Chapter Twenty-Eight
The room was spacious and dimly lit by high, narrow windows.
Lumpy sacks covered the dirty cement floors.
Vivian lowered Xavier to prop against one of the sacks and placed the medical bag next to him.
She’d left their duffel with Silas, she realized suddenly.
They had no identification, food, or extra clothing. A problem for tomorrow.
“Is this a bakery?” Vivian asked.
“Smuggling ring, I’d venture,” Xavier gasped from his position on the ground. His face was covered in sweat, and his eyes were stretched wide.
She could feel exhaustion threatening to overtake her as the adrenaline drained out of her body.
Not yet. She dragged herself through the dark room until she located a handheld solar light and switched it on.
Returning to Xavier, she put the light beside him before kneeling to open the medical bag.
At least it was better stocked than the medical equipment she’d had access to at the refugee camp.
She disinfected her shaking hands as best she could and popped the seal on a small bottle of surgical glue.
“Take off your shirt.”
Xavier obeyed without comment. The shirt stuck to his skin, and he let out a yelp as he forced it over his head. An ugly mess of clotted brown blood covered his torso.
Upon seeing his injuries, Vivian’s hands stopped shaking and a sudden calm settled over her. She had to be strong. For Xavier. “I need to clean it,” she murmured. “I think it’s going to hurt.”
“Do what you must. Only … give me another painkiller first.”
Vivian found the bottle of painkillers and handed him another pill. “He must hate you,” she remarked as she dabbed the wounds with an antiseptic cloth.
“I certainly underestimated the depths of his feelings.” Xavier looked down at himself. “I know it looks awful, but I don’t think any of the cuts are that deep. He was toying with me. Going for pain, not permanent injury.” He took her free hand in his. “You saved me before it could get any worse.”
“Xavier—I don’t understand what happened back there. You were going to offer him access to more of your father’s inheritance. Why would he throw it away for … whatever that was?”
“I miscalculated.” Xavier ran a hand over his hair and grimaced as the movement stretched the skin on his chest. “I thought after five years we’d moved on from our past. I was mistaken.”
“I feel like I’m missing something.”
“I—forgive me. Silas and I—we—” He was trembling.
“It’s alright,” Vivian murmured. “Let’s just focus on patching you up.” She went back to the task at hand. She’d tended minor ailments at Sumter before but never a deliberate act of violence. As she worked, she counted the number of shallow cuts.
Ten.
Twenty.
She stopped when she reached thirty, her stomach churning. Whatever lay in Xavier’s history with Silas, it was ugly.
When he was reasonably clean, she applied the glue carefully to the open gaps of skin with the applicator. As she worked, his body gradually grew still. When she was finished, she sprayed his chest with a topical antiseptic and anesthetic.
“What a relief!” he gasped. “Whatever you just did made the skin on my chest go numb.”
“Good.” After wiping the blood off her hands, she took gauze and wrapped it clumsily around his torso. “There!” she said with some satisfaction. “How are you feeling?”
Xavier reached a hand up to touch her face. “Fine. You’re a good doctor. There’s no pain right now.” He lifted his head until their faces were close together. “Will you let me show you my appreciation?”
Vivian shivered. “Yes.”
He kissed her. This kiss was nothing like the brief one on the train car.
He kissed her now with a bold intensity.
One hand cupped her face while the other tangled in her hair.
She let herself get lost in the kiss. After the terror and blood of the last hours, it felt so very good to remember she was alive.
He broke off to press his forehead against hers. “May I take off your shirt?”
Vivian froze. “I’m not—you know—I don’t have one of those contraceptive implants.” She thought, for the first time that day, of her mother’s warning.
Xavier kissed her neck, just below her jaw. “I’m aware. I will do nothing tonight that could result in a pregnancy. Do you trust me?”
The answer came easily. “I trust you.” She felt no fear or anxiety—only anticipation for what would happen next. Without any further hesitation, she tugged at the hem of the borrowed shirt and pulled it over her head.
His mouth moved over her skin. She came alive under his touch, her body responding in a way she had never experienced with another person before. She carefully returned his caresses, mindful of his injuries. Xavier didn’t seem to care about his bandages, pain, or fatigue.
He was completely focused on her.
When she was fully naked, he spread her clothing on the dirty floor and murmured, “Lie down.”
Vivian barely noticed the cold, hard floor. Xavier hovered over her, his beautiful face wreathed in a smile. When he lowered to kiss her mouth, the bandages scraped the skin of her breasts. She felt his arousal through his trousers and jerked her hips up involuntarily.
“Mm.” He moved his mouth to one breast and swirled his tongue around her nipple. “Not tonight. I’m afraid I would not be at my best. Tonight is for you.” He moved his lips slowly and deliberately lower and lower until she was shaking with pleasure and anticipation.
“Please,” she whispered, and felt him smile against her inner thigh.
The time to focus on her pleasure was a gift.
So unlike her usual scramble, taking advantage of a brief moment of privacy to force a quick moment of self-release.
Now, she surrendered to the touch of Xavier’s mouth, tongue, and fingers.
She allowed her pleasure to build and build, until, finally, she broke in a delicious wave.
She hadn’t known a climax could be so long and so satisfying.
She hadn’t known that allowing another person to give her pleasure would feel so terrifyingly intimate. The ultimate form of trust and surrender.
Afterwards, he lay on her stomach. Her fingers made circles in his coarse hair.
“Was that—” She faltered. “Was that enough for you?”
He looked up at her face with his rich brown eyes. “Oh, yes,” he murmured. The satisfaction in his low voice made Vivian shiver. “A welcome distraction from my own ailments. I believe I thought only of you.”
She swallowed. “I’m not used to being the center of attention.”
“You deserve to have someone focus on your happiness.”
At Sumter, she could never have trusted a man enough to be alone and naked. Yet, even now, Xavier had kept his trousers on and hadn’t crossed over the boundary they’d established.
Xavier’s eyes drooped shut, and his breathing evened. Despite the uncomfortable floor and their precarious situation, a warm sense of safety enveloped Vivian.
She could trust this man.