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Council was scared.
    I was too.

Chapter Three
    True to my word, I walked into Amanda’s hospital room at four thirty-two that afternoon. She was resting—a bruised china doll against the stark sheets. Her injuries looked worse in the harsh light of day than they had the night before. There was probably some reason why swelling and bruising always got worse before it got better, but I didn’t know it. It didn’t seem fair.
    Noah sat beside the bed, reading a dog-eared Stephen King novel. Gruesome reading made even more gruesome by the circumstances, but King was his favorite, and if the book provided a distraction from reality, I was happy for it.
    He looked up as I approached, and as tired as he was, his face lit up when he saw me. I liked that. He held uphis hand to stop me from coming any further, slipped quietly out of his chair and silently crossed the room to meet me. He steered me into the small bathroom and closed the door behind us.
    I opened my mouth to say hello, but words failed me as he cupped my face with his hands and kissed me like his life depended on it.
    My arms went around his waist, pulling him close as our lips moved together, dancing in a slow, sweet waltz that not only had me sighing, but tingling in all the right places. The sink pressed into the back of my legs, cool porcelain through my jeans, raising goose bumps on my thighs.
    God he felt good. Firm and lean, strong beneath my hands. Warm. He was so warm and hard. And he tasted faintly of peppermint—hot, wet peppermint. He hadn’t shaved and his jaw was rough. I was going to have a bad case of whisker burn when we finally came up for air and I didn’t care. It was just so good to be in his arms—and to know that he wanted me. Sounds sappy, but it was true.
    “Well, hello,” I murmured when our mouths finally separated.
    Noah smiled—slow and sexy. “Hey, Doc. I missed you.”
    Awwww. I grinned. “I missed you too.” I let a few seconds pass. “How’s Amanda?”
    Yup, I knew how to kill a moment, but I had to ask. Imean, we were sucking face in her bathroom—it wasn’t really tactful.
    “I don’t know,” he replied, running a hand through the thick black of his perpetually mussed hair. “She woke up screaming earlier. She won’t talk to me about it. She just held my hand until she went back to sleep.”
    I nodded. “I doubt she’ll talk to me either.” Regardless of how I felt about Noah asking me to be there, I wouldn’t turn Amanda away if she wanted to talk. But, she would be in charge, and I would follow whatever pace she set. Rape often left victims with a kind of post-traumatic stress, and that could manifest in many different ways. The physical ordeal might be over, but for Amanda, the mental suffering was just beginning. I didn’t tell this to Noah, however.
    He stroked my hair. “Thanks for coming.”
    “You’re welcome.” And then, because I couldn’t help myself, “Are you going to hang around here tonight?” The minute the words left my mouth I wished I could take them back. They seemed so selfish.
    He still had some of my hair between his fingers. He rubbed it, smiling vaguely. “No. Amanda’s mother’s going to be with her. She hates me, so if you can stand it, I’m all yours tonight.”
    Oh, I could stand it. “Sounds good.” Especially since I was going to face the Warden tonight. A nice evening with Noah would make me all the braver.
    He gave me another quick, hard kiss, tugged on my hair, and then opened the bathroom door. I followed him to the bed. Amanda stirred at our approach.
    “Mandy,” Noah said softly. “Dawn’s here.”
    The Barry Manilow song started playing in my head, accessing the library of pop culture I seemed to house. Amanda’s eyelashes fluttered, finally opening to reveal brown, groggy eyes—or rather one groggy eye. The other was still very swollen. They had to be giving her something to sleep. Was she able to dream? Not much, I bet. The sooner she could face the