Chapter 28 Mattie #2
She held out her bandaged right hand, and Dimitri wrapped it carefully in the plastic, sealing the edges around her wrist and along her forearm so that no water could seep through to the gauze and splints beneath.
His fingers barely grazed the bandage, but even that faint pressure made the throbbing ratchet up a notch. She bit the inside of her cheek.
"Too tight?" he asked.
"No. It's good."
Dimitri turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature until steam began to curl behind the curtain. He stripped down quickly and stepped into the shower with her, guiding her under the spray.
Under different circumstances, being naked with Dimitri in a small shower with warm water running over both of them would have been the start of something, but not today.
She was aware of his body, because how could she not be?
The sculpted lines of him, the new definition in his arms and chest, the warm skin against hers where their bodies brushed in the tight space.
The attraction was there, a low hum beneath her skin, familiar and insistent, but it couldn't take root.
Her body was too depleted, too wrung out, too consumed by the pulses of pain in her hand to respond to anything beyond the simple comfort of warmth and familiar touch.
Dimitri was reacting in the same way, just not for the same reasons.
He was aware of her state, of her pain, and that part of him that usually responded to her nude body with obvious excitement stayed inert.
His movements as he lathered soap between his hands were gentle, almost reverent, but there was nothing sexual in the way he washed her shoulders, her back, the curves of her body.
He moved with care, focused and mindful of where she hurt.
He washed her legs without hesitation, his hands passing over the ridged and uneven skin the way they always did, as if her scars were just another part of her, no more remarkable than her elbows or her knees.
She felt cherished in a way that went beyond desire or attraction, and she hated that she couldn't give him anything in return.
You're an idiot. He's not keeping score.
But the feeling persisted, the sense of being limited, diminished, reduced to dependency, needing help with the most basic things like brushing her teeth, washing her body, and getting dressed.
She'd spent her whole life fighting against that reduction. Against pity, against helplessness, against the assumption that her damaged legs made her less than whole.
Dimitri rinsed the soap from her hair, keeping the water out of her face, and turned off the shower.
He stepped out first, grabbed the larger towel, and wrapped it around her before reaching for the smaller one.
After drying her with the same unhurried patience, he helped her get dressed in a loose t-shirt and cotton pants with an elastic waistband.
Nothing with buttons. Nothing that required dexterity.
Smart man.
He dressed himself quickly and ran his hand through his wet hair, pushing it back from his face.
The damp strands caught the light, and she noticed again how much thicker and shinier his hair had become, even though it had been lovely before.
Now he could pose for a shampoo commercial with that hair.
"Petrov brought our breakfast up," he said. "It's out in the hallway."
The two trays were indeed sitting on the salvaged dresser, covered in plastic wrap, or what remained of it after Dimitri had commandeered part of it for her hand. Two plates of eggs and toast, two cups.
Dimitri positioned the chair from their room on one side of the dresser and went to fetch a second one from Petrov's room. When they were seated across from each other, the scarred dresser between them serving as a dining table, he peeled the remaining plastic off the plates.
"You know," he said, surveying the setup with a look of exaggerated satisfaction, "this dresser is proving to be the most versatile piece of furniture we salvaged from that pile of junk.
Breakfast bar, dining table, and a storage unit.
It was supposed to be a restoration project, and instead it became a functioning kitchen. "
She managed a smile. "We don't have a kitchen."
"We have a dresser in a hallway that serves food. Close enough." He picked up his fork and pointed it at her. "I should go back to the debris pile and see if I can find a proper table. Maybe some chairs that match."
"Matching chairs. You dream big."
"I'm a visionary."
He was trying to make her smile, and it was working. She loved him for it because the alternative was thinking about crushed fingers and dead immortals.
She picked up her fork with her left hand and hesitated. She'd eaten with her left hand before, so she wasn't completely hopeless, but fine motor control with her non-dominant hand was apparently a skill that required more practice than she'd put in.
She aimed for a piece of scrambled egg. The fork skated across the plate and caught nothing. She tried again with more force and succeeded in launching a chunk of egg off the plate. It landed on the dresser between them.
Dimitri looked at it.
Mattie looked at it.
"That was deliberate," she said. "I was testing the aerodynamics of scrambled eggs."
"And what were your findings?"
"Insufficient lift. Poor trajectory." She speared another piece, this time managing to get it onto the fork, but when she raised it to her mouth, her hand wobbled, and the egg fell into her lap. "Oh, come on."
She tried the toast next. Toast should have been easier. It was a solid surface, a larger target, and no loose pieces. She picked up a slice, brought it toward her mouth, and somehow managed to smear butter across her chin.
Dimitri watched this performance with an expression of heroic restraint and waited.
She set the toast down and let out a breath of surrender. "I cannot even feed myself."
It was so ridiculous that he probably thought she was faking it because she wanted him to offer to feed her or some nonsense like that.
Well, not nonsense since she really couldn't manage. It was the trauma. There was no other explanation for her loss of dexterity.
Maybe the pain meds were making her loopy?
Without a word, Dimitri moved his chair around to her side of the dresser. He picked up her fork, cut her toast into manageable pieces, and speared a bite of egg.
"Open," he said.
The third "open" of the morning. At this rate, it was going to become their word.
"How do you have the patience for all this?"
"I have infinite patience, and you have finite tolerance for wearing your breakfast." He held up the fork. "The egg is slippery."
She opened her mouth.
He fed her with the same calm and patience he'd shown while brushing her teeth and washing her hair.
There was no fuss, no performance, and no pitying looks.
He alternated bites of egg with pieces of buttered toast, pausing to bring her cup of tea to her lips when she needed to wash things down.
Between her bites, he ate his own breakfast, somehow managing the logistics of two meals without rushing either.
"You're disturbingly good at this," she said.
"I'm a scientist. I optimize processes."
"You're going to be a good father."
He grimaced. "I'm too young to think about fatherhood."
For some reason, she had a feeling that he'd wanted to say something else, but she didn't push. He was young, and thinking about parenting on this island was absurd.
When the food was gone and the tea was finished, Mattie leaned back in her chair and let the warmth settle into her bones. Her hand was still throbbing, a constant note of pain beneath everything else, but she was clean, and her stomach was full.
Dimitri gathered the plates and cups and stacked them neatly on the two trays. When he sat back down beside her, his expression shifted from lightness into something heavier.
"We need to talk about what happened with Dave," he said.
The warmth in her chest cooled. "I know."
"Yesterday, I managed to avoid him by staying up here, but that's not going to work twice. He's going to come for his shots today, and he'll have questions about how I fought off those warriors, and I need to prepare answers."
"What are you going to tell him?"
"Petrov and I talked about it last night while you were sleeping.
I said that the simplest option would be to confirm Dave's suspicion that I've been experimenting with a modified version of the enhancement drugs on myself.
But Petrov pointed out the problem with that.
If Losham finds out I have a formula that makes humans fight like immortals, he'll want me to produce it.
And I can't produce something that doesn't exist."
"So, I assume that you told Petrov the truth."
Dimitri nodded. "I couldn't keep deflecting him. Despite his drinking, he notices everything. Dave was asking him a lot of questions while waiting for me to come down, and he deduced from those questions that something was up with me."
Mattie tilted her head. "Were you hiding from Dave up here?"
"Yes, but I also didn't want to leave you alone even for a moment."
Her heart swelled with love for this incredible man she'd snagged in the most unlikely of places. "That's so sweet. Thank you."
"You would have done the same for me."
"Absolutely." She let out a breath. "So, are you going to tell Dave the truth?"
"Maybe. Petrov hasn't settled on what he thinks is the least terrible option, and neither have I." He ran his fingers through his hair. "But there's something else I need to tell you that Petrov pointed out about the attack."
Something in his tone made her straighten in her chair.
"What?"
"Petrov thinks that Dave manipulated the four to attack us in the harbor."
"What do you mean? Why?"