Page 15 of The Two Last Moments

“You’re not well enough to go. You can barely stand up on your own.”

“That’s just because I’ve barely stood at all for the last couple days. They can’t force me to stay here, and I doubt they’ll fight too hard to keep me anyway. My hospital bill is on the county dime unless they figure out who I really am. I’m just doing them a favor.”

“Those are…all good points,” I admit.

“I lost my memory, but my brain is still working just fine.” She taps her temple. “Now either help me get dressed or get the hell out of the bathroom.”

Before I can prepare myself, Lark drops her gown onto the floor at our feet.

Oh, fuck.

Do not look.

With my eyes on the off-white ceiling, I help Lark with her jeans and T-shirt. Every time my fingers graze bare skin, I feel another jolt of liquid heat in my veins.

I’d been trying all damn day not to focus on how stunning she is. The grassy green of her eyes, the striking contrast between her pale skin and black hair. And the tattoos on her arms, which aredefinitelymy taste. No, I wasn’t noticing any of that. Didn’t seem right with her bruised and afraid. Not to mention the fact that she could be a mature-looking eighteen-year-old for all I know, while I’m thirty-three.

She could have a boyfriend who’s waiting for her. A husband. No ring, though…

Nope. Not happening.

It’s over within a couple of minutes, and I can’t decide if that’s too soon. She steps away from me, and I finally let myself exhale. I might have lost an IQ point with how intensely I was focused on not getting hard.

Lark turns around, and her wide-eyed look is back. She seems to transition between devilish one moment, innocent the next.

And apparently, it’s my kryptonite.

“I’ll take a bus to the crash site if I have to,” she says. “Or hitchhike. I’d Uber, except for theno phoneissue. Unless you want to save me a lot of time and take me there yourself.”

She’s bruised and bandaged. Her entire body was slammed by three thousand pounds of steel less than two days ago. But I believe her when she says she’ll go without me if she has to. Lark isn’t going to let anyone, least of all me, keep her locked up.

This woman is a fighter. Damned if I would want her to change.

“You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?”

She grins and loops her arm through mine. “Took you until now to figure that out?”

7

We’re only in the parking lot, and Danny’s already having second thoughts. “This is a bad idea. I should take you back.”

“Too late. You already aided and abetted my escape.”

Although my entire body aches, and I’m a swirl of conflicting emotions, I’m relieved to be outside.Free. I hate being cooped up. I have no idea why I would hate it, if I have a specific reason or not. All I know is that Ido. It’s not as bad when Danny’s with me, but still, being stuck in my hospital bed made my skin crawl.

I inhale deeply, tipping my head back to let the sun shine on my face. The movement makes my brain hurt, but I don’t care. Danny’s arm goes around me on our way to his car, and I lean into him.

“If there’s any sign you’re in distress,” he says, “I’m taking you back to the hospital. No arguments.”

“Oh, there will be arguments. But if you pick me up and carry me, I probably couldn’t stop you.”

His eyes move over me, assessing. The attention makes my skin prickle with heat. Like when I dropped my gown in the hospital bathroom, naked as the day I was born underneath. I was trying to provoke a reaction, prove a point. But really, what the hell was I thinking?

Maybe I was testing him. If so, he passed it. He avoided looking at me. But part of me had wanted him to sneak a peak. Just a little one.

“You don’t know your own strength,” he says. “It took multiple orderlies and nurses to sedate and restrain you in the ED.”

“That’s one of the things I can’t remember.” Like those fading bruises on the rest of me. That thought extinguishes any flicker of desire.

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