Through the Static by Jeanette Grey Page A

gaze to her shoulder. The bandages there were curling at the edges, the fabric as dirty as the skin around it. His head swam.
    He’d taken her on the fucking ground.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” he repeated, fingering the edge of the gauze.
    Her hand stopped him, curling around his palm. “Don’t be.”
    Images of his body moving over hers made both the link and his blood flood with warmth. She’d wanted it. She’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted her.
    â€œAll right,” he said, his voice unsteady. His gaze moved up her body, to the knotted tangle of her hair and the smudges on her face. He ran a fingertip along her jaw. “I need to get you cleaned up, though.”
    She tilted her head to the other closed door. “In there.”
    Against her mental protests, he lifted her into his arms again, grabbing the medical kit as he rose.
    The bathroom was small, all cold, white tile and efficient lines. He set her down on the counter and forced himself to concentrate on her wounds instead of on the swaths of skin reflected in the mirror behind her. With all the gentleness he could muster, he unwound the bandage.
    Beneath it, her flesh was a patchwork of bruises, the purple mottling stark against her paleness. It hurt to look at.
    â€œIs it that bad?” She was trying to sound flippant, but her fear pushed past the bravado.
    He focused his gaze on the line of stitches he’d sewn into her flesh. The torn edges around them were drawn together tightly, the wound nearly closed. He prodded her to twist so he could look at the exit site. That, too, was clean.
    â€œNo,” he said, the word ragged with his relief. “It’s not so bad.”
    The regenerator he’d injected into the tissue the night before had done its job, knitting the muscle and skin back together again, and there was no sign of infection, in spite of their lack of care. In a few days she’d be as good as new.
    He took a moment to look over the other places where she’d been scraped and bruised, and he grimaced when he saw the new marks on her back from where she’d slid against the ground in the midst of their coupling in the woods. All of it was superficial, though.
    â€œYou’ll be fine,” he assured her. He sighed and pressed his lips against her neck.
    Separating himself from her, he crossed the tile to the shower stall. He swung the door open and started the water. It was cold, but at least it ran clear. Hoping it would warm up, he turned back to her and had to swallow a groan at what he saw, his hand gripping the frame of the shower to stabilize himself.
    She stood beside the counter naked, all slim waist and lush curves, the clothes he’d dressed her in twice now on the floor. Her features and frame were so delicate, but with her hair a mess, her bruised skin streaked with dirt, she looked like a warrior. She was a painting of contradictions. And never in his life had he seen anything so beautiful.
    Still overwhelmed with the way his body could bloom with heat, he stayed there, his spine pressed against the wall as he stared at her. Her expression faltered for a second, but then her cheeks pinked. While he was trying to keep his thoughts to himself, the sheer force of his desire for her had to be leaking over the edges, filling the space of their link.
    â€œEven like this?” she asked, gesturing at all that naked flesh. At the dirt and scrapes.
    â€œEspecially like this.”
    All his designs on bathing her receded. He didn’t have the control to do it without wanting to feel the heat inside her again, and she was tired. She deserved better.
    He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, then peeled himself from the tile. The air was growing heavy with steam now, so he reached a hand back under the spray, adjusting the temperature until it was comfortably hot. He stepped out of the way and held his arm out.
    She surprised him when, instead of getting in,