Page 71 of Handcuffed to the Bear

He refused Avery’s offer of a shoulder to lean on, and slightly more facetious offer of the loan of his cane. Out in the hallway, Avery raised the cane and pointed to one of the doors. “That’s Casey’s room, by the way,” he said.

“You’re a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, you aren’t being obvious about peeking into every open door we passat all.”

Jack hesitated. Invisible strings pulled him toward Casey’s door. But, just as strongly, he didn’t want to see her for the first time with an audience.

“Look, I’ll run and pick up your stuff from the pharmacy, okay? Meet you downstairs.”

And Avery was off before Jack could say anything.

One thing about werewolves: they were acutely attuned to social nuance.

With Avery gone, Jack realized he could just go downstairs. He didn’t have to do this, unless he wanted to.

But he did want to.

Or—more than that. Heneededto.

Casey’s door was partly open. Jack cautiously peeked in.

She was sleeping, her hair a dark corona around her small face. He limped over to the bed. This was his first opportunity to see her—really see her, without the slightly blurring around the edges that marred his uncorrected vision, even at close range.

She was everything he’d known she would be, and more. Her face was a perfect heart, the chin small and pointed, her skin a dark tan with olive undertones. Healing bruises, and a deep red stippling of wasp stings along the side of her face, could not mar that smooth perfection. Her thick, dark lashes grazed her cheek; her full lips were parted, as if to breathe a secret.

Jack brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. It was soft as velvet.

She turned into his touch, and her lips moved slightly. He thought they framed his name, but perhaps it was only wishful thinking.

And he knew then, with sudden brutal clarity, that he’d been a fool to come here. He had nothing to offer her, nothing except a scarred body and a dark past stained with blood and death. Better to sever their connection here, before either of them had an opportunity to get in deep enough to regret.

It would be a transitory pain for her, one that would be quickly forgotten. She’d move on with her life, embrace the new opportunities opening up in front of her.

Better a fast goodbye than a lifetime of sorrow.

He leaned down to brush her hair back from her forehead, and kissed it gently. “Goodbye, Casey,” he whispered.

Then he straightened quickly and limped out of the room before he could yield to the temptation drawing him back—the overwhelming urge to crawl into that bed with her and wrap his arms around her and never let go.

CHAPTER19

Casey nappedon and off throughout the afternoon. She’d thought she would never need to eat again after stuffing herself on meatloaf, but it was only a couple of hours later when she woke up enough to push the nurse call button and ask for a sandwich. “Or a hamburger. Rare.” She’d never craved meat this badly, even in lynx form.

On the bright side, this place was used to dealing with injured shifters. No one blinked twice at feeding her a full meal’s worth of food every few hours.

Her dreams were full of Jack. Sometimes he was reaching for her, sinking beneath the waves of an endless black ocean, and then she’d wake gasping and shaking, only to discover the unsteady, rocking boat had been replaced with the solid stability of the hospital bed. Sometimes she couldn’t find him at all, and wandered through an endless forest, the empty handcuffs dangling bloody from her wrist.

But some of her dreams were not unpleasant at all. These dreams were full of gentle touches and heated kisses. There were no words, only the small noises that lovers make, the wet slide of skin on sweat-slick skin and the little gasping cries she gave when she came. Her injuries were gone and so were his, because this was dream country, where the perils of the real world could be left behind at the door.

From those dreams she came awake with her left hand reaching out, groping for the hand that should have been there, the fingers that had always slid into hers to hold her steady on the island. And for an instant, in the soft haze between dreaming and waking, she could almost believe he was there in the bed with her, his arms wrapping around her, his body warming hers.

And then she surfaced enough to know that he wasn’t there, and slipped back down into dream country, in the hopes of finding him again.

* * *

She woke in early evening, a little more clear-headed, to find that Cho was back—bringing food this time, a large bag of Greek takeout. They both ate and then Cho recorded the rest of her statement.

It was weirdly easy to talk about it. She kept thinking the full impact was going to hit her eventually, and maybe it would. But for now, she found herself explaining the events on the island dispassionately, as if they’d happened to someone else.

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