She Proved Herself in the Rain, Now He Cannot Stay Away novel · Chapter 2 of 3

Chapter 2: Steam and the Order She Obeys

Marcus tends Passion's wound inside a rain-lashed stone shelter, and his careful hands and blunt confession pull them from care into the brink of sex until he asks her to tell him to stop and she catches his wrist instead of answering.

The shelter door swung shut behind them, and the rain became a soft hiss against the stone walls.

Marcus set her down beside the basin with a care that made her teeth ache, his hands staying braced around her waist as if he expected her legs to give out.

The stone was cold under her boots. The air inside was colder still, close and damp, and it smelled of old ashes and wet wool.

She should have stepped back. She didn't.

'Will you let me help you now?'

His voice was low, rough from the rain, and it landed somewhere in the base of her spine.

Passion looked up at him. Water still ran down his face, tracking along the hard line of his jaw, and his shirt was ruined, torn at the shoulder where he had ripped it for her bandage.

She had done that. She had bled through his shirt, and he had not flinched.

'I can manage,' she said, but the words came out thin.

'No,' he said. 'You can't.'

He released her waist slowly, one hand at a time, like he was giving her the chance to run.

Then he turned and crossed to the small iron stove in the corner, and she watched him crouch to work the flint.

The first sparks caught, and the fire threw his shadow huge against the stone wall.

She stood there, dripping, while he built the fire up, and she hated how much she noticed the way his shoulders moved under the wet fabric of his shirt.

He had carried her through the forest. He had knelt in the mud for her.

But imagining was safe. This was not.

'Take off the jacket,' he said without turning around.

It was not a request.

Passion's fingers went to the zipper before she told them to.

She stopped herself. 'Excuse me?'

'Your jacket is soaked through, and I need to see the wound.' He stood, brushing ash from his hands, and faced her. 'Take it off.'

There was nothing in his face but patience. That was the worst part.

She shrugged out of the leather jacket and let it fall to the floor. The cream sweater underneath was wet too, clinging to her skin, and she saw his gaze drop to her side where the blood had begun to soak through again.

'Sit,' he said.

She sat on the low wooden bench beside the basin, and he came to her, a bowl of water in his hands, a clean cloth over his arm.

He had found supplies. She had not even seen him look.

He set the bowl down and knelt in front of her, and for a wild, breathless second she thought he was going to kneel like he had in the clearing, in front of everyone.

But he only reached for the hem of her sweater.

'I need to lift this.'

'Then lift it.'

Her voice was steady. She was proud of that.

His fingers brushed her skin as he eased the wet fabric up over her ribs, and she felt the touch everywhere at once, a slow heat that had nothing to do with the fire.

The wound was ugly, a deep gash along her flank, and the bandage he had made from his shirt was soaked red.

He peeled it away carefully, and she did not look at his face. She looked at the wall behind him, at the shadows the fire made, at anything but the way his hands moved against her bare skin.

'This will sting,' he said.

'You think I don't know that?'

He pressed the wet cloth to the wound, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.

Damn.

The word sat behind her teeth, but she did not let it out.

He worked in silence, cleaning the gash with a gentleness that made her want to scream. His hands were steady, sure, and they touched her like she was something he was afraid of breaking.

No one had ever touched her like that.

'You're good at this,' she said, because the silence was worse.

'I've had practice.'

'On who?'

He did not answer. He dipped the cloth again, and the water in the bowl turned pink.

'Marcus.'

He looked up at her then, and she forgot what she had been about to say.

The firelight caught his eyes, and they were dark, so dark, and she could see the rain still clinging to his lashes.

'You talk too much,' he said.

'I've been told.'

'Not by me.'

He reached for a roll of clean bandages on the shelf behind her, and the movement brought him close, his chest nearly brushing her knees.

She could smell him. Pine and woodsmoke and something warm underneath, something that made her wolf stir and stretch inside her skin.

'Lift your arms,' he said.

'Why?'

'Because I need to wrap the bandage around your ribs, and I can't do it through the sweater.'

She stared at him.

He stared back.

'Passion.' Her name in his mouth was a command all by itself. 'Lift your arms.'

She lifted them.

He pulled the sweater up and over her head in one slow motion, and then she was sitting in front of him in nothing but her bra, and the fire was warm on her bare skin, and his eyes were on her face, only on her face, like he was giving her the dignity of not looking.

She almost wished he would.

He began to wrap the bandage around her ribs, his hands passing the cloth behind her back, around, behind, around, and every pass brought his face close to hers.

She could feel his breath on her neck. She could feel the heat of him through his wet clothes.

'Why are you doing this?' she asked, and her voice was not steady now.

'Because you're hurt.'

'That's not what I mean.'

He tied the bandage off with a knot at her side, and then his hands just stayed there, resting on her waist, his thumbs brushing the edge of the fabric.

'I don't know,' he said.

It was the first honest thing he had said to her all night.

'You don't know.'

'I don't know why I can't stop thinking about you.' He said it flat, like a fact, like a report he was giving to himself. 'I don't know why I carried you here instead of the healer's. I don't know why I'm kneeling on a cold floor in a wet shirt when I should be anywhere else.'

Her heart was beating too fast. She could feel it in her throat, in her wrists, in the place where his thumbs still pressed against her skin.

'Then go,' she said.

'Tell me to.'

She didn't.

His hands moved. Up, just a little, just enough that his fingers found the edge of her bra, and she stopped breathing.

'Tell me to stop,' he said, and his voice had gone low, rough, a growl underneath it that made her wolf whine in her chest.

But his hands were warm on her skin, and she was so tired of fighting.

'Don't stop,' she said.

It came out like a confession.

He made a sound low in his throat, and then his hands were moving, sliding up over her ribs, over the bandage, over the bare skin above it, and she arched into the touch without meaning to.

'That's it,' he murmured. 'Let me.'

She let him.

His hands found her breasts, cupping her through the thin fabric of her bra, and her head fell back, and the fire crackled, and the rain kept falling outside, and it did not matter.

Nothing mattered but his hands and his heat and the way he was looking at her, like she was the only thing in the world he had ever wanted to touch.

'You feel that?' he asked, and his thumbs found her nipples through the lace, and she gasped.

'Yes.'

'Good.'

He leaned in, and his mouth brushed her collarbone, and she made a sound she did not recognize.

His hands slipped behind her back, and she felt the clasp of her bra give way.

The fabric fell away, and then there was nothing between his hands and her skin, and he was touching her, really touching her, and she was on fire.

'Look at me,' he said.

She opened her eyes. She had not realized she had closed them.

'You're beautiful,' he said, and it was not a compliment. It was a fact, stated the way he stated everything, flat and certain and true.

'Marcus.'

'I'm going to touch you,' he said, and his hand slid down her stomach, over the bandage, to the button of her jeans. 'And you're going to let me. Say it.'

'I'm going to let you.'

He undid the button. He pulled the zipper down. His hand slipped inside, under the edge of her underwear, and she bucked against it.

'Say it again,' he said, and his fingers found her, and she was wet, so wet, and she could not breathe.

'I'm going to let you.'

'Yes,' he said, against her throat. 'You are.'

His fingers moved, slow and sure, learning her, and she grabbed at his shoulders, at his wet shirt, and held on.

The fire popped. The rain fell. The world outside the shelter did not exist.

'Tell me what you want,' he said, and his thumb circled, and she was climbing, climbing, so close.

'You,' she said. 'I want you.'

He pressed his forehead to hers, and his hand went still beneath the edge of her loosened jeans, and she could feel him shaking, just a little, just enough to know he was as far gone as she was.

'Tell me to stop,' he said, and his breath was warm on her mouth.

Passion caught his wrist instead of answering.

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