Page 40 of Saint of the Shadows

The alternative was a Vincent-assisted sponge bath. Yeah... NO.

“Fine,” she said. A passionate protest would’ve amused him too much. She pulled off her flannel shirt and stretched her arms above her head. Welts formed tight knots on the underside. She checked them to see bruises pool together at her ribs in a blackish purple hidden by her undershirt. Vincent’s eyes bugged. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” Marisol hugged herself.

He looked at her like he did in the hospital: with pity.

“All right. It’s bad, but I’m alive, aren’t I?” A vision of Annie’s pooling blood and lifeless handovertook Marisol’s body like a fever chill. “Help me in the damn shower already.”

Vincent nodded and kneeled at her side. Marisol put her good arm around his neck while he wedged his arms under her thighs. He lifted her without grunting. She kept her gaze behind his shoulder. Better to not make a thing of this anymore than she had. Though she cursed her autonomic system for sending blood to places she had no business mentioning in the same breath as Vincent.

He set her down on the tiled bench and pulled the shower head down, handing it to her. “Everything you need—soap, shampoo—is here. I’ll make something to eat. It’s afternoon. Would you like breakfast or lunch?”

“Surprise me.”

He left the shower and tossed a towel over the glass wall within her reach. “When you’re done and dressed, I’ll help you get back in your chair.”

“Vincent?” Marisol called out. The blur of him through the glass stilled. “Thank you.”

He tapped on the doorframe and shut the door behind him.

Finally alone, Marisol flung her undershirt over the shower wall. She wiggled out of her boxers, tossing them toward the same spot. Turning the shower on, she welcomed the warm spray over her skin. One layer of grime washed away, and she felt human again. A few more rinses, and she’d start believing compliments.

A good memory floated into her head—the Patron Saint. She was with him on the rooftop when his body and his heat overpowered the winter cold. He ripped off his mask, revealing the man underneath.

Tobias.

Couldn’t be him, though. He left her, albeit necessarily, on the lurch. Her Patron Saint would handle her situation unhindered by danger and distance. Who could this super cop be? A famous actor moonlighting as a superhero for research? Not her worst idea. No, she saved that for the next thought, intruding with blunt force.

Vincent.

To her horror, she imagined the rest of their tryst mask-free. Her imagination turned the Patron Saint’s kiss into Vincent’s electric kiss. Or, when she thought of black-clad Vincent’s body grinding into her on the rooftop, she instinctively rubbed her thighs together. That thought bubble needed to pop. Now. “Transference,” she muttered before switching the heat down and splashing her face with cold water. That explained her feelings, transference, when a patient mistakes a caregiver’s attention as romantic. Transference because there was no way Vincent was…

She scraped her case of transference off, scrubbing until her skin became raw and pebbled under the cold water. After turning the shower off, she even impressed herself when she yanked down the towel off the shower’s wall, wrapping it around her. With her newfoundspryness, she could drag herself the short distance to her wheelchair without Vincent’s help. She lowered herself to the floor, butt barely hovering above it, and distributed her weight between her good leg and arms. A few more scoots, she would be home free.

Another scoot and her hand slipped. Her elbow cracked against the floor. Before pain registered in her synapses, the back of her head hit the tile. Great, after all she’d been through, this was how she’d die? But it was the sharp jab to her dignity that hurt the most, especially as Vincent darted to the bathroom.

“Hell’s bells!” He jerked his gaze to the ceiling. And cursed like a grandpa—a great-grandpa.

“I slipped.”

“I’m trying not to see it.” Vincent draped a towel across his forearms. Eyes to the ceiling, he scooped his arms underneath her and pulled her off the floor. “You’re ice cold.”

Marisol’s loud breath wavered between her trembling and probably blue lips. “Hot water is bad for bruises. It could burst more blood vessels.” A layer of Egyptian cotton towels was not enough protection to guard her from admitting why she really needed a cold shower—stupid, sexy Vincent-induced transference.

Dripping and shivering, Marisol accepted another dry towel around her shoulders. Vincent’s soaked T-shirt clung to him, revealing compact muscles. Middleweight but with those muscles? Hecould pack a heavyweight punch. Hell’s bells, indeed.

Marisol pointed to his T-shirt as she squeezed her wet hair into the towel. “Sorry. I got you wet.”

“I don’t care.” He piled more towels around her, patting at her arms and shoulders as if she wasn’t capable of drying herself off. Vincent unsealed the protector bag and pulled it off her cast. He draped it over the edge of the shower wall. “Sorry,” he said, “please don’t break my fingers.” A corner of his mouth curled into a smile.

Marisol wouldn’t follow through on her threat. He had been quick enough about removing the cast protector; it didn’t give Marisol time to keep her defenses up. She unraveled the plastic wrap from her leg and wadded it. “You have a good bedside manner.”

“Must’ve learned it from my dad.” He cleared his throat as he placed a white terrycloth robe next to her. “Dinner’s almost ready. I could serve it to you in your room.”

Eat alone? With her current luck, she’d cut herself with a spoon. Even if she surrounded herself in bubble wrap, eating alone would leave her with only her thoughts, which opened her up to the living nightmares. “I’d rather eat with you.” And judging by his wet T-shirt, she was trading avoiding the nightmares with uncomfortable, one-sided sexual tension. She tightened a towel closer around herself.

Vincent pulled at his T-shirt and wrung a few drops of water out of it. He cleared his throat again and left.

After wrapping the Epsom salt gauze around her ribs and right underarm, she slid into the bathrobe. It tingled against her skin with a pattering of static shocks. Straight from the dryer. It smelled of Vincent, a faint scent of sandalwood.

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