Chapter 21
This isn’t going to be awkward. I will not let this be awkward.
“I’m curious to see how good you’re looking,” I blurt out as I start to gather everything I need to give Rowan a sponge bath. “How the burns are looking,” I quickly clarify.
Shit, this is going to be awkward. This is the universe testing me, I’m sure, because his daily sponge bath wasn’t done this morning and he’s on an alternate hydro bath schedule now.
“I’m going to wash you down now, they said they didn’t do it this morning?” I ask, hoping maybe I misheard. The nurse before me said he slept most of the day, and she was short staffed, which means he’ll probably be awake through the night with me. It also means I’m the lucky winner of sponge bath duty, because keeping the parts of him that aren’t burned clean is so important.
“Uh, no, she was real busy and I was sleeping most of the day.”
I nod. “Your body is healing. It’s to be expected.”
I can do this. I meet my reflection in the mirror above the sink and mentally give myself a pep talk as I fill the basin with warm water and soap. He’s any other patient.
I soak the rags, and as I do, I wish it wasn’t so quiet in here tonight. I can feel Rowan’s eyes burning into my back as I work, and when I’m done, I carry everything over and place it on the table beside his bed.
He looks brighter today; his eyes are less glassy. From his chart, I know that they’ve significantly lowered the dosage on his pain meds, offering ibuprofen more frequently. Which is standard for four days post burn.
The only thing that’s a little off about him is that his beard has grown out. I’ve never seen him with one, but it makes sense, I know the guys don’t shave in the field and he was out there for over a week before his time here.
It gives him this whole lumberjack vibe that’s only heightened by his perfectly unkempt wavy hair, his big muscular body and his tattoos.
I swallow and go for it. “I-I’m going to untie your gown now,” I say softly, raising the bed up, then pulling down the blankets covering his thighs so they rest at the foot of his bed. His long legs are free of any clothing, save for the dressings on his thigh. I know he’s only wearing the hospital gown, and I know there’ll be nothing underneath it, so even as his thick muscular thighs draw me in, I remind myself again...
Patient. He’s your patient .
I finish raising the bed up to waist height. His eyes meet mine and he nods as I lean in and reach up and around him to unite the gown at his neck. I don’t know how he smells so good after being in the hospital but it's damn distracting. My fingers brush his skin, and I hear him suck in a breath.
“Sorry. My hands are cold,” I apologize.
“No, your hands feel good—uh, fine. They feel fine.” Rowan’s voice is a close whisper, so close, and his breath comes shallow as I slink the gown carefully and slowly down, revealing his bare chest. Taking special care to make sure nothing brushes the dressings on his arm. I lay the gown across his lap, making sure he stays covered there, at least for now.
One test at a time, universe. I pump myself up to actually look at him, I have to look at him to wash him.
Good fucking God. He’s beautiful.
I realize when I’m thoroughly finished my ogling that Rowan is watching me watch him. He looks down at his bare chest and then back up to my eyes. Shit.
I look away, closing my eyes as I turn and reach for my rags. When I have my back to him, I do my best to regain my composure from the vision of him. The terrain of ink, hard muscle, and scant trail of hair that makes up Rowan’s chest. I take a breath and soak the rags way more thoroughly than I need to. My heart is thundering so loud in my chest it’s like a soundtrack to my thoughts. The silence in the room is deafening, droplets of water hit the basin as I wring out the first rag, willing myself to get through this. I take a deep breath and turn toward him.
“Here. You can wash your face while I start.” I offer Rowan a cloth in a feeble attempt to distract us both, and then turn back to wring one out for myself.
Get it together, Vi. He isn’t that beautiful, you’ll see, when you look at him next, you’ll realize you’re overreacting.
I turn back around and begin to carefully scrub little circles over his chest, I’m wrong. He’s just as beautiful as he was the last time I looked.
Rowan washes his face as I smooth the rag under his strong jaw, down his neck, over his sculpted shoulder and then continue slowly to his muscled pecs. He sighs, and I can’t fucking believe it, but I think washing him is making me wet, which has never, in any of my years of nursing, happened before.
I try to keep my breath steady, clenching my thighs together to stop the ache as I wash his other shoulder. I run the cloth over his good arm and the hawk tattoo that stares back at me. I do my best to avoid looking at it, before setting the used rag down and grabbing a fresh one from the basin. The ten seconds I manage to look away from him is the only way I’m holding it together right now. I need them to compose myself.
“You okay?” Rowan's strained voice cuts into my thoughts. “You just seem like you’re having a hard time taking a deep breath or something.”
Oh God. Was I panting?
“Fine, just concentrating.”
On your body.
“I know it’s hard to look at,” he observes, glancing at his visible burns. I register that he thinks I’m grossed out.
“These?” I ask rhetorically, gesturing to them. “This is nothing, and I don’t even see the wound. I only see the healing. The progress,” I tell him as I finish washing his chest and waist, actually having to wash in the crevices of his insanely chiseled abs.
That’s a first.
“As long as every day it changes for the better, then it’s all part of the process,” I breathe out shakily.
“Well, all right, that’s a more positive way to look at it. All I see is damage,” he says, his brow furrowed.
“Can you, um, sit up, and I’ll...get your back?” I ask.
He grips the bed to lean forward, slowly, I assume to hinder the pain I know he’s feeling and his arms flex, and as I watch him my mouth waters.
Another first.
I lean into him to reach his back, knowing at this point I just have to get this over with. I start thinking of anything I can to distract myself from the expanse of Rowan’s wide rippled shoulders, as my phone dings in my pocket, once then twice.
“Trevor?” Rowan asks with mischief in his tone.
“Troy,” I correct, knowing he knows full well what my soon-to-be ex-husband’s name is. Very soon. Like three days soon.
Hmmm. That seems to be working. Troy, Troy not coming to see Hollie, Troy always putting himself first. Yep, definitely working to stop me from drooling over my patient.
“ Fuck, that feels good, Violette,” Rowan groans, his spicy sandalwood scent and the gravel in his tone floods my senses, bringing me right back to drooling. I back up and reach for another cloth as he leans back in his bed.
Just the lower half now, I tell myself.
“Do you two get along?” he asks, his jaw setting as I stare at his feet.
I realize a random conversation is the distraction he’s looking for too.
“Yeah, you could say that,” I mutter.
“That doesn’t sound very convincing,” he observes. I gently scrub his strong calf and the inside of his good thigh. I'm pretty sure I’m holding my breath at this point because his thighs are so thick and hard, they’re just as enticing as the rest of him. I can’t be sure, but I swear I hear him groan again, softly into his rag as he finishes washing his face.
I know it must feel good to be washed after a day in bed, but those groans are like little cherry bombs racing through my blood every single time.
“Troy was hard to be close to, hard to know. He’s in a very prominent position at the hospital we worked for. He’s always focused on work, so as long as I never wanted more than that or got in that way of his job, we got along fine.”
“That doesn’t seem very fair.” Rowan's voice is deep as I carefully work on his thigh, taking time to work around his dressings. “To you or Hollie,” he adds, tossing his face rag into the basin.
My gaze moves to his. I didn’t even realize he knew Hollie’s name.
“It isn’t,” I give. “He wasn’t always like that, we had fun together before. But now, we’ve been separated for a year. It’s why I’m here and why in three days we’ll be divorced.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything else for a moment.
And I keep washing and talking, for both of us.
“I thought maybe once we split and he didn’t see Hollie every day, he’d want to see her more often, or make more of an effort, but that’s not the way it worked out.”
Rowan makes a sort of a deep growl, and I wonder if I hurt him.
“It’s his loss, Vi. He’ll regret that someday. The one thing you can’t get back is time.”
“I know that, and you know that. I just wish Troy knew that.”
Rowan gestures to his still covered wounds, I assume to change the subject, and then surprises me by his next honest words.
“I still don’t know how you do it,” he mutters so quietly it’s barely audible. I watch a slow trickle of water drip down his thigh, through the dark hair there then onto the bed.
What did he say? “It would be like bringing his death back every day, wouldn't it?”
I make my way carefully up his other thigh, almost done with this sweet sort of torture. His leg flexes and I’m momentarily mesmerized by it. I blink and keep going.
“It actually helps me to know every story doesn’t end like his. And this might sound odd, but I feel close to him here. This was the last place he ever took a breath.”
He nods, his face filled with emotion. I do my best to lighten the heavy subject.
“You’ll have some scars here, but eventually they’ll fade.” I pause to look at him, offering him a small smile.
“That so?”
“Yes,” I whisper, returning my gaze to his damp skin. “The human body is an incredible thing.”
I feel his gaze move to where I’m touching him, on the underside of his knee. And I make the mistake of looking up at him just as he looks at me. We both just sit in a suspended silence for a beat, staring at each other.
I can’t pull my hand away or it will be obvious he’s affecting me, so instead I do what I do best.
I ramble. My hurried voice cuts the thick silence between us in an almost whisper. “Our bodies, well, they’re self-soothing.” I move higher up his thigh. “Self-healing. They always know what they need, and they tell us in various ways.” I watch Rowan’s throat work to swallow, as I move inside his thigh. “All we have to do is listen to what they need and provide whatever that is without, um, overthinking it.”
His deep blue eyes hone in on mine. Without breaking eye contact, he stops my hand by placing his over it. I look down and realize I’m mere inches from his very large, very hard cock under the gown that is doing nothing to conceal it. He holds me here, his thumb grazes mine, and a tingling feeling runs the length of my forearm.
I was not trying to make that sound sexual in any way but there’s no denying that in this moment, I did. The room is a quiet hum and there’s an almost electric connection between us. Inches away from him when he’s practically naked feels way too close.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he says with that lopsided smirk that makes my stomach somersault.
He looks down to his obvious erection, not even trying to hide it. “I think I’ve, uh, got it from here.” Oh God.
I move to let the blood circulate through my veins and the breath fill my lungs again the moment I break our gaze and hand him a clean towel.
“Okay, well, you can pat dry…I’ll be back in a little while to work on those dressings?—”
“Vi, you said it’s not too busy here tonight?” Rowan asks.
“That’s right, but you’re not supposed to say that out loud. You’ll jinx me.” I answer honestly, moving to the bio bin and pulling off my gown, feeling the need to wrap this up and get the hell out of this room.
“I could, uh, really use a distraction from the fact that I’m lying here. I feel like I might go fucking postal,” he adds, his eyes pleading. “Two handed Euchre?” he challenges, one eyebrow raised.
I start to answer, to say no, but he stops me before I can speak.
“Please? All I can think about is why I got out and…he didn’t,” he adds.
My chest fills with grief, and I let out a breath. If a sponge bath didn’t break me, a game of cards isn’t enough to make me want him again, right?
I nod in agreement, because I’ve also been asking myself the same damn question since the moment he was wheeled in here.