Page 6 of Lost Touch
At least I could still feel mental pleasure as well as mental pain, it turned out.
After a few minutes the heat soaked into me enough that my body’s shock wore off. I started to get some strength back in my limbs and wriggled in his arms.
“I can stand up,” I whispered into his chest, barely audible over the rush of the shower.
“Wait a minute, okay? The heat might make you black out again,” he said, his voice rumbling through me.
That should’ve felt good, I bet.
I squeezed my eyes shut against another wave of dizziness. Fine. I’d stay where I was.
Although his arms had to be getting tired—or maybe not. I didn’t know a ton about alpha werewolves, but obviously the enhanced senses were true and not a story, since he’d heard me over the shower pouring down around us. And clearly the supernatural strength had to be true, too. His muscles weren’t even trembling from the strain of keeping me up against his chest. I might be unhealthily thin, but still. The dead weight of a full-grown man would’ve had me staggering immediately.
He held me for a long time, letting the water rinse me, letting me calm down. The dizziness receded. A few details I’d missed started to seep into my consciousness. Sopping-wet fabric against my skin, for one. I blinked the shower water out of my eyes and peeked at him. Yep, soaked blue cotton.
“Do you always shower with your clothes on?” I didn’t bother trying to raise my voice and strain my scratchy throat.
His arms tightened a fraction. “Only when I’m showering with someone else who’s naked and who I’m not sleeping with,” he answered after a moment. “I didn’t want to come off as even creepier than I did before.”
I still didn’t have a lot of control over my body, but one of my hands lay curled against his chest. I managed to straighten out my fingers so I could stroke him gently with the tips of them. He’d given me so much comfort with his touch, even though I couldn’t enjoy it properly. Maybe he hadn’t been in that place as long as me, and he might be a big, clawed badass, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t starved for human contact too, for someone giving him some comfort in return.
“You didn’t come off as creepy. Seriously. I don’t mind being a stray cat.” Did I sound as dumb as I felt? Definitely yes. “Anyway, I think I can actually stand up now.”
Without replying, Drew carefully let my legs down and propped me up on my feet. I leaned on him for a second and then dared to pull out of the supporting circle of his arms.
I fixed my eyes on the water sluicing over the tiled wall. Now that I knew what I looked like, and what he’d been doing for me to keep me as more-or-less clean and healthy as I’d been when I woke up, eye contact felt like an impossible ask. Would an actual cat with all the litter and gross-smelling fish paste food have been better or worse for him to deal with? Who knew, but a cat wouldn’t have felt like crap about it, at least.
“I’ve got this,” I muttered, and to my abject relief Drew pushed the shower door open and stepped out, shutting it behind him and giving me the privacy of the frosted, hammered glass.
Washing up at least lived up to my expectations, because the sensation of being clean versus filthy didn’t have much to do with pain or pleasure; it simply involved my skin not being coated in a layer of scum.
And by the time I got out of the shower, I’d managed to talk myself into a state of acceptance, at least.
I’d been imprisoned and tortured, with a probable kidnapping at the beginning of it all. I’d lost my memories and my ability to feel pain, physical pleasure, and possibly other sensations as well that I hadn’t stumbled over yet. Drew had had to clean up after all my various bodily functions, bandage me, and tend to me in ways that made me cringe.
Fine. That was where I was at. What choice did I have but to move on with the circumstances I’d been dealt? No more hysterical sobbing fits, no more panic attacks. That didn’t get anyone anywhere. Okay, so I’d earned a couple of those, to be fair. That didn’t mean I needed to have any more.
Drew had big, fluffy towels to go with his high-end shampoo and rosemary-lemon soap, and I found clean clothes on the freshly-made bed when I stepped out of the bathroom: boxers, sweatpants, thick cozy socks, and a long-sleeved T-shirt.
Seriously, it could have been a lot worse.
Also, the air held a tantalizing smell of food.
Much worse.
I eyed the windows warily as I dressed. They had blinds pulled across them, probably in deference to me wandering around after the shower, since Drew seemed to think of everything. Did I have the courage to pull the blinds back again and take a look at the real world? I had a sneaking fear that everything would’ve changed since I’d seen it—not that I’d necessarily know the difference.
But there could be zombies out there. Or killer tomatoes.
Actually, killer tomatoes might be all right. My mouth watered. I could so freaking handle some giant evil tomatoes after my recent experiences. I’d become a hardened man. And I could use a giant sandwich right about now. Those tomatoes wouldn’t know what hit them.
In that spirit, I finished rolling up the sleeves of my shirt—the pants had stretchy cuffs, so they didn’t need rolling, but they’d bunched around my knees ridiculously—and crossed to the window, pushing back a couple of panels of the hanging blinds.
Trees. I blinked in surprise, craning my neck to peer as far as I could through the edges of the window.
Yep, trees. It took me a second to get past the simple sight of living greenery and persuade my higher brain functions to engage. I soaked it in: the long shadows underneath the branches, the sunlight coming from the opposite side of the—house, definitely a house, since I was looking out a second-floor window and this couldn’t possibly be an apartment given the surroundings. The way the branches swayed and their evergreen needles bobbed and weaved in the breeze. I caught a little flutter between two of the branches, and a flash of blue. A bird.
An actual, living, free creature. Right there in front of me.
