She was trembling. Pale. That stone-hard confidence he’d seen earlier was gone now, leaving her looking shattered and afraid. Paul wanted to drag her into his arms, but he didn’t dare touch her. He had to remember that she was only cooperating with him because he’d offered to pay her.
“I’m not leaving you,” he told her. He didn’t think she was in any shape to drive safely. Besides, whatever this was, he wanted to be there for her. Just in case she needed help. He worked for free. “Let me drive you.”
“No, thanks. You can stay here if you want. I don’t care. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She yanked a paper towel off the roll and scrubbed at her wet eyes.
“Anything I can do?” asked Madoc, looking a little too hopeful for Paul’s peace of mind.
“Have you seen my keys?”
“Sorry.”
Without anything else to do to help her, Paul started looking for her keys, too. “Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”
“I appreciate the thought, but there’s nothing you can do but get out of my way so I can find my damn keys.” Her voice caught on a sob, which she tried, and failed, to hide.
Paul couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to comfort her. Help her. Something.
He took her by the arm to turn her around, and the second his palm touched her skin he was swamped with feelings of physical pleasure. He sucked in his breath against the force of it. His body tingled. Sang with joy. Every cell inside him was doing a happy little dance that made him want to bust out in laughter. So much of his life had been spent in pain that he’d forgotten what it was like to live without it.
Andra’s blue eyes widened and she stared at him in shock. Her pupils dilated and her gaze lowered to his mouth.
And then it hit him—a surge of lust that crashed into him and swept him along for the ride. His body hardened so fast it hurt, but even that hurt was a kind of pleasure. His skin grew warm and his blood swelled in his veins. His mouth watered for a taste of her, and his fingers tightened against her skin, seeking closer contact.
Her lips parted as she drew in a startled breath, and he knew he had to kiss her. He was going to force her to open her mouth and let him taste her, and he wasn’t going to stop there. He was going to lay her out on the floor and taste every swath of smooth skin, every sweet hollow and curve. He was going to strip her bare and make her his in the most basic, primitive way he knew.
Mine, his soul screamed, and he knew that if he moved even one inch toward her lips, he’d be lost—unable to stop no matter what she wanted, no matter what emergency she had to deal with. Nothing else in her life could possibly be more important than his need for her.
And that truth poured over him like icy water, dousing his lust until it was only a smoldering pile of longing.
With careful motions, Paul loosened his grasp on Andra and moved his hand away. Losing contact with her left him burning and stinging all over, but he rejoiced in that pain. It meant there was hope—hope that Andra was the woman who could save him.
Now Paul was the one who was shaking.
Andra rubbed her hands over the place where he’d held her shoulders and looked at him with a mix of confusion and fear. “Never again,” she told him. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
Not fucking likely, but he kept his mouth prudently shut and continued his search for her keys. He found them hiding under the lid of an open pizza box and dangled them in front of her. “You’re in no shape to drive. At least let me take you wherever you’re going.”
She hesitated and he could sense her indecision, so he went in for the kill. “Whatever it is, you can’t fix it if you crash on the way there.”
When her shoulders slumped, he knew he’d won. “Fine,” she said. “But if you don’t drive fast enough, I’m throwing you out of my truck.”
Chapter 6
Andra leaped out of the truck as soon as they reached the psychiatric hospital, leaving Paul to find a place to park. The staff at the front desk must have known she was on her way, because they were waiting for her with a visitor badge as soon as she slammed through the front door.
The smells of disinfectant and sorrow clung to the walls of this place, but it was better than the rest of the mental hospitals she’d seen. They charged an arm and a leg for Nika to stay here, but at least they took good care of her. Andra showed up randomly every couple of weeks in addition to her normal weekly visits, and never once in eight years had she seen any signs of mistreatment of the patients. They were clean and resting as calmly as they were able, considering.
Melanie met Andra in the hall outside Nika’s room. She was somewhere in her late forties with smooth, dark skin and huge eyes. The woman never smiled, but she conveyed comfort with the smallest touch of her pudgy hand.
“I didn’t know what else to do but call you,” said Melanie. “My last shift was only two days ago, but I swear she wasn’t so thin then. And no one else seems to see it. None of the doctors listen when I tell them she needs to be put on a feeding tube. It’s like they don’t even see that she’s wasting away.”
Andra knew that Nika had a tendency to go days without eating, but it never lasted. The doctors said it would be more harmful to force her than to let her get hungry enough that her body’s needs overcame her mind’s imaginary fears.
Andra reached for the door, but Melanie stopped her. “We had to restrain her today. She hasn’t had enough to drink, and we had to give her an IV to keep her hydrated. She kept pulling it out.”
“She hates to be restrained,” said Andra. Anger burned in her chest, a welcome relief from the constant grief she felt for her sister.
“I know, honey, but it was for her own good. She kept hurting herself, tearing open her veins. We got the bleeding stopped, but we can’t take any more chances. She’s already so weak. I’m not sure she’d be able to fight off an infection right now.”