I mean the stitches, but I guess it applies to doing his story, too.
Slowly he opens his amber eyes.
“Okay?” I say.
He blinks, fighting sleep. As if he wants to keep looking at me as long as possible.
I pull out the kit I put together, sterilizing everything. I grab the fishing line and a small pair of pliers and get to work. His eyes fly open when I pierce his skin the first time. But he doesn’t pull away, he just watches me work. It’s a little unnerving, feeling his gaze on me as I stitch his shoulder—he just lets me do it. I numbed the area with a little bit of ice, that’s all. He’s calm. Watching me.
Is he out of his mind from the drugs? Or simply accustomed to pain? My heart breaks a little bit for him.
I talk to him softly as I tie each stitch, telling him how we’re going back to the forest, just as soon as we get him nice and strong. He seems to drift off…until therrrripof tape wakes him. His hand flies to the clean, dry bandage, then he looks at me.
Gratitude in his eyes.
“You’re safe for now. I’ll do my best to help you, but what you need now is rest.”
He eyes the window where the noontime sun bleeds out the edges of the blinds.
“Rest for me, okay? Go back to sleep.”
He reaches out and grabs me around the waist.
I pull away, but he won’t let me go. With a surge of unexpected strength, he pulls me onto the bed with him, holding me flush to his big body. He curls around me, like I’m his teddy bear.
I try to move, and he tightens his powerful arms.
Fuck.
“Sleep,” he whispers into my hair.
My pulse pounds. I wait a bit, then try to pull out all at once.
No go. It’s like trying to break through rock.
It hits me that I’m alone in a motel room with a man from an institution for the criminally insane. And yeah, I feel this crazy affection for him. And he’s gorgeous. And I have good reason to believe that he’s not criminally insane, but then again, he did kill a few people with his bare hands. My editor thinks hanging out with him is a grand idea, but he really just wants the story.
It doesn’t look good on paper.
And now Kiro’s acting like he’s in charge. I’m supposed to be in charge here.
“Kiro, let me up.”
His breath evens out. Is he sleeping? He won’t let me go even in his sleep?
I sigh and tell myself to relax. Not like there’s anything else to do. I won’t be able to get up from this bed until he lets me up. It should be scary, but I find I’m not scared.
In fact, there’s this nice silence in my mind. I’ve been living with an unnerving buzz of anxiety for months. Like static on the radio, but harsher, more jagged.
And now this silence. My mind feels strangely clear. I’m weightless.
I’m a creature in his arms. A heartbeat. Held. Trapped. This feeling is so strange, so new.
Just as I drift off, I realize that this strange, new feeling is peace.
I wake upwith a start, disoriented by the weight around me, the massive arms entrapping me. The warm, rhythmic heave behind me.
Patient 34—Kiro. I remember my plan—waiting for his sleep breath to start so I can extricate myself.