His eyes blaze at me for a few moments longer, until he closes them again and I’m released from their burning power.
27
Riley
The dream is horrifically violent.
It starts with gunfire and gets worse, with blood and body parts flying everywhere. I hear screaming and smell smoke. The building I’m in is on fire. I’m trying to run, but my legs are powerless. The walls catch fire, then so do my clothing and hair. My skin turns black and curls off my body like burning paper.
I jerk awake with a strangled scream, my heart pounding.
“It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Mal pulls me up and against his chest. He rocks me and murmurs soothing words in Russian as I shake and gasp for air. Clinging to him as the dream fades, I bury my face in his chest.
He says gently, “Next time you have a nightmare, remind yourself that you’re dreaming. It’s not real. Then tell yourself to wake up.”
“That makes no sense. How can I tell myself anything if I’m asleep?”
“Your subconscious will remember I told you. From now on, you’ll be able to wake yourself up from a bad dream. It won’t stop you from having them, but it will help.”
I ponder that, wondering if he has bad dreams, until he says, “I’m going to run a bath.”
“Didn’t you just take a shower?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for you.” He pulls away and smooths a hand over my hair. “You stink.”
I say drily, “That is so not helpful.”
“Helpful or not, it’s the truth. Drink some water.”
He leans over to the nightstand and hands me the glass he retrieves from it. He watches in silence until I’ve gone through half the water, then rises and goes into the bathroom.
I feel around on the nightstand for my glasses. When I get them on, I realize the terrifying moose head is gone.
I find that very, very disturbing. Did I imagine it?
When Mal returns to the room, I point at the blank spot on the wall where the hideous thing used to reside. “Wasn’t there a moose there?”
“No.” Before I can freak out that this is definitive evidence I’ve lost my shit, he adds, “It was an elk.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“I took it down.”
I consider that for several seconds. “You took the elk head off the wall after I went to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t like it.”
That makes me blink in surprise. “So in addition to being able to walk through walls, you can read minds.”
“No, but I can read faces. Yours is unusually expressive.”
Oh, that’s wonderful. What the hell must my face have been telling him when he was strutting around with his damn shirt off?
I hope it wasn’t the same thing my ovaries were saying, because those horny little egg producers have only one thing on their minds.
My cheeks heating, I glance down at my hands. Mal approaches the bed, flips the covers off my legs, and picks me up. As he carries me to the bathroom, I say, “I’m supposed to be walking.”
“You will be. Let’s get you clean first.”
I don’t have much time to worry about the “let’s” part, because he makes his intentions clear when he sets me on my feet in front of the tub and starts pulling at my sleep shirt.
“Whoa! What’re you doing?”
I jerk away from him so hard, I lose my balance. With his hand gripped around my upper arm, he steadies me so I don’t fall.
He says calmly, “You’re feeling shy. There’s no need to be. I’ve already seen all of you there is to see, inside and out.”
I gape at him in horror, mentally recoiling from all the possibilities of that statement, until he provides me with a detailed explanation that leaves no room for doubt.
“I stood at the head of your bed when they opened your stomach to get the bullet and your damaged organs out. I gave you sponge baths while you were drugged. I changed your clothes, changed your bedsheets, and helped the nurse change your catheter when it got plugged. There isn’t an inch of your body I’m not already familiar with.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and chant, “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”
“You’re not dreaming.”
“This has to be a dream. There’s no universe in which this can possibly be real.”
He exhales in impatience. “Don’t be dramatic. Bodies are just meat.”
I open my eyes and glare at him in outrage. “Excuse me for not being deadened to all sense of humanity, Mr. International Assassin, but my body is not meat to me.”