Page 15 of Take

He didn’t say anything, merely looked at me and damn it, I couldn’t tell what he was going to do. “You going to heal me or admire me?”

Clamp it down, Max.I took a deep breath, climbed up on the bed and crawled over to his wounded thigh. My eyes hit the slight swell in his pants between his legs.

He shrugged. “Out of my control, angel. Hot chick crawling on her hands and knees toward my lower region . . . it’s any man’s fuckin’ fantasy. Even better is one that you’re wearing my briefs.”

I gasped, sitting up straight, mouth falling open. Then I grumbled, “Boxers.”

He laughed, a sound which made my insides heat up and send that rabble of butterflies in my belly into a frenzy. Graveled and deep, like it came from deep within him, but never did the lighthearted sound match that speck of hardness in his eyes.

What sucked was I liked the sound of his laugh—a lot. Good thing he rarely laughed. His chuckle and grin I could handle, the laugh, not so much.

So I did what would end his laugh and pressed my hands hard on his wound. He stopped abruptly and scowled, muscles flexed. I glimpsed at his tats on his arms that were bulging with tension.

From what I’d heard about other Healers, they couldn’t touch anyone with a wound without their hands reacting. But I was different, I had to concentrate and focus on the healing and only then would it begin to take place. Sometimes, it felt as if I could do the opposite, take it away. That I had to tell my ability which way to go, heal or destroy.

Shivers racked through me as my hands burned, and I closed my eyes. The images came with the ability as did feeling the same pain as the person you were healing. I grit my teeth as the impact of the bullet slammed into my own leg. I let the pain in, sweep across me then pushed the feeling away. I knew how to block out pain, but I also knew how to embrace it.

My healing took hold as the burning increased in my hands and the images moved faster through my mind like a movie on fast forward. I thought of all the times I’d healed Drake, week after week for six years, healing his lungs so he could breathe. I knew it was because his Ink was dead. My mother had told me that before she died. The Goddess had killed his Ink to weaken Drake, and without my healing, he may not have died, but he’d be fragile.

He used to get so angry when the wheezing started only a week after I’d healed him, then the pain in his chest. The punishments were to make me try harder, to force me to heal his lungs completely, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t without healing his Ink at the same time and I’d never do that. He’d killed everyone I ever loved. And no matter what he did to me, I’d never fail my mother or the Talde. I’d never heal his Ink.

“Max?”

I jerked back. The heat in my hands and the images fading instantly. He reached for me and I shuffled back, quickly pulling my gaze from his. I picked up the bullet I’d extracted during the healing and Jasper plucked it from my grasp and shoved it in his pants’ side pocket.

“Why would you want that?”

Jasper swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Not often you get to keep the bullet you were shot with by a woman you’re going to fuck.”

I huffed. Then found myself staring, eyes wide and heart slamming against my ribs as Jasper undid the buttons on his pants and I caught a glimpse of the scattering of hairs that led downward like a pointing arrow. His pants dropped to the floor and he kicked them off his bare feet.

“Jasper, what . . .”

“I’m having a shower and I expect you to be here when I get out. You’re not . . . we have a problem and you won’t like how I solve it.”

I couldn’t stop staring. The contours of his thighs were like mountains with crevices in a valley, long, hard and firm. I had the urge to run my fingertips over them and . . .”Oh, God.”

Jasper stopped just outside the bathroom door and half-turned. “What’s wrong?” He was alert in an instant, eyes focused, body tense. I knew he had to be using his Sounding ability to search the area around the motel for any danger.

The funny thing was he was the danger.

“Nothing,” I squeaked and lowered my head. I peeked up at him just as his fingers went to the edge of his boxer briefs.

I swallowed. Froze. Then stared from under my long lashes as he bent over and yanked them off in one swoop.

Shit.

I caught a glimpse of his tight ass before he disappeared from view. Not because he closed the door, no, he left it wide open, but because he stepped behind the gaudy shower curtain.

I fell back onto the bed, covering my face with my hands. I was turned on. Hot, wet and throbbing. I was turned on by a guy’s legs and ass. But Jasper didn’t have just any ass; it was rock hard and round and curved perfectly into his sculpted thighs. This was mortifying. I was wearing his boxers, wet and feeling emotions I never knew I had. And the worst part was he knew it.

I’d never been concerned what others thought about my scars, but suddenly I was. Now it mattered. Now I wanted to keep myself covered from him and I hated feeling insecure about myself, but Jasper looking at my marred skin . . . it raised my awareness of what I looked like.

I heard the crinkle of paper and suspected he’d found the cheap soaps I’d thrown in the trash along with the one I used.

“Fuck, that’s cold,” Jasper shouted.

I bit my lower lip and smiled. I didn’t realize how good it felt to smile, how much I missed it until I did it. It was like I was lighter, warmer and the dredge of blackness faded for a single second.

Then I locked it away again. Because with one emotion came others. Others that would break me wide open.

I got up, yanked the comforter off the bed then threw a pillow on the floor beside it. I tugged back the white sheets, crawled underneath and curled on my side, my hands beneath the pillow. The sound of the shower mixed with the steady drone of a newscaster’s voice on the television lulled me to sleep within seconds.

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