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of her tan shoulders. Her breasts were high and small, in perfect proportion to her slender torso. Nestled between her slender, shapely runner’s legs, her neatly trimmed patch of hair beckoned to me, calling up my blood. Making me ache.
    I wanted to devour her.
    “Let me help you with your clothes,” she said.
    I took a few faltering steps forward. “I need to make love to you.”
    When she laughed, I realized that I had surprised her. Had she truly expected me to be so distracted by my own ordeal that I wouldn’t want her? Nothing was more important, more necessary, than us. Nothing.
    “Please.”
    “Val,” she said, lifting the hem of my shirt and working it gently over my injured arm. “I love how you want me. And I need you, too. But it’s too soon.”
    Desperate to touch her, to hear her call my name as she came for me, I shook my head. “It’s not. You can sit on my face. I won’t move anything except my tongue, I swear.”
    It was her turn to freeze. The color rose in her cheeks, and her eyes darkened. “Jesus Christ, Valentine.”
    “Let me.” A whisper.
    “No.” She threw back her shoulders and reached for the hem of my pants, her touch brisk and efficient. Not the touch of a lover, but a nurse. “Not tonight.”
    Defeated, I let her finish undressing me. Disappointment sapped me of what little energy I had left. Silently, I shuffled toward the bathroom. How, how could she deny us this? Never was I more alive than when we were together, skin to skin. I needed to feel alive again. I needed to take her—and in taking her, to find myself.
    In that moment, the ache of my need eclipsed every other pain. Even the thirst.
    Alexa paused to adjust the water temperature before beckoning me into the shower. I hissed as the spray touched my stitches. It stung. But after that initial twinge, the drumming of the hot water against my dry skin vastly outweighed any lingering discomfort.
    “Don’t be angry with me,” she said as she began to touch me, washing my body gently with a bar of soap. “I almost lost you, Val. I almost lost you.”
    The tremor in her voice broke my heart, and I reached out one hand to stroke the curve of her hip.
    “You’re in bad shape right now,” she continued, her voice low and intense. “All I want is for you to get well. And I’m afraid that if we make love right now, I’ll hurt you. That’s how crazy I feel inside.”
    This I could understand. I had felt it myself sometimes—a need so powerful it was almost frightening. I’d never realized that it was something we shared. The surge of relief made me feel a little dizzy, and I threw out my good arm to brace myself against the tile wall.
    “Being apart from you is the only thing that can really hurt me,” I whispered over her head as she bent to wash my legs. Her hands on me felt so damn good. “But I understand. And you’re right—I am a mess. I can wait a while, if that will make you feel better.”
    Alexa gently spun me to face the spray, her kneading hands moving slowly up my calves. “I love you. Don’t ever doubt that I—what the hell is this?”
    “What?” She had paused her ministrations near the top of my rib cage. I could feel her quick breaths against my damp skin. When she pressed in gently with her fingertips, I winced. “That’s tender. Is it a bruise?”
    She didn’t answer. I twisted my head around to try to catch a look—either at the spot, or at her. “Baby? What is it?”
    “It looks like…like a bite, actually.”
    My stomach fishtailed and my pulse sped up. “A bite? He fucking bit me?”
    Alexa rose and pulled me close. “I hate him,” she whispered.
    “Yeah. Yeah, me, too.” I was trembling again, and I couldn’t stop. This was insane. A violent mugging I could at least understand. It was awful, but comprehensible. But what kind of psychopath bit someone?
    My balance wavered as a sickening wave of dread punched me in the gut. “You’re sure…the doctors were sure he