But everything was unpacked. The boxes and suitcases were gone, stored in the attic for all he knew. Through the open closet door, he saw jeans, cargo pants, and shirts hanging. A coat. No dresses or skirts as far as he could tell. Beneath them, on the floor, neatly lined up in a row, were combat boots, black Converse Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers, and fuzzy slippers that looked like tiger paws. (He grinned when he spotted the last.) All were so small they looked to him like children’s shoes.
Not one pair of high heels or delicate pumps rested among them, he noted.
Perhaps she was like Bethany. Beth had always rolled her eyes over the rack-after-rack-of-designer-shoe stereotype the media so often applied to women.
Why would I want to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a pair of designer shoes that look like something my grandmother used to wear in the seventies? she would ask as she laced up her comfortable sneakers. Besides, where would I wear them?
Marcus paused. For the second time since Ami’s arrival, thoughts of Bethany had not been accompanied by feelings of grief or desolation. Only fondness.
Damn Seth for being right all the time, he mentally grumbled, uncomfortable with the relief the discovery spawned.
The rest of the room looked much as it had before Ami’s arrival. A full-sized bed with a white comforter. Matching bedside tables on either side. A dresser. A chair. Same old same old, except now pictures of Seth, David, and Darnell decorated the various surfaces.
More insight into Ami’s character. She took responsibility seriously. She had been assigned to be his Second and, come hell or high water, she was going to do it. Even if he childishly attempted to make her life miserable. The tidy room around him was as much a demonstration of her refusal to back down from a fight as their clash with the vampires had been.
On the other side of the bathroom door, a squeak sounded as the faucet turned and water ceased flowing. Sounds of Ami stepping from the shower and rubbing a towel over her body reached his sensitive ears. As beautiful as Ami was, Marcus felt no arousal as he imagined it. He was too obsessed with the wounds she no doubt dabbed, the white towel turning pink with the blood that still seeped from them.
“Ami?” he called through the wood.
A thunk sounded. “Ow!”
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“You startled me,” came her disgruntled reply. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be downstairs feeding?”
Yes, but he had been too afraid to leave her, worried she might lose consciousness from blood loss or become dizzy and slip and fall. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Let me in.”
“No!” she exclaimed in a scandalized voice. “I’m naked!”
Okay. He was a worm. He was slime. He was pond scum. He was the bacteria that fed on pond scum. Because he couldn’t keep his body from reacting to her declaration. He had been doing very well, keeping it all professional, then those words from her lips and … images of a naked Ami sans wounds bombarded his weary male brain and …
Yeah, he was pond scum.
“Come on, Ami. I’m not asking you to let me feel you up. I’m asking you to let me in so I can see to your wounds.”
“I can take care of them myself.”
Damned stubborn woman. “Even the ones on your back?” He didn’t even know if she had any on her back, but thought it worth a shot.
A pause. “I’m naked,” she repeated hesitantly.
“Please stop saying that,” he entreated, stifling a groan. The last thing he needed while his body struggled to heal his own wounds was for what little blood remained to all rush to his groin. As it now appeared to be doing. “Look, I … Hold on.”
He crossed to the dresser and opened drawers until he located lingerie. Grabbing the tan underwire bra on top of one tidy stack and the white bikini panties from another, he returned to the door.
Marcus even liked her underwear. He had once had an intimate arrangement with a woman who had refused to let him see her in lingerie that wasn’t lacy or didn’t match. Flowery push-up bras and thong panties, which he just thought of as dental floss for asses. He wasn’t sure why women thought men cared about that sort of thing. Ask any man if he would rather see a woman naked or in sexy underwear and the unanimous answer would be: naked.
When Marcus saw a woman in her underwear, he didn’t condemn it for being too plain or two different colors or cotton instead of silk. He was too busy calculating how swiftly he could remove it. The fewer bows and ties and tiny fastenings the better.
“Ami,” he called, “wrap yourself in a towel and open the door.”
“You are not seeing me naked!”
“Stop reminding me you’re naked,” he commanded, exasperated.
“Why?”
The innocence and perplexity that infused the question surprised Marcus so much that he lost his train of thought.
“Marcus?”
“What? Oh. Just stay behind the door and open it five inches. I’ll keep my eyes closed.”
Silence.
A faint shuffle of feet on tile.
The doorknob turned—it hadn’t even been locked?—and the door opened the requested five inches.
Closing his eyes, Marcus thrust the fist clutching the undies inside. “Here. Hurry up and put these on. I don’t want you losing any more blood.”
Her delicate fingers plucked the offering from his palm. Marcus withdrew his hand and let her close the door again.
He could hear every movement as she dropped the towel and donned the scanty garments and felt his arousal cool a little more with every hiss or gasp that escaped her as cloth scraped cuts and movement evoked pain.
The door swung open.
Bathed in the bright light of the stone-tiled room, Ami regarded him uncertainly. After donning the bra and panties, she had once more wrapped herself in the towel. And, just as Marcus had feared, the white fluffy cotton boasted numerous pink splotches.
“Drop it,” he said, motioning to the towel.
Her bruised chin jutted forward stubbornly. “I can take care of myself.”
“You aren’t supposed to take care of yourself,” he told her. “We’re supposed to take care of each other. That’s what Immortal Guardians and their Seconds do.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand to forestall it. “You did your job earlier and saved my ass. Now let me do mine and take care of yours.”
A moment passed, during which they merely stared at each other.
“Please,” he added.
With visible reluctance, she dropped the towel. Marcus swore.
If the vampires who had attacked her hadn’t already been dead, he would have hunted them down and killed them slowly.
The two deepest cuts—the one on her thigh and the other on her hip—had been pinched together with butterfly closures. Her tan bra cupped beautiful, full breasts, but was already acquiring a red stain on the front left strap. Too damn close to her heart. Her white bikini panties hugged nicely rounded hips and had pink fingerprints on the thin sides. The pale skin of Ami’s face, shoulders, chest, arms, narrow waist, thighs, knees, and calves sported too many cuts to count and were riddled with dark bruises. Her fiery red hair hung in straggles that looked brown while wet, the occasional droplet forming at the end of a lock, then trailing down her skin.
More bruises on her forehead, chin, and cheek matched the dark circles under her eyes as she stared up at him.
She looked so heartbreakingly fragile.
“Turn around,” he murmured.
She did.
Marcus clenched his teeth to stifle more curses when he saw the ragged red line that raked from the top of one shoulder across to the bottom of the opposite shoulder blade. Another swept across her right kidney. Her round, firm ass appeared unblemished. At least there were no pink or red stains on her panties that would indicate seeping injuries. But the backs of her thighs bore red zebra stripes.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” he gritted out.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “What?”
“I didn’t reach you fast enough to guard your back.”
“Well,” she replied placidly, “you were a bit busy, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Shaking his head, vowing to do better the next time—please, don’t let there be a next time—Marcus washed his hands, then reached for the large tube of antibiotic ointment that lay on the counter beside the sink.
“Is it … is it bad?” she asked. “It didn’t look that bad in the mirror.”
Kneeling behind her, he gently coated every cut with the ointment. Oddly, they were all what immortals would consider superficial wounds. None deep enough really to require stitches. “It looks like it hurts like hell,” he commented nevertheless. Cuts of any depth tended to hurt like a bitch, especially when doused with water. Her shower must have been tortuous. “Does it?” He glanced up in time to see her clench her jaw.
“I’ve had worse.”
Worse than this?
When he finished tending all the cuts in view, Marcus clasped her hips and turned her to face him.
He really didn’t like the looks of that gash on her hip, though it didn’t appear to be as deep as he had initially thought. “Let me call Roland,” he entreated. “He can be here in half an hour and heal all of these wounds for you in minutes.” Marcus had often wished he had been born with a more useful gift like Roland’s ability to heal with his hands or even Roland’s lesser telekinetic ability. What the hell good was seeing ghosts?
“What makes you think he would come?” she countered.
“He’s my friend.” Marcus was the only one Roland had allowed close to him until Sarah. “If I ask, he’ll come.”
“No, thank you.”
Many butterfly closures, adhesive bandages, and a great deal of gauze later, he finished tending her legs and rose. Opening one of the lower cabinets, he retrieved another towel, shook it out, then folded it twice and spread it on the counter next to the sink.
Facing Ami, Marcus settled his hands on her waist. Her breath caught as her eyes flew up to meet his. Lifting her slight weight, he set her on the now-cushioned counter and stepped back.