Page 119 of Cruel Malady: A Necrosis of the Mind

Blood rushes to my groin. I lunge forward and tear the shirt over her head, then I have her in my arms and off the bed, carrying her to the bathroom.

As I reach for the wall switch, she catches my hand. “Leave the light off.”

I hesitate momentarily before moving toward the glass shower. Keeping her in my arms, I flip on the spray and wait for the water to warm.

She tentatively touches the fresh dressing over my hand. “How did this happen?”

I turn my gaze on her, absorbing how soft she looks in this moment. “I was saving what was important to me.”

She arches a brow in question.

“Your journal,” I say, holding her gaze.

I managed to save both journals. The one I kept on Subject 6, with all my recorded findings and sketches of Blakely, and the pages she wrote while being held captive—the ones I kept tucked in my journal.

But, even though her data was important, it was her pages I risked reaching into the fire to save, her thoughts I couldn’t bear to lose.

Somehow, as she studies my features, her eyes searing through my façade, I think she knows this.

She aims her attention on my hand and begins to remove the bandage. “You shouldn’t get this wet.”

After she drops the bandage, I set her feet to the floor. I meticulously peel the rest of her clothing away before I remove the other bandage wrapping my calf.

Her gaze tracks the bruises and scrapes along my chest. I can feel the raw claw marks that rake my back from her nails. My face bears the marks from her fist. We’re both covered in contusions and injuries—our bodies a canvas exhibiting passion and violence.

You can’t love the tormented and not accept their pain.

I drag her into the shower and kiss her under the rain of water, like I kissed her under the waterfall. I kiss her like I’m deprived of air, like I’m drowning, and she’s the only pocket of oxygen amid the water.

And she kisses me back with enough vengeance to rock a torrential storm.

The warm water stings the fresh cuts, my calf on fire as water cleanses the open wound, sending a swirl of pale-red blood around the shower base.

I grasp her waist and plant her back to the tile. As she locks her arms around my neck, her breasts press enticingly against my chest. I graze my fingers down the flare of her hips and shove my throbbing cock to her pelvis, groaning over her mouth at the feel of her heat and the abrasive rub. She’s all bare pussy, but the hint of growth against my dick feels so damn good, driving me crazy with need.

Bending at the knees, I lower myself and slip my cock between her thighs, grinding my shaft along her smooth, wet lips.

Her breathy moan slips free to torture me, her hips undulating seductively to lure me right over the fucking edge of sanity.

I hook an arm beneath her knee and drag her thighs apart, notching myself at her entrance. She writhes her hips, the sexy motion begging me to sink inside her.

I grip the back of her neck and angle her face up toward mine. “Just tell me one thing,” I say, a plea whispered over her mouth.

She blinks up at me, beads of water seductively slipping down her face. At her bated silence, I expend a restless breath. “Are we making love?”

A forceful swallow drags along her throat. “Alex—”

“Tell me you love me.”

Her gaze flits over my features before she casts it down at the shower floor.

“Christ, Blakely. Tell me you want us—”

“I don’t want to do this alone,” she admits.

A searing ember of regret constricts my throat. I did this to her; I made her alone, suffering an ailment no one on the planet has ever suffered. Until she adapts, I’ll take her abuse readily. Some sick part of me even craves it.

Which is the only reason I can justify what I say next. “You think I wanted to want you? That I wanted to fall in love with you? I loathed myself for my weakness. Some desperate part of me even wanted the treatment to kill you, so you’d no longer be a temptation.”

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