Chapter 12
Xavier
Hot water scalded my hands.
The sensation grounded me. Steam rose in thick clouds, filling the tiny bathroom until the mirror above the sink was nothing but gray fog. My knuckles turned white as I wrung out the fabric of her shirt. Water streamed into the basin, swirling toward the drain.
Domestic. That was the word.
This simple, repetitive act felt alien. My hands knew how to strip a weapon, how to break a joint, how to end a life before the body hit the floor. Those movements burned in my muscle memory.
But washing clothes? There was no corresponding file. No instinct told me how much soap to use or how hard to scrub.
My fingers were rough against the wet cotton. Too rough. I loosened my grip, forcing a gentleness that didn’t come naturally.
This was Clare’s.
I shook the shirt out, damp warmth clinging to my skin, and hung it over the shower rod beside my own jeans. The space heater hummed in the corner, working overtime to dry everything.
I reached for the next item. Her jeans. Heavy denim, stiff with water.
White light exploded behind my vision.
My grip tightened on the porcelain sink edge. Not a headache. Not the throb of the concussion. This was different.
Bright. Sterile. Cold metal under my back.
It lasted two seconds. A glitch in the system.
The white faded, leaving me gasping, staring at the swirling suds in the drain. My pulse slammed against my ribs.
I waited for pain. For nausea.
Nothing. Just the echo of blinding light and a sensation of absolute, freezing cold that vanished as quickly as it arrived.
Head trauma. Had to be. The concussion playing tricks on wiring that had been rattled too hard.
My reflection in the fogged mirror was a blur. A ghost.
I didn’t shake it off. I filed it away.
Don’t tell Clare.
She was already fraying at the edges, holding herself together with sarcasm and caffeine she didn’t have. She didn’t need to worry that my brain was misfiring.
I finished wringing out her jeans. Hung them up. Checked the heater.
The task was done.
I breathed in the thick, humid air. It smelled of cheap soap and clean fabric.
Safety. It smelled like safety.
I grabbed a towel, wrapping it low around my hips. The damp heat of the bathroom clung to me as I opened the door and stepped into the main room.
Cooler air hit my skin, raising goosebumps. The afternoon light filtered through the dormer window, painting the room in shades of gray and gold.
Clare sat at the small desk, back to me. She was wrapped in the duvet, her hair still damp from her own shower, a chaotic copper mess piled on her head. The blue glow of the laptop illuminated her profile.
She was furiously typing, shoulders hunched with focus.
I stopped. Watched her.
Beautiful.
Want hit me low and hard. The memory of her coming apart beneath me, the sounds she made, the way she’d looked at me, reckless and open, it burned.
She stopped typing. Rubbed her temples.
I moved.
The floorboards creaked. She spun in the chair, eyes wide, defensive instinct kicking in before she recognized me.
She looked at my chest, then lower, to where the towel hung on my hips.
Color flooded her neck. Fast. Visible.
“Hey.” The word was barely a sound.
She turned back to the screen quickly, fingers hovering over the keys. “I... uh. I made some progress. Maybe. Well, not progress exactly, but I ruled out a lot of things that aren’t the problem.”
Rambling. Nervous.
I walked to the chair beside her. Pulled it close.
My thigh brushed the blanket covering her leg as I sat. The contact was muffled by layers of wool and down, but I felt the static charge of it.
I placed the packet of crackers we’d bought at the bus station on the desk. Pushed them toward her.
She stared at the foil wrapper.
“Thanks. I forgot to eat.”
She didn’t look at me. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
The silence stretched. It wasn’t the comfortable quiet of the bath or the heavy weight of the alley. This was jagged. Unsure.
We had crossed a line. Smashed through it, actually. And now she didn’t know where to stand.
I hated it.
I hated that she was retreating behind walls I had just torn down.
I reached out. My hand covered hers where they knotted in her lap.
She flinched, then stilled.
Gold and brown flecked with exhaustion and a wariness that hadn’t been there two hours ago.
“So.” Her voice was overly bright, laced with that sharp edge she used as armor. “That happened. The... earlier thing. We should probably...”
She stopped. Took a breath. Tried again.
“It was a stress response. Adrenaline dump. Perfectly normal physiological reaction to... everything.” A brittle laugh. “We don’t have to make it a thing. We can focus on the...”
Shut up, Clare.
I moved before the thought fully formed.
My hands came up, cupping her face. My palms were rough against her skin, callused and scarred, instruments of violence holding something precious.
She froze mid-sentence.
I didn’t give her time to rebuild the barrier. I leaned in and silenced her.
I didn’t kiss her gently. I didn’t ask for permission this time. I claimed.
My mouth slanted over hers, hungry and absolute. I tasted the coffee she hadn’t had, the words she was trying to hide behind. I swept my tongue inside, demanding a response.
You don’t get to retreat. You don’t get to call this a stress response.
For a second, she was stiff, shock holding her rigid. Then she melted. She gripped my bare shoulders, fingers digging in. A small sound escaped her, surrender.
I drank it in. One hand slid to the nape of her neck, tangling in damp hair, angling her head to deepen the contact. I kissed her until I felt the fight drain out of her and the want rush in.
When I finally pulled back, we were both breathless. Her lips were swollen, red, slick. Her pupils were blown wide, swallowing the gold.
I rested my forehead against hers. Breathing her air.
No awkwardness. No doubt.
“Okay.” Her voice was wrecked. “Point taken.”
I pulled back enough to see her face. Different color now. Not embarrassment. Heat.
She cleared her throat, blinking rapidly, trying to summon her usual defense mechanisms. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Selective amnesiac. No memory of your name, your past, or what planet you’re from... but somehow you remember exactly how to kiss a woman until she forgets her own name.”
I felt the corner of my mouth tick up. A ghost of a smile.
I shrugged.
I reached for the notepad on the desk. Scribbled one word.
Instinct.
I turned the pad toward her.
She huffed a laugh. Real. Warm. “Yeah. Good instinct.”
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
The sarcasm was back, but the wall wasn’t. She was teasing, not deflecting.
I wrote again:
Want coffee. Can’t provide. Can provide this.
I gestured between us. To the space where the air still crackled.
Clare stared at the words. Her expression softened, that raw vulnerability peeking through again. She reached out, tracing the scar on my shoulder with a feather-light touch.
“Better than coffee. Which is saying a lot, considering my caffeine withdrawal headache.”
She pulled her hand back, sitting up straighter. Business mode engaging, though her cheeks were still pink.
“Okay. Distractions aside. We have work to do.”
She turned back to the laptop and leaned her shoulder against mine. A solid point of contact.
I didn’t move away. I stayed there, in my towel, letting my skin absorb her warmth, watching the screen over her shoulder.
I reached for the packet of bus-station crackers sitting on the edge of the desk. I slid them toward her, nudging her hand.
Eat.
She looked at the crackers, then back at me. “I’m not hungry. I’m busy.”
I didn’t move my hand. Tapped the package.
The sound was exasperated but lacking heat. “Fine. You’re pushy for a guy who can’t talk.”
She tore open the wrapper. The sound was loud in the quiet room and took a bite before looking back to the screen.
Clare was already moving on.
The intimacy of the last twenty minutes, the frantic, desperate heat of it, didn’t disappear, but she compartmentalized it with an efficiency that made my chest ache. She swallowed the cracker I’d given her, wiped crumbs from her lip, and turned the laptop so the screen angled toward me.
“Okay.” Clipped now. Professional. “Here’s the play.”
I chewed a dry cracker, watching her face. Color was still there, high on her cheekbones, but determination had replaced everything else.
Clare’s fingers hovered above the keys, then dropped into motion.
“This forum. I worked at that research hospital back in Boston. They had this internal discussion board for surgical cases, rare stuff, weird complications and is linked to other universities both in North America and Europe. In reality, it morphed into a full-on nerd commune.”
A small smile despite herself.
“People posted de-identified scans, threw theories around, corrected each other, tried to outsmart everyone. Surgeons are competitive bastards. Researchers can be even worse.”
She tapped a few keys.
“It’s still up and running. Officially it’s restricted to current staff, but nobody ever closes accounts properly.” A quick grimace. “So I reactivated mine. Updated the username, switched the email, reset the password. Brought my lying skills to the twenty-first century.”
VPN. Password change. Old account.
Security nightmare.
My hand set the half-eaten cracker down on the desk. I reached for the notepad, clicked the pen once, and wrote in block letters.
Security risk. They can trace you.
I slid it toward her.
She glanced down, then back up. A shrug under the duvet, the movement shifting warm fabric against my bare arm.
“Not easily. The account still shows as Boston. Hospital network routing, VPN layered on VPN. Nobody knows I’m in Lyon. Or Europe. Or that my life choices went straight to hell.”
She opened a browser tab. The forum interface filled the display, pale background, dense text, anonymous usernames in sterile blue.
She pointed.