"No," I snapped, placing two fingers against the pulse point in her neck. Her skin was hot, damp, and impossibly soft. The pulse under my fingertips was strong, steadying.Alive."We don't move her until she's cleaned. We don't degrade her by dragging her while she’s filthy."
Like they did on the stage.
The thought was a jagged shard of glass in my mind. The memory of her heels dragging across the wood, the way her gown had bunched up.
I wouldn't let her wake up sticky and ashamed. I wouldn't let her wake up smelling like a medical emergency.
Daniel vanished into the dark living room. Simon was at the sink, uselessly turning the tap of the dead faucet, scrubbing his hands with a dry rag, trying to wipe away the transgression.
I stripped off my suit jacket. It was Italian wool, bespoke, worth three thousand dollars. I folded it into a pillow and gently lifted her head, sliding the silk lining beneath her cheek.
"I've got you," I murmured to her unconscious face.
She didn't stir. Her lashes lay dark against her flushed cheeks. Without the glasses, without the oversized sweaters, without the towering intellect of T.L. Rose shielding her, she looked devastatingly young.
Daniel returned with an armful of blankets and a case of water. He set them down, his movements quiet for such a large man.
"The stove works," Daniel whispered. "Gas line is independent of the grid. I found some bottles of water in the fridge and heated that in a saucepan."
"Good," I said. "Give me the pot and the rags from the kit. Then go check the perimeter. Make sure the storm hasn't breached the windows."
"Anders—"
"Go," I said, not looking up.
Daniel hesitated, then nodded. He grabbed Simon by the shoulder on his way out, steering the artist out of the room, giving me exactly what I needed.
Privacy.
I poured the warm water into a stainless steel mixing bowl. I dipped the white terrycloth rag into it, wringing it out until steam curled into the cold air.
I stared at her face.
It was an act of service so intimate it felt like I was breaking a law. I wiped the sweat from her forehead, tracing the line of her hairline. I cleaned the tear tracks from her cheeks. The warm cloth soothed the flush of her skin.
I moved down. Her neck. Her shoulders. Her arms, limp and heavy.
I touched her with a reverence I hadn't known I possessed. My hands, usually reserved for signing documents and shaking hands with executives, were now dedicated to erasing the evidence of her pain.
I reached her legs.
This was the line. This was the boundary Simon had crossed, the territory Daniel had held down.
The scent of her sex was strongest here, musky, sweet, and overwhelmingly potent. It made the muscles in my jaw jump. My Alpha instincts were screaming at me to stop cleaning, to lean down and lick the slickness from her skin, to taste the release, to layer my own scent over hers so heavily that no one would ever doubt who she belonged to.
Rule 45. Medical necessity.
I forced the breath out of my lungs. I dipped the cloth again, the water turning hot against my own skin.
I parted her legs gently.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, the confession falling into the silence.
I wasn't apologizing for the cleaning. I was apologizing for ten years of silence. For every email I sent that was too cold. For every time I prioritized the deadline over the person. For sitting in that chair behind the podium and letting her fall because I was too scared of my own nature to catch her.
I wiped her inner thighs. I cleaned away the fluids, the sweat, and the evidence of the crisis. I was methodical. Thorough.
I was claiming her.
