Page 25 of Declan's Hope

"Pity?" She frowned and turned her attention to the back of his head.

"Yeah," came his clipped reply from where he stood with one hand plastered to the surface of a large wooden dresser. What in the world was he talking about?

She watched while he fumbled in his pocket and pulled something out. An eyepatch. He slipped it over his head before turning to face her, while taking great care in positioning the swatch of black, molded fabric.

Her gasp of dismay filled the space between them, even while her hungry gaze flew over him. She couldn’t help it. And it didn’t have to do with the web of scarring running in almost every direction from beneath the patch. But how she didn’t recognize the self-assured, cocky Declan who had driven her nuts for months on end, or the sullen one she’d been made to walk away from four months ago—or even the snarky one from that short recording Garrett had shown her.

No, this Declan had no resemblance to that man—the one she’d come to know and…

She shook her head, an unsteady hand coming up to cover her aching chest as she took in and let out a deep breath. What had he done to himself?

Of course his drunken state had been unmistakable. But the rest? He’d completely obliterated who he had been—from his tangled hair sticking up all over his head, to the pale angles of his face made even more prominent where he’d had his surgeries, to the scraggly mustache and beard that did nothing to hide his gaunt features. The disheveled clothes covering his leaner frame spoke of a man who didn’t care about himself or what happened to him.

She met his red-rimmed gaze and forced herself not to tear up at the defeat staring out at her.

"What?" He straightened and steadied himself with one hand on the dresser while spreading his other arm out wide to his side—swaying. "Am I too far gone for even one of your pity kisses?"

Pity kisses…

"When did I…" She narrowed her gaze on him. "You think I kissed you because I felt sorry for you?" Of all the—

"What else would you call it?" He let go of the dresser and tugged his t-shirt over his head before making his way haltingly to an open doorway. "You certainly hadn’t wanted to touch me—much less kiss me—all those times Haven arranged for us to run into each other." Well, at least he’d confirmed that long-held suspicion. Running water sounded behind him—a shower. "But land me in a hospital bed where I’ve become worthless to everyone and suddenly you find me irresistible?" He back-stepped—stumbling slightly—into the middle of the steamy bathroom. "Come on, that bullet may have taken my eye, but it didn’t make me stupid."

She followed him and stood in the doorway and fisted her hands on her hips. Then she had to force herself not to get a good eyeful of a commando Declan when he undid his jeans and slid them over his hips before letting them fall to the bathroom floor. He turned his back on her and stepped into the huge walk-in shower taking up the back wall of the bathroom. And, god help her, she couldn’t keep her eyes from tracing over him down to his bare ass. Even without the mass he usually carried around, she found a naked Declan a beautiful one.

But if he thought exposing himself to her would scare her away, he’d have to think again. And just to make sure he understood that, she marched to the wide shower entrance and kept her eyes on where he leaned his head against the opposite wall.

"Are you so sure about that?" Her voice rose to be heard over the multiple shower heads beating down on and around him. Hope seldom yelled, except when the situation called for it. This had turned out to be one of those situations. So she let her anger loose, shouting at his back. "Because from where I’m standing, you look pretty stupid to me."

His head whipped around—a scowl surrounding the eyepatch. "You think so?" he growled.

Then more quickly than she thought possible, he twisted around, grabbed her upper arms, and hauled her into the shower—his touch firm, but not bruising. Her back hit the side wall and she gasped. Declan’s blazing gaze held her transfixed, while she worried over how his body swayed inches from her front. Then he surrounded her, his looming presence blotting everything out—everything except the shower cascading over them, drenching her hair and clothes.

She didn’t care.

"Look closer." Those two clipped words gave her no warning before he ripped the eyepatch off his head. It dropped to the shower floor as he leaned into her. "Does this look stupid?"

Water splattered into her eyes as she furiously blinked and peered closer. Colonel Sheppard had brought in the best, and that included the plastic surgeon. Her work had been meticulous. How had she managed to do it? Solace had described the injury to her as an explosion of tattered flesh and shattered bone. Now, that side of his face wasn’t exactly as it had been before, but it was close.

Amazing.

A network of discolored lines of various thicknesses—some straight, while others had an almost zig-zag look to them. They ran down his cheek and up through his eyebrow, while spreading toward his temple and over part of the side of his nose. They all branched from the epicenter—a dark plastic shield covered by a patchwork-scarred, lid missing small sections of lashes.

"Does it?" His hot, whiskey-scented breath heaved between them before his voice broke on a whispered, "Does it?"

She focused back on the eye so full of despair it broke her heart as she slowly shook her head. The need to comfort him overwhelmed her, but she wasn’t sure if he would let her. But she had to try. She carefully reached up, expecting at any second for him to turn away from her again.

But he didn’t.

So she took her time and gently brushed her hand over the top of his thick wet hair. Shorter hair met her touch at the left side of his head. It hid more. Tears pricked her eyes when her fingers found missing sections of hair beneath it with raised scars—more than she had realized he would have. She traced over them, her breath quickening when she met the evidence of where the bullet had made its entrance. It brought home again how close she had come to losing him.

Declan’s eyelids dropped when her thumb carefully dragged over his scar-riddled brow, then lower over the bone under his eye socket where the webbing of scars covered the smooth, conformed, bone implants she knew to be beneath the surface.

Again, amazing.

She finally cupped his grizzled cheek, whispering, "No." His shuddering sigh rocked his body against hers as he nuzzled his face into her touch—the rough hairs brushing against her palm. "Not stupid at all."

"Hope," he groaned low before she found herself gathered against his chest. Her arms remained trapped—her right one lifted, while the other stayed at her side. So, she wrapped herself around him the best she could. The hair at the nape of his neck brushed over her fingers while his waist tempted her to push her hand around to his slick back.

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