny woman, and even though she was as covered as she would have been in a bathing suit, she still felt naked. Exposed. Clothing hid a lot of sins, and heaven knew her body had plenty of those to hide. She wished like crazy that she’d actually started that exercise program she’d promised herself she would on New Year’s Eve.
Drake’s jaw did that bunching up thing as he stared down at her. His hands found her waist and settled there, gripping and releasing like he was stuck on a loop, trying to decide what to do. He was staring at her breasts, her hips, her legs. Sure, she’d asked him to check for blood, but what he was doing was more than just a casual glance. She knew that her sturdy bra and modest panties kept her covered, but that didn’t stop him from finding a way to make her feel naked.
Helen had never seen anyone look at her like this before, not even the men with whom she’d shared her bed, few as they were. Drake was looking at her like his life depended on it, like his whole world was right there and that nothing else mattered.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
Of all the things she’d expected to hear him say, that was not even on the list. She was stunned speechless by his ludicrous statement. Sure, she was no hunchback, but she’d seen enough TV to know the kind of women guys really wanted and she was nowhere close.
“Um,” was all she managed to get out.
“Anything else?” asked Thomas from the other side of the door, sounding impatient.
Drake’s eyes blazed with hope.
Helen fought the urge to cover herself with her arms. “Did you see any blood?” she asked him again.