RUSH (City Lights, #3)(46)

“How’s the water? Good?”

I could tell by the expression on his face it was just what he needed even before he spoke. “It’s perfect.” He leaned back and closing his eyes.

“And the lavender? Not too strong for your super-bionic sense of smell, right?”

“No.”

He wasn’t smiling—I had yet to see that happen—but he looked content and that was good enough for me. I sat down hard, the panic and fear of the migraine incident fading out of me too, leaving me drained.

“You can go now, Charlotte,” he said, after a moment, his eyes still closed. “I can manage.”

I knelt beside him. “I’m sort of afraid you’re going to fall asleep in the tub. And besides, I think you’ve been left alone long enough.”

He turned toward me, his gaze landing at my chin. His eyes, those beautiful eyes were wet and red-rimmed and trying so hard to find me. But he couldn’t. He closed them and leaned back, his mouth drawn down.

I felt a tightening in my chest, my heart aching for him, wanting him to feel less undone than he did. I let him rest and soak, and after a bit, he took up a washcloth. He rubbed his face with it, then let his hands fall as he grew more exhausted by the minute. I cleared my throat.

“Can I help?”

“I had a thousand sponge baths in the hospital and rehab. I thought I was done.” He shrugged dully and held out the washcloth. “What’s one more?”

I tried to ignore Noah’s nearness, or the fact that he was naked under the bubbles, but my hands were unsteady as I reached to touch his face. I cupped Noah’s chin and turned him in my direction, then gently ran the cloth along his brow, then down over his cheeks; first one then the other. I had long since recovered from my two-staircase dash, but my heart was pounding anyway.

I finished his face and washed his neck, and trailed the cloth over the broad plains of his chest, down the ridged muscles of his abdomen and back up. My fingers felt each defined muscle and shivers danced up my arm, despite the heat of the bath. I was trying to treat this as part of my job but my traitorous body couldn’t help responding to him.

Noah didn’t respond at all. I thought he might be apprehensive that some strange woman—a woman he could never see—was touching him like this. But he was bone tired, and I strove to hurry, to get him to bed where he could rest.

I washed both long arms, starting at the shoulder, then down. I held his hand in one of mine, washing his long fingers, neither of us saying anything until I was finished.

“I have to do your back,” I said.

“I have scars. They’re repulsive.”

“I don’t mind.”

Noah seemed too exhausted to argue, and leaned forward. He rested his arms on his upraised knees, head bowed, revealing his scars to me.

They were bad, no doubt, but I’d seen the mangled, bloody horror of the original wounds in the Google photos. The scars were nothing compared to that; mere echoes of that terrible accident, permanently carved into his skin.

The three claw-looking marks I had seen were almost the same here, now white and striated, climbing up the right side of his back, to his hairline. The left side that had required skin grafting was worse: an uneven rectangle with ragged edges that covered almost the entire left side of his upper back. The rest of his back was smooth, unblemished skin over muscle.

I lathered up the cloth and washed his scars with the same gentle care as I had the rest of him. I could feel the uneven texture of his skin beneath the cloth.

“It doesn’t disgust you?” he asked dully. “It does me.”

“No. It amazes me that you survived this.”

“I fought hard when I woke up from the coma or else I would have died. I should’ve just…let go. But I didn’t. Because of hope. Stupid, pointless f*cking hope.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t and I couldn’t find any words. Not the right ones anyway. He hated pity and there was nothing I could say that would make his loss any easier to take. I knew that first hand. Grief had to run its course and that was all there was to it. Mine was still running and so was Noah’s, so I saved my useless words and instead gently laid my hand on his shoulder, just for a moment. A silent assurance that I was there. And to my utter astonishment, he laid his hand over mine. It was warm from the bathwater, and wet, and hard from years of climbing rocks and scaling mountains. It covered my own for a handful of seconds, and then he let it fall.

“Do you want me to wash your hair?” I asked. I started to touch the dark, silken waves at the back of his head but he flinched away from my touch.

“No,” he rasped, then gulped air. “No, sorry. The scars there…they’re the worst. Don’t touch them…Please.”

“Okay, I won’t. Whatever you want.”

“I want to sleep, Charlotte. I’m so tired.”

“Of course. Let’s get you out.”

I let the water out and got a towel from the rack. I averted my eyes again as I helped Noah to stand, and gave him the towel. He wrapped it around his waist and I guided him out of the bathroom, to the bed.

“Sit here, and I’ll get you something to wear.”

I rummaged around in his drawers for underwear, a t-shirt, and some soft pants to sleep in. He was capable of dressing himself and I waited until he was done, then helped him into the bed. He felt for the headboard, careful not to knock his head on it, and eased himself down.