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Carly put her hand on the door latch, then pushed. The door swung open noiselessly, and she entered the room. And caught her breath as a set of stern brown eyes zeroed in on her face. She knew what he looked like—of course she knew. Handsome as sin, with a face carved in granite, and chocolate-brown eyes that could be warm as fudge or cold as a frozen Eskimo Pie...which they were now. Six-foot-two with broad shoulders tapering to a waist and hips that hadn’t an ounce of flab anywhere. Long, long legs—of course, you idiot, he’s six-two!—that seemed to dwarf the hospital bed on which he lay in a semireclining position.
The mesh cap covering his head—and the electrodes she could see attached to his skull beneath it—should have made him look ridiculous, but somehow they didn’t. Not when his bare, muscular legs, clad only in a pair of running shorts, were right beneath her eyes—legs that were perfectly visible because the sheet that might have been covering them had been restlessly tossed to one side. Not when his impressively muscled chest, covered only by a short-sleeved button-down shirt, rose and fell with his steady breathing, drawing her attention there. She didn’t know why he wasn’t clad in traditional hospital garb, but he wasn’t, and she couldn’t help the way her gaze was riveted on his impressive physical attributes. Then the legs, the chest and the rest of his perfect body faded into obscurity as her eyes met his again, and she floundered helplessly beneath those dark orbs.
“Do you know who I am?” Carly blurted out, then felt foolish.
The gravelly voice she recognized from hearing him on the Senate floor giving impassioned speeches spoke. “Oh yeah. You’re my fiancée. I didn’t quite catch the name, but...” He looked her over from head to toe...twice. His eyes lingered—obviously—on her breasts. Both times. “I have good taste.”
It was crazy. Stupid. She wasn’t the kind to get flustered by a man. Any man. Even one as blatantly masculine, sexy and irresistible as the senator was. Carly didn’t have a shy bone in her body, unlike her younger sister, Tahra. But...she blushed under his pointed stare. The kind of thing Tahra did a lot, but Carly never did. Until now.
She resisted the urge to cross her arms across her chest, and instead moved farther into the room, closing the door behind her with a little snick as the latch clicked shut. When she looked at the senator again, she realized with a tiny shock that he was strapped into the bed. And if she didn’t miss her guess, that was a lock on the strap.
Electro-shock therapy. Mental illness. Violent mental illness? she wondered. She couldn’t keep the question out of the eyes she raised to his.
To her surprise, he laughed suddenly, a booming sound that reverberated around the room. “No,” he told her, humor lightening the rather severe expression he usually wore. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked quickly, her hand reaching for the door latch.
“The strap is for my protection,” he told her. “To make sure I don’t get out of bed without a nurse in attendance. To make sure I don’t fall.” He hooked a thumb over his right shoulder, and for the first time Carly saw the harness hooked to an inverted T bar. She followed the strap upward, to the mechanical device that seemed to run on tracks throughout the room, and into what she figured was a private bathroom.
“What in the world?” Carly had never seen anything like it.
“It’s actually quite ingenious. And if I really needed it, it’d be a lifesaver. But since I don’t—I never fall when I have an episode, never lose consciousness—it’s a damned nuisance. But it’s hospital policy.”
“Episode? Fall? Lose consciousness?” Carly felt stupid for repeating his words, but she had no idea what he was talking about. Her first supposition—that he was mentally ill—seemed to be all wrong. He certainly came across as being all there. Except for accepting her as his fiancée...which he knew she wasn’t. So why had he let her in his room? Never shy, she asked, “Why did you allow me in here?”
“Because I was sick of my own company and looking for a diversion.”
