RawHeat (6 page)

“Can you really see everything perfectly?”

“You know I can. A little to your left—don’t go too fast,
you’re almost at the bars.”

He didn’t have to tell her, however. The smell of blood had
gotten strong enough to gag her.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? It stinks like a fucking slaughterhouse
in here.”

“They cut one of my fingers off.”

He even said a thing like that in a glassy, reasonable
voice. As though he’d just told her what the weather was like in France.

“Jesus Christ,” she managed to get out, but the sob couldn’t
be held back this time. It strangled her words into submission, then kicked
dirt over their graves.

She wrapped her hands around the oily bars and tried to just
shake them.

“It’s fine. It grew back,” he said, and she knew it was true
because his hands went over hers. Sticky, but complete with all possible
fingers.

“Yeah,
that
makes it okay.”

“It makes it okay when you say things like that
sarcastically,” he said. She could feel him stroking over the backs of her
hands. Feel him leaning down to kiss her through the bars. It made her weak,
even under these circumstances.

“I need to get you out of here. I mean, I know the wolves
might ignore you but even so—”

“There aren’t any wolves. It’s a corridor collapse down by
Ward Two.”

He was still stroking her hands. And when she went still and
didn’t quite know what to say, he kissed her mouth again. Wetter this time. A
little deeper—or as deep as the bars would allow.

She could taste blood, though it didn’t scare her. Only a
bite could turn you—no blood, no semen. Though she suddenly found herself
wondering what would happen if
she
bit
him
.

“How do you know?” she asked, then cursed her stupid voice
for sounding so breathless. They were in mortal danger, in the dark, in a death
lab. Snogging through the bars did not seem like an ideal use of time.

“I can smell an intruder wolf a mile away. I can smell an
intruder wolf in the fortress five miles from here. And I heard the crash too.
Termites, I think.”

She could feel him standing straight, suddenly, before
turning a little. As though he was looking at the door and seeing beyond it, to
the heap of rubble. To the fortress on the hill.

“Still, I should let you out. Just to—”

His attention snapped back to her, immediately.

“You can’t let me out, Serena. The lights will be back on
any minute and then people will return to their stations. How would you answer
Dr. Philips if he asked you why you’d opened my cage?”

“With a dirty limerick?”

“Be serious. Go back to your room. I’ll see you later, all
right?”

She paused before speaking. It wasn’t that big a deal,
really, what she wanted to say. He had to know it was coming, reasonably. And
yet it took some getting out, anyway.

“I don’t want to wait until later. I don’t want to see you
in installments anymore, Conn. Those days are over.”

His pause was just as long and pregnant as hers had been.
And he sounded different when he finally said something. Looser, somehow.
Crazier.

“If you don’t go I’ll do something stupid.”

“
Pffft.
Like what?”

“These nails are really deep in my shoulder.” One of his hands
left hers and even though most of her didn’t really suspect he could ever do
something like the thing he was absolutely going to do, she had the urge to
hold on to him. Just grab one of his fingers, maybe, and cling. “If I just
twist one of them it really—”

Something cracked. It actually cracked, and squelched, and
he made a sound like nothing on earth.

“Oh God no, no! Stop it! Are you fucking nuts? No, no, I’ll
go, I’ll go!”

He didn’t say what she expected, however. Though after the
whole nail in the shoulder stunt she wasn’t sure what “expected” actually
was
.

“You really care about me that much, huh?”

“Was that a test of how much I may or may not care?” she
asked, too incredulous to make her voice normal. “Oh my God, I think I’m going
to faint. Don’t twist things in your shoulder, okay? Don’t do that.”

“It’s not a
test
, Serena. You just ran down a
possibly wolf-infested corridor to come let me out. You’re standing here, as
though waiting for them to come and find you. So I’m going to make this point
very clear with a nail in my shoulder—don’t do that again.”

She slapped a hand against the bars.

“Don’t you fucking twist that nail again, Connor, I mean it!
I won’t, I promise I won’t.”

“You swear to me.”

“I swear, you fucking masochist!”

She took a step back, away from the bars—just as light
suddenly flooded the room. Only once it had, everything just died in her mouth.
All the words about him being an asshole for torturing her like this…they
seemed pretty weak in the face of someone who’d actually been tortured.

“Go,” he said, and pointed her in the direction of the door
with his gaze.

“You look like shit,” she said, because it was true. But
also because it was the only thing she could get out without crying over it.

“I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just sorry.”

“You know, as much as I hate using my pain against you, I
love knowing you care that much. I never thought anyone would ever care about
me that much.”

She couldn’t do anything but. There were great, livid
bruises all down his left side—some of them swirling away into nothing even as
she watched—and blackened burns across his face likes claw marks. He looked
beaten and exhausted and bloody all over, and it made her wonder how anyone in
the world could look at him and not care.

Even when his face changed.

It flattened out, went as smooth as glass. And when he spoke
he sounded…actively cold. As though she’d done something wrong she couldn’t
possibly know about. And even worse, “I don’t know where he is, Nurse Kent.”

Though her stomach didn’t drop far before she realized he
hadn’t suddenly stopped liking her. He hadn’t decided they should go back to
formal titles on the spur of the moment. He’d just noticed Tara stood in the
doorway. Tara, who’d been standing there for God only knew how long.

She thought about what they’d said only seconds before.
About the word
caring
and the word
love
and the word
sorry
.

And then she turned briskly and plastered on a smile, just
in time for the interrogation.

“What did you come here for?”

The question wasn’t as scary as it could have been. True,
she didn’t have an answer. But at least Tara hadn’t said,
You’re sorry a
werewolf got beaten up
?

“The alarm goes off and you come here?”

Her mind flicked to what Connor had just said—about not
knowing where someone was, as cool and calm as anything.

“I was looking for Dr. Philips,” she said, and it sounded
plausible enough. It really did. Until she thought about how pathetic her
relationship with Dr. Philips actually was.

“You were looking for Dr. Philips. In the middle of a wolf
attack.”

Tara narrowed her eyes and that was that. She was cornered.
She and Connor were doomed, doomed to the incinerator or worse. She could see
it in Tara’s eyes—the girl knew. She just knew even though the whole scenario
should have seemed impossible, insane, repugnant.

Serena had to get her out of the lab, away from the pressure
of Connor’s gaze. Out of this, whatever
this
was, and into some other
ludicrous version of her life. Of course, doing so meant only one possible
thing.

She had to drag Tara into the corridor, and tell her
something that made Serena want to throw up into her own hands.

“Philips and I are sleeping together, okay? I just didn’t
think. I went for him. And if you tell anyone I’ll…I’ll…I don’t even know what
I’ll do. Got it?”

She expected laughter. Laughter, as though no one could
possibly believe that she was sleeping with Dr. Philips. Tiny, bug-eyed,
reptilian Dr. Philips.

But then Tara suddenly made a face—the one she’d expected
after the realization that her best friend was fucking a wolf—and shrugged her
off, and said the very best thing she could possibly say under these crazy
parameters.

“You’re fucking lizard-face Philips? Oh my God, you are
desperate, Kent.”

She backed away, shaking her head. Then seemed to consider,
for a second. As though she’d just realized how mean it sounded, to call a
“friend” desperate.

“Well, you’ll find him in the south corridor laundry room.
As soon as the alarm sounded he climbed into a washing machine and shut the
door.”

Yep. That was her dreamy guy, all right.

* * * * *

“You told her you were sleeping with him? My torturer? You
told her you were sleeping with my sadistic torturer?”

She gritted her teeth and pulled, but the nail wouldn’t come
free. Much to his displeasure.

“I’ll show you sadistic torturer in a second.”

“Are you kidding? You’re not even twisting then pulling.
You’re about as sadistic as a donut.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for my lack of sadistic-ness. You’re
the one who made me watch while you did that very thing just to make me do your
evil bidding.”

“You didn’t watch. It was dark. You just heard squelching. I
could have been stomping on my torn-off finger.”

“Gross, Conn. Really gross. And as for the other thing—you
know I’m not
actually
sleeping with him, right? I just had to tell her
something that would explain my running desperately to your rescue.”

She put a hand on his back and tried to brace herself. The
nail was coming, she could feel it. It was the last one and it was coming and
once it was out they could stop trying to banter past horrible, grisly
injuries. They could do something ordinary, instead. Like cuddle.

“Did I mention how much I loved you running to my rescue?”

“You might have said something—hold still.”

“I can’t, it’s really—ah, Jesus!”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry, oh fuck I’m so sorry!”

And then the banter evaporated, and she was just blubbering
into his blood-streaked back. At least she had the nail—though what kind of
victory that was she couldn’t say. Her entire body felt like a wet dishrag.
She’d soaked her uniform, under her arms. Three nails, and she was out for the
count.

“Hey hey hey—it’s okay. I’m okay. I haven’t died.”

But that wasn’t the point really, was it? When she ran her
fingertips over the almost smooth marks where the nails had been, he still
flinched. She could still feel the blood sliding thick and visceral beneath her
touch. It had run all the way down his back to wet the sheets, and when she got
the cloth and wiped and rinsed, wiped and rinsed, it turned the water a stormy
red.

“Scrub harder,” he said, so she did. She got the sooty
trails off his arms and his face—not like before with the soft, sensuous
strokes she’d fallen into over the year, but rough and hard and desperate.

And the harder she scrubbed, the less he seemed appeased,
until somehow he’d reached behind himself and crushed his hands over her ass,
plastered her to him like maybe he could get rid of the blood and the pain by
merging them into one person.

Which seemed, frankly, insane. She’d just pulled nails out
of him and he was groping her in a completely suggestive manner, and when she
kissed the nape of his neck instead of pushing her face against it, he groaned
too loudly.

“Weren’t you in agony, three seconds earlier?” she asked,
but he just laughed—a terrifying, full-throttle sound. She wasn’t even sure if
she’d ever heard him make anything like it before.

“I’m no longer completely sure I can tell the difference
between pleasure and pain,” he said, and she thought of his scar, the way he’d
reacted when she’d bitten him. The way she had reacted when she’d thought he
was going to bite her.

“I don’t think we have an entirely healthy relationship,”
she said, though it kind of hurt to do it. Still, it felt a whole lot better
when he didn’t respond with something like,
Yeah, well, we’re a different
species
.

“I spend half my life in a cage and you spend all of your
life pretending you don’t mind. I think we’re long past healthy,” he said, then
quite suddenly spread himself over and against her.

It made the back of his head and the nape of his neck slot
into the curve of her shoulder, and gave her a long, charged look at the entire
length of his glorious body—golden again, now the pink of the scrubbing had
left his skin. Nothing stuck, that was the thing with him. Nothing stuck, and
he was just going to be ageless and flawless forever.

Save for the scar. The one she couldn’t help tracing her
fingers over—oh that branching, beautiful part of it like a twisted letter Y,
so rough beneath her touch—on the way down his body, to the thick, insistent
jut of his cock.

“You know, I always thought I was the insatiable one,” she
said, though the way it had really felt played on her mind. It played so hard
she had to say it. “I thought I was going mad.”

His eyes were half-slits. Most of him didn’t seem to care,
but some of him apparently did.

“Because I’m a wolf?”

Oh yeah, some of him did.

“Because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.
Because I think of it even in darkness, with bars between us.”

“Think about what?” he asked, but she could see he had a
pretty good idea. He’d turned his face to her throat now, and his mouth felt
unbearably wet and hot.

“Being with you. Having you inside me. I could still taste
you all over me after…after you did those things to me. I could still smell
you.”

“And you thought about those things through the bars.”

“I thought about there being no bars. I thought about
leaving here with you—”