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Humans were so fragile that way.
Five extra minutes too long in the cold, and it could all be over.
I tried to convince myself that I gave a shit because it would be inconvenient to have to find a new nurse to help with Red. Though, I knew it wasn't that. But since I wasn't ready to unravel that, I went ahead and forced the thoughts from my mind.
It took a solid forty-five minutes before she stopped shivering. And there was one heart-stopping moment where I waited for her to take her next breath.
It was maybe another twenty minutes after that when I felt her take one slow, deep breath, exhaling it.
"For someone who acts like he's always half-frozen to death, you are really warm," she mumbled, turning her head so her colder cheek pressed to my chest. "You ever hear that old saying about people that have cold hands have warm hearts?" she mused, sounding half-asleep.
"The only thing warm about me is my skin, Josephine."
"That's mostly true," she agreed, her hand pressing flat against my pectoral muscle, and it was becoming harder and harder to remember I was here just to warm her up. And easier and easier to notice just how fucking naked I was.
"It's completely true. Don't think just because I saved you tonight that I'm a decent man. I'm not."
"You love Red."
"I'm responsible for Red," I clarified.
"Someone who feels responsible for someone gets them the medical care they clearly need. They don't sit up with them every night reading them poetry."
"Don't read into things that don't mean anything."
"Don't be so hard on yourself," she shot back. "It must be difficult to be a biker, ah, leader..."
"President," I clarified, getting a snort out of her.
"Okay. President. That's an obnoxious title, but okay. I get it is hard to be that, to have all of them looking to you for leadership. But it doesn't mean you have to be a complete dick."
"I was this way before I became their president," I told her.
"Rough upbringing?" she asked, her fingers gliding over my shoulder, my upper arm.
"Something like that."
Not many men lived the life I had lived before Earth and came out of it kind and well-adjusted. I don't know what the fuck happened with Daemon. In that case, I figured his brother just got the lion's share of the seriousness in that family. Or that Daemon himself shirked most of his responsibilities in the underworld, leaving Bael to pick up the slack, and Daemon to fuck around and have fun.
"You?" I asked, not even believing it was coming out of my mouth as it was. I didn't ask fucking humans personal questions. I didn't care enough about any of them to get to know them. And yet here I was, asking a woman I would need to execute in a few weeks what her fucking childhood was like. What was wrong with me?
"Not as hard as a lot of other people, no."
"You don't judge your hardships on the fact that other people have it worse."
"It wasn't awful. We were just really poor. And then my mom passed."
"What about your father?"
"He wasn't in the picture after he knocked up a coworker."
"So you have no one."
I wanted to believe I wanted to learn this information so that I knew if people would be looking for her or not once she was dead. She was relatively young, very pretty, a nurse. That was the kind of woman who made the news cycle nonstop when she was missing or murdered.
"Not anymore," she admitted, wiggling a bit, and it was becoming problematic. "I had someone. But that ended before I moved to Utah. It's just me. I guess you picked the ideal victim, huh?" she asked, sighing out her breath. "No one even to look for me."
I wanted to tell her not to call herself a victim.
But that was exactly what I'd made her.
I wanted to tell her not to feel so sorry for herself.
But what right did I have to say that, when I was putting her in this situation?
"You have coworkers who will have noticed you are missing by now."
"They don't like me."
"Now you sound like you're pitying yourself."
"Hey," she snapped, planting her hands on either side of my body, pushing up to look down at me. "You don't know the situation, so you don't get to tell me I am pitying myself."
"What's not to like about you?" I asked.
"I'm new. That's usually enough reason sometimes."
"For insecure people, yes," I agreed. "Sounds like you should pity them instead of yourself. Imagine how miserable they must be to dislike you just because you're new."
"I guess," she agreed, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear, letting out a growling noise when it slipped right back out again. "This stupid hair," she added, sighing, as she rolled off to my side, but didn't put much space between us.
