He pressed his forehead against my shoulder and stayed there. Then he turned his head and put his lips to the side of my neck, just below my ear, and held them there. He pulled back before I could lean into it.
He stood and held his hand out.
"Come with me," he said.
"Where?"
"Trust me."
I let him pull me up. The world tilted. He caught my arm, steadied me, and we crossed the rooftop together toward the stairs. He went first, guiding me down in the dark. The stairwellsmelled like concrete and the jasmine that grew wild along the south wall.
He led me out a side door and down a gravel path that wound behind the base into the hillside. He kept tracing circles on the inside of my wrist as we walked, and my skin lit up under the repetition. The air thickened. A mineral smell sharpened as the path curved between low scrub and rock.
"Where are we going?"
"Patience."
"I don't have any. You know this."
He laughed and kept walking. The path opened into a shallow depression where steam rose from dark water. A natural pool, maybe ten meters across, fed by a crack in the rock where hot water seeped up from below the Atlas foothills. Someone had built a rough stone edge around the lip. A single lamp hung from a post, casting yellow light across the surface.
"Lorenzo found it during the rebuild," Diego said. "Sulfur spring. The water comes up hot enough to scald, but it cools by the time it reaches the pool." He pulled his shirt over his head one-armed, careful of the bandage. "Best-kept secret on the compound."
The steam curled off the water in the cool air. The smell was sharp and mineral, nothing like the antiseptic and smoke we'd been breathing for days.
Diego kicked off his boots and stripped to nothing. The lamplight caught his shoulders, the dark trail of hair below his navel, the white dressing taped below his collarbone. He stepped in and hissed through his teeth.
"Hot?"
"Perfect." He sank until the water hit his chest and tipped his head back. His jaw unclenched for what looked like the first time in days. "Get in here."
I undressed slower because the concussion made bending over an adventure in equilibrium. Diego opened one eye and tracked me as I pulled my shirt off, his gaze moving over the bruises on my ribs, the bandage on my temple, and the cuts across my knuckles.
"Don't," I said.
"Don't what?"
"Whatever you're about to say."
"I was going to say you look good naked."
"Liar."
"I never lie about naked men." He grinned. "Especially ones I'm in love with."
"You love a man who can't bend over without falling down. Congratulations."
"I've always had terrible taste." He splashed water at me. "Get in."
The water burned when I stepped in. The heat sank through skin and into muscle and bone, into places that had held tension so long I'd forgotten what they held. I lowered myself to my shoulders, and the world went soft at the edges.
"Blyad," I breathed.
"Good blyad or bad blyad?"
"Good." I let my head fall back against the stone rim. Steam blurred the stars. "Very good."
Diego moved through the water and settled beside me, back against the stone. Our shoulders pressed together beneath the surface. The knot between my shoulder blades unclenched, muscle by muscle.
