If so, how?Had he let her go, or had she escaped? I have so many questions, but I don’t think Alexandre will be able to answer many of them in this state, at least not in a way that will give me any real answers that make sense.
“What about the others?” I ask softly as I spoon up more of the broth. He turns his head away, and I let out a sigh of frustration. “You have to eat more.”
“Gone,” he whispers. “All of them—are gone.”
I see him slip back into sleep, and I let out another long breath, setting the food aside. “At least it’s something,” I murmur, arranging his blankets so he’s hopefully as comfortable as he can be. It’s the most nutrients he’s gotten since I found him.
I hope that when he saysgone, he means they left, like Anastasia. But I won’t be getting those answers today, I don’t think.
As it turns out, I’m right. The rest of the day is more of the same, trying to give Alexandre broth and water and pain medication when he’s awake enough to handle it and puttering around the apartment, trying to keep myself busy the rest of the time. As the day goes on, turning into evening and his fever rises, he seems more and more delirious each time he wakes.
“Anastasia—” He moans her name the next time he wakes up, just after nightfall, as I’m trying to give him more water. “I’m—sorry—”
He mumbles other names between swallows of water and broth, names that I recognize from the bills of sale. And then, as I set the bowl aside, he murmurs my name, his voice low and pained. “Noelle—”
“I’m here.” I turn back to him, reaching for his hand and wincing as I feel how hot he is. “We’ve got to get your fever down. The medicine isn’t working.”
He needs antibiotics. I’m sure of that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The only thing I can think of is to get him into a cool bath.
“If I help you, can you walk at all? You need to cool down.” I look at him helplessly. “I can’t carry your dead weight, Alexandre.”
It might have been the wrong thing to say. His eyes close again. “Let me—die—”
I huff out an angry breath. “No,” I tell him flatly. “You’re not going to do that. Do you understand me? You’re not going to be so selfish as to make me witness the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life, after keeping me trapped here, and then die anyway after I’ve tried to help you.” I grit my teeth, staring at him. “Can you walk if I help you?”
His eyes open a fraction. “I can—try.”
16
NOELLE
Getting him to the bathroom is agonizing. It takes forever to even help him sit up fully, most of his weight supported on me. His skin feels like a blazing fire, and with every step across the room, I’m confident he’s going to collapse, and I’ll never be able to get him back into the bed. But somehow, bit by bit, we make it to the bathroom—and then it occurs to me that not only do I need to get his bandages off, but that I’ll have to undress him the rest of the way.
When I first came here, it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have been able to be practical about it. But now, as I try to brace him against the wall so I can undo his slacks, I feel my cheeks starting to heat.
His arms hang at his sides, useless, but I hear his low groan as I undo the fly. I don’t dare look up, afraid that his eyes will be on me, that I’ll lose my nerve. All I can think about is seeing him half-naked before, the heat of him behind me, on me, that night when I touched myself fantasizing about things that I never, ever should have. And now, I’m going to see him entirely naked for the first time in the un-sexiest way possible. Yet, a tingle of anticipation runs through me, anyway.
Carefully, I push down his slacks and his boxers, revealing his naked body to me inch by inch. He’s thinner than I imagine he once was, but he hasn’t lost all of the muscle he clearly had before he descended into depression. His abs are still visible, faint lines running from the base of them into the waist of his slacks, and I resist the sudden, strange urge to touch him there, to run my fingers along them. I feel him twitch under my touch as my hands brush against his thighs, lightly furred with dark hair. I’m terribly conscious of how close his soft cock is to my face, how it twitches ever so slightly as my hands move down his legs.
He groans again as I stand, helping him step out of the puddled clothing and towards the tub. “Why—” he murmurs again. “Why—help—me?”
“I don’t know. Because I can’t let you die if I can help it, and I know that’s the stupidest fucking thing I could have done, and I probably should have.” I keep talking as I turn on the water, hoping that it’s helping to keep him awake. If he passes out in the tub, I don’t know what I’m going to do. “Because I’m an idiot who can’t walk away from someone in need of help, I guess. But if you think I’m going to stay once you’re in the clear, you’re wrong.” I don’t even know if he’ll remember any of this, but I can’t stop myself from saying it anyway, exhaustion and frustration bubbling up together. “I’m going to keep you from dying, and then you’re going to let me go and give me what I need to get back to Georgie. That’s the fucking deal.”
As the tub fills with water that I repeatedly check to be sure it’s lukewarm, I gently unwind his bandages, taking off the gauze pad that’s covering the wound on his shoulder. The deep cuts on his wrists, running down his forearms, look angry and red, trickling blood a little as I peel the bandages away. They don’t look better, and as I look at them more closely, seeing how they gape, I know I should have tried to stitch them. He’s going to have horrible scars.
I don’t even know if there’s anything in the house I could have usedtostitch them, though, or if that would have worked. All I can do is try to be careful of them as I help him into the tub, making sure not to jostle or hit his wounds, so they don’t start to bleed profusely again.
“Cold—” He groans as he starts to slide down into the tub, shuddering, and I wince. I feel like bursting into tears of frustration, but if I let myself start crying, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop. I feel like it will all come out, all the tears I’ve been holding back since my father died, since I started having to work endless hours to keep Georgie and me fed and the lights on and the flat rented, since I went into that bar. I feel like it will all come out of me like a flood, and I’ll never stop. I’ll be nothing but a withered husk on the floor, and then we’ll both be lost.
“It’s not,” I tell him gently. “You’re just burning up with fever. We have to bring it down.”
He tips his head back, shivering and clearly miserable, and my chest aches. I want to help him, not hurt him, but I know hot water would only make things worse.
When I look up a moment later, after getting him arranged carefully in the tub, I see tears rolling down his cheeks, and I gasp softly. I reach up, touching one of them, my fingers brushing over his skin, and I feel him flinch.
“Alexandre—”
“Why?” He turns his head towards me, into my caress. “You—care. You’re—helping me. Why?”