“Right here?”
“Come, now.” He looked up at me and grinned fully, watching my reaction. Too late, I realized he was distracting me as he yanked the drawstring of his hospital trousers and dropped them to the floor. “You’re a nurse,” he said. “Surely at some point you’ve seen one of us in the altogether?”
I stood there like a ninny. He wasn’t in the altogether—he wore drawers, of course, and at the moment he showed no signs of removing them. But he wore nothing else. I should turn my back, I thought stupidly, but I did no such thing. His body was lean, the flat muscles sliding under the skin hypnotic. He had small whorls of hair on his chest, a shade lighter than the hair on his head. His hips were narrow, his legs long and strong, smaller whorls of hair on his thighs and farther down. I stared.
He bent and picked up his trousers, the knobs of his spine moving under the flawless skin of his back. He shook the trousers out and stepped into them, and I felt a short stab of disappointment that I couldn’t look at his legs anymore. He fastened the trouser buttons, the movement strangely intimate. He was enjoying the fact that I was looking at him. There was something in my gaze, I realized, something I had not consciously put there, that he was soaking up like a sponge.
He picked up the shirt next and slipped it over his head, and I could see the tufts of hair under his arms as he raised them, the soft, firm undersides of his biceps, the play of skin over his ribs. Then the fabric fell and he tucked the shirt into the trousers as I felt the slow pulse of my heart at the base of my throat.
He attached the suspenders next, slid them over his shoulders. The trousers were a little roomy on him now, but not much; even before he’d come here and gone on a hospital diet, he’d been slim. I saw him now as if through a glass; I could see the patient he’d been, and the man he was, at the same time. They had always been the same person, at least to me.
He put his shoes and socks on and straightened, looked at me.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
He rolled his shoulders, one and then the other, then both at the same time, the movement making the fabric of his shirt play over his skin. Then he stilled and looked at me, his expression dark. “Come here.”
I took a step closer, knowing only that I wanted to be nearer, to be as close as I could. He put his arm around my waist and pulled me to him, flush against him. Then he kissed me again.
This kiss was different. He held me tight, and even through layers of fabric I could feel every sinew of him, the beat of his heart and the heat of his hands on my back. I put my arms around his neck and touched his hair with my fingertips. His hips were flush against mine. He teased my mouth open and I let him, the taste of him, mixed with the smell of his skin, overwhelming me. He had kissed me before with need, and the need was still there, but it was tempered with passion that made me ache, made me rise up and open to him as much as he would let me.
He broke the kiss and ran a thumb along my lower lip. He did not let me go. “That’s better,” he said, breathing hard. “I wanted to kiss you as a man.”
“You are a man,” I said.
He rubbed my lip again—the sensation of it was raw, as if I had no more defenses—and kissed the corner of my mouth, my jaw, the tender spot on my neck. Then he stopped, holding me, his head dipped to the spot beneath my ear, breathing me in.
I touched his face, ran my fingers along his jaw and his cheekbones. I knew every line of them, every contour, though I’d never touched them before, not like this. The feel of him beneath my hands sent a spark of something through me, dangerous and heady and wonderful.
“Jack,” I said after a long moment.
“Hmm?”
“Are you kissing the nurses just to get newspapers?”
When his body shook against mine, I knew he was laughing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The rain had not stopped. Though it was morning, the clouds were so thick we needed the electric lights in the patients’ hall in order to see through the gloom. The light thrown by the electric bulbs wasn’t as strong as the light from the paraffin lamps, and Nina kept a lamp lit as she worked.
“No one’s died yet,” she told me bluntly when I came to relieve her. “It’s well there’s only five. It makes it easier.”
“Six,” I said.
She passed a glance to Archie, who lay still on his blanket. “Yes, well, I meant five infected. I’ve tried feeding them, but no one will take anything. Did you make the breakfast in the kitchen? Thank God.” She stared over my shoulder as Jack came up behind me. She took in his change of clothes and was momentarily speechless.
“Good morning,” Jack said.
“Blimey,” said Nina.
“I think we ought to regroup,” I cut in. “We put the patients on the floor here for evacuation, but the rain hasn’t stopped, and we may not get help for another day yet. The floor isn’t the best place for them.”
“I agree,” said Nina. “They should be in their rooms, in bed.”
I turned to Jack. “Let’s find Paulus and Roger. And Captain Mabry. Let’s see if we can move these men back upstairs.”
Paulus and Roger were in the kitchen devouring much of the breakfast I’d cooked. We sent them upstairs to prepare the six bedrooms and get a stretcher. Then I put a plate together, poured a cup of hot tea, and brought a tray to West.
He was in the common room, looking out at the rain. He didn’t thank me when I gave him the food, but I could tell he was famished. I took a seat in one of the rickety chairs and looked out at the rain as he ate.
“It’ll lighten up by tonight,” he told me. “And then we can get help.”
“How do you know it will stop?”
“I feel it in here.” He pointed dismissively to the stumps of his legs. “I felt it coming, and now I can feel it going. Coming is worse. It nearly made my teeth hurt.” He took another bite of bacon, didn’t look at me. “I’m not useless, you know.”
I was surprised. “I never said you were.”
“I nearly had that scrawny bastard last night,” he went on. I thought vaguely that my patients had long lost any awareness of swearing in my presence, if they had ever had any in the first place. “I learned my choke holds in the army. Another few seconds and I’d have put his lights out, but he fell out of his chair and got away from me.” West looked at me. “I’m just saying I don’t have to be a drain. I can be of use.”
“Very well, Mr. West,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Lieutenant Douglas R. West, First Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, at your service.” He gave me a quick salute, then smiled. “Call me Douglas.”
“There you are,” Jack said, coming into the room. Captain Mabry followed. “Morning, West.”
West looked him up and down. “Out of your pajamas at last, Yates?”
“Something like it.”
“The look suits you. Though you must be disappointed you’re not one of the team.” He motioned to the lettering on his shirt.
Jack shook his head. “I’ve resigned.”
“Well, by God.” West, cheered up, rubbed his hands. “Brave Jack is here. It’s raining, we’re stuck here, we’re dropping like flies, there’s a ghost, and Jack’s going to lead us over No Man’s Land. I’m game. This ought to be good. What’s first?”