Chapter 58 #2
His chest rises hard. “Yeah. That’s right. I love you. Have for a while now. And I've learned that loving someone means making impossible choices … This was one of those.”
He releases my wrists, and I let them fall to my side. I give up the fight because I realize I’d do the exact same thing for him. I’d lay down my life, all I am, for him.
Soren moves his hands to my shoulders and gently runs his hands down my arms. Before I can bask in the magic of his hands, a wave of dizziness and unquenchable thirst takes over. I do not feel well. I urgently need to hydrate.
“Can I get a water?” I murmur. I don't really fancy dying of thirst in front of him. Kind of kills the reunion vibe.
“Fuck,” he says, face morphing into one of concern. “Of course. Shit, I should’ve thought of that …”
Soren moves to the fridge immediately.
I brace one hand on the kitchen bench and fight the lightheadedness while he twists the cap off a bottle and presses it into my hand. I drink greedily, the cold water hitting my throat. I don’t stop until half the bottle is gone.
I lower it, dragging the back of my hand across my mouth.
“You look like shit,” he says quietly.
I let out a weak laugh. “Romantic.”
A corner of his mouth twitches, but his eyes stay laced with worry.
“I mean it.” He steps closer, taking the bottle from me and setting it on the bench. “You’re pale. You’re shaky. When was the last time you ate?”
I shrug, which immediately proves to be a mistake because pain flares through my ribs. I hiss.
Soren’s jaw tightens. “Fucking hell, Raine. How hurt are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
Before I can snap back, he reaches for me. One arm slides behind my back, the other hooks beneath my knees, and suddenly I’m off the bench.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you.”
The words steal all the breath from me. I should tell him to put me down, that I can walk, and take care of myself.
That I’m not some pathetic, fragile girl who needs a man to take care of her.
Instead, I find myself curling into his hard body, cheek against his broad chest, and let him carry me through the cabin.
He takes me into the bathroom and sets me down carefully on the closed toilet lid.
The room is dark, black tiles, barely any styling, but there’s a claw-foot tub pushed beneath the window.
He turns on the taps and hot water pours into the bath.
It doesn’t take long before the steam begins to rise.
“You’re running me a bath?”
“Yeah.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “You need one.”
“I smell?”
“No, Raine. Because you nearly died, are still healing, and you walked god knows how long through the dead of night, in the cold, to get to me. Warm water calms the body and resets a shot-to-shit nervous system. That’s why I’m running you a bath.”
I don’t know why that nearly makes me burst into tears. Maybe because no one has ever done something like this for me.
Soren crouches in front of me once the tub’s half full. His hands settle on my knees, thumbs dragging softly over my black jeans.
“Can you stand?”
"Yeah."
It comes out weaker than I intended, but maybe that’s what I am now. Temporarily weakened, but only in the physical sense. I’m much stronger in so many other ways. He helps me to my feet slowly. I sway a little, but it’s for dramatic effect. (I think.) Soren’s fingers find the hem of my hoodie.
"Arms Raine."
I raise my arms lazily. I kinda like it when he tell me what to do.
He peels the hoodie and then my singlet over my head carefully. Then he kneels and eases my jeans down my legs. His face drops when he looks at my body. I look down and realize how truly damaged I really am. I’m covered in cuts, wounds, white and pink scars, and deep bruising marks.
“Turn off the light,” I whisper, ashamed at how broken and beaten I look. “Don’t look at me. I’m disgusting.”
I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want to see myself like this.
Soren’s gaze lifts. His eyes flash, his words are instant. “You could have your body ripped apart and stitched back together a hundred times, and I’d still think you are the most beautiful woman on the planet.”
I close my eyes and let the words sink into every one of my wounds.
He slides my underwear down next, then rises.
There's nothing sexual about this, yet it's one of the most intimate moments of my life.
The bathwater steams behind him, and I admit it; my bruised and sore muscles could use a bath.
I reach for the clasp of my bra, but he catches my hands, stopping me. “Let me.”
He undoes it himself in one quick motion, even quicker than I could, and I’m the one with tits. He slides the straps from my shoulders with a tenderness that he himself seems unprepared for.
Once I’m stripped naked, he tests the bath with his hand, then turns back to me.
“Come here.”
He helps me into the water one step at a time. The warmth of the water wraps around me instantly, pulling a sound from my throat before I can stop it.
“Too hot?” he asks.
I sink deeper, letting the water climb to my ribs. “No. It's perfect.”
He grabs a washcloth, then kneels beside the tub. For a second, I just stare at him. We’ve come so far since that first day in O’s office. He didn’t want to ‘babysit no bitch’ and now he’s bathing me.
“What?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
But it isn’t nothing. It’s everything. He’s everything.
Soren dips the cloth into the water, wrings it out, then starts at my shoulders.
Slow, careful strokes. My eyes close involuntarily, and I allow myself to feel the warmth of the cloth drag down my arms, over my collarbones, across the top of my chest. He washes my skin with such care, I’m lulled into a state of complete bliss.
He’s careful around every bruise, every healing cut, every place that’s still clearly recovering.
After a while, he wets my hair with one hand, shielding my face with the other. Then he works shampoo through it, fingers massaging my scalp in slow circles.
I swear my soul leaves my body because what the fuck is this? No one has ever touched me like this, let alone washed my fucking hair. It’s an intimacy I’ve never experienced before, and from the look on Soren’s face, neither has he.
“I thought about this,” he says eventually.
I open my eyes. “What?”
“Taking care of you.” Soren combs his fingers through my hair. “I kept thinking if you woke up, I’d get you out of the hospital as fast as possible. Bring you here and look after you. Like this.”
Something tightens around my throat, it feels like a hand, but it’s my emotions. I want to answer him, but words simply fail me. I remain silent.
When he’s done with my hair, he grabs a towel and spreads it near the tub.
“C'mon. Stand up slowly.”
I grip the sides of the bath, but I'm wobbly as I straighten and stand. His hands are there instantly, holding me into him to ensure I don't slip. Water runs from my body onto his bare chest, and he doesn’t even flinch. He wraps the towel around me, and helps me step on the mat. He drys me in slow, careful strokes down my arms, shoulders, back, and legs. He kneels to pat dry my feet, and something about that stokes a flame deep inside my gut. The last time Soren kneeled before me like this was on Carson’s yacht. And we all know what happened then.
He wraps another towel around my hair and scoops me up again.
I tuck myself against him, like a wounded animal, and let him carry me to the bedroom.
He lays me down on the bed, and I sink into the warm, dark sheets beneath me.
He disappears for all of thirty seconds, then comes back with a T-shirt and a pair of boxers.
“Here. Wear these,” he says.
I toss the boxers on the floor and give him a look.
No way I'm wearing those. I put his T-shirt on though, and then pull the blankets up. I unwrap the towel from my damp hair and hand it to him. He takes it back into the bathroom before popping his head into the bedroom, telling me, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Five minutes later, he comes back with a banana, a sandwich, and another bottle of water.
He sits on the edge of the bed silently and watches until I eat it all (which I do, I’m fucking starving).
When he’s convinced I’m not about to wither and die anymore, he slides in beside me and pulls me against his chest.
His arm wraps around my waist, and my head settles beneath his chin. For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel warm all the way through. My eyes drift to my backpack slumped near the side of the bed.
“Soren?”
“Mm?”
“Can you grab my bag for me?”
He leans over, hooks the strap, and drops it onto the bed beside us. I unzip it slowly and reach inside, removing Soren’s worn leather journal. The second I pull it out, his whole body stills.
“Did you read it?”
I run my hand over the cover. “Every day since I woke up.”
“And?”
How do I tell him it blew apart my insides? That it tore my heart into tiny pieces, only to put me back together again?
I open the journal and flip to the back, then hand it to him.
“I added one.”
He takes it carefully and lowers his eyes to the page.