Page 21 of Surge of Heat

A little groan slips from his lips. I pull back and let my gaze run over him. Blood mars his clothes in multiple spots, and his skin is black and blue everywhere I can see. “We need to get you inside to their doctors and have them fix you up.”

I start to stand, and he pulls me back down. Our eyes lock, and for a minute, I just drink him in. His dark eyes. His dark hair, cut in a military style. His face, almost too beautiful to be real. I’d missed him, more than I even wanted to admit to myself.

“No doctors,” he says, then cups my face, his eyes gentling.

“You need their help.” My heart races, and I almost want to pull away. He just makes me feel too damn much.

“I don’t need them. I just need you.”

“Evander…”

“Sam, please.” He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine. “Please, I just need you.”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Okay.”

I wrap one of his arms around my shoulders and help him stand, and we make our way slowly to the building. There, I flash my card and hit floor number 2, the floor all our bedrooms are located on. Once there, we head down the hall, and I flash mycard again to open my room. It’s nice. Spacious, clean, with a little kitchen and a bathroom with an actual tub.

I let him sink down to the edge of the bed, and there he sits for a minute, breathing hard. He’s filthy, sweaty, and looks like he got the shit beat out of him. If he were human, he’d no doubt be in a hospital getting tended to the way he needs.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. Can you help me get in the shower?”

I’m not sure he can stand, but I nod. It’s hard to be gentle with him as I undress him, but I try damn hard. When he’s naked, I have to hold back a gasp when I see all his wounds in all their glory. He definitely needs stitches on a few of them, and bruising that bad probably means something is broken underneath. I hate thinking of what that green dragon put him through.

Knowing he won’t be able to clean himself on his own, I strip, turn on the water to get it warm, and come back and slowly help him to the shower. He sags against the wall, and I use my loofa and body wash to clean him as gently as I can. Then I use shampoo in his hair, rubbing it softly in and rinsing it out, and then repeating the process with conditioner.

His eyes open. He catches my wrists and pulls me closer, then brushes a light kiss on my lips. “You have no idea how much I missed you. I thought about you every second. All I wanted was to be back with you.”

I don’t know what to say. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I glance down at his wounds and see that they’re healing. Slowly, but they are healing. Some of the tension inside of me eases.He’s going to be okay.

When he’s clean, I shut off the shower and dry us both before helping him get into bed. I’m about to go get dressed when he snags my wrist and pulls me back. “Sleep with me. Please.”

His gaze is soft. Pleading. My heart aches, and I realize that there’s no part of me that could tell him no. I slide into bed, and he curls around me, his head resting on my chest.

“Do you want to tell me about the fight now?”

He says nothing for so long that I’m not sure he’s going to answer me. “We fought. I was bigger and stronger, but he… he knows how to be a dragon. I was nothing against him. At some point, I knew he was going to kill me, so I did the only thing I could think of. I pretended like I was dead, and he finally left me alone.”

“That was smart.”

“It was cowardly.”

I run my fingers through his hair and feel him ease against me. “It’s not cowardly to be smart enough to survive. Especially when everything you did bought me the time I needed to escape. You saved my life.”

“Maybe,” he whispers tiredly.

I keep massaging his head and within minutes, he’s breathing evenly. Asleep.

But I’m not tired yet. I lie on the bed wondering what I’m going to do. As much as I want to fool myself into believing something different, I care about Evander, and I think he cares about me. It might be because our dragons are pulling us together, but I’m not sure if it matters.

What’s more, Evander being back complicates things with Aydan and I. The last thing in this world I want to do is hurt Aydan, but that’s exactly what this will do. Just the thought of it makes my heart feel heavy. I love him. There’s no doubt about it. There’s also no way I can give up Evander.

Aydan’s going to have some big feelings, and I need to be prepared for it.

I mean, if I had to see Aydan with another woman, I’d lose my mind. The thing is, this isn’t a human situation where I pickone man, and that’s just how it goes. This is a dragon situation, where I can’t possibly pick one of them over the other.

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