Page 86 of Hunt for You

He snorted again. “No.” There was a pause, then, “Drink, then eat something please. You need to get your blood-sugar up.”

I frowned, then realized he’d brought in one of the dining chairs and placed it next to the bath. There was an oven-tray sitting on the seat with a plate of cookies and a steaming mug of… something.

“Lemon honey,” he said, like he knew what I was thinking.

“Always the perfect accompaniment to cookies,” I said dryly, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I picked up one dripping hand to grab the mug by the handle and took a sip. Then another. Then a gulp.

It must have been sitting here for a little while, because it was warm, not hot. So I could drink it comfortably.

Then I grabbed one of the cookies and took a bite.

The lemon honey tastedverybitter after that, but I made myself choke it back, because it did make me feel better.

And a few minutes later, with the drink gone, and two cookies in my stomach, I could actually think.

Which was when Cain walked over to the bath, leaned over and reached in to cup the back of my calf and lift my leg out of the water.

I blinked—the gentle, cupping touch at odds with the perfunctory lift of my limb.

He hooked my knee over the side of the bath, which spread my legs andshouldhave made me feel very vulnerable. But I was wearing black underwear, and even though he had the mask on, I could tell that he wasn’t looking at me.

All his attention was on that red, slightly swollen scrape on my knee.

When he touched it with the cotton ball, I hissed, because there was something on it that stung.

“You know, bathwater is super unhygienic. Your aftercare is for shit.”

He shrugged, still dabbing at the scrape, the stinging scent of disinfectant filling the room and making my nose wrinkle.

Then I stopped breathing as a low waft of air floated over my knee… and I realized he was blowing on it through the mesh mask.

“Are… are you—”

“Shut up,” he muttered, unwrapping one of the larger bandaids to lay it gently over the wound, his big fingers flattening it to my skin, then his palm resting over it for a moment before he moved onto the next scrape—on my elbow—and repeating the process.

“Do you feel warm now?” he asked gruffly, his voice still rough and harsh.

I nodded.

He helped me out of the bath, wrapped me in one of the towels from chest to thighs, then made me sit on the edge of the bath while he patched up the other side.

As my brain and body came alive again, it was hard to be sure I wasn’t still in shock, because it wassosurreal to have his muscular bulk moving so easily in my room, in my house. I just stared at him.

Then, when he was done with patching me up, he straightened and started to clean up after himself.

For real?

As he tossed the wrappers and used gauze into the trash, then washed his hands, I remained on the side of the bath, staring at him.

Then he dried his hands on my towel—I decided I’d never wash it again—and turned to face me and went still.

I stared at that mask, wishing desperately that I could see the face behind it. Then I licked my lips, because my heart was beginning to race again.

“Is this how you lull me into a false sense of security so you can ravage me and kill me?”

He gave a spluttering little laugh. “You aren’t secure—at least, not after tonight. Tonight… tonight is a freebie.”

“But—”

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