A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (4 page)

“I will,” she said. “I won’t push.”

He slowly opened his eyes, for the agony in
his head was excruciating. Nausea pushed at the back of his throat. Hand
trembling, he brought it to his face, perplexed by the slight pinch in his
forearm. He became aware of the IV bottle hanging beside him and that puzzled
him even more. Since when did they feel the need to help him stay alive? He
wondered. Yet the IV tube ran from the bottle to his arm, carrying with it a
clear white liquid that fed into his body.

Fingers to the wicked throbbing over his
left eye, he was further bewildered by the smoothness along his brow. Gingerly,
he ran his fingertips across his forehead.

He frowned.

He ran his fingers down his nose, his lips
and his chin.

The skin felt smooth—though whiskers
scraped at the pads of his fingertips as he moved them onto his neck.

He flexed his feet and there was no tight
pull on the muscles.

He moved his right hand to his cheek, laid
his palm there and encountered no puckered flesh.

Tensing, he slid his fingertips down the
side of his neck and onto his chest. For a moment he was stymied as he felt
soft cotton fabric, the coolness of metal snaps beneath his palm. It had been
years since they’d allowed him clothing. Lowering his left hand also to his
chest, he slowly pulled apart the placket of the shirt, the snaps easily giving
way as he opened the shirt all the way to his waist. Tentatively he ran his
palms over his chest and sides but felt no telltale ridges. Barely daring to
breathe, he pushed his right hand beneath the elastic waist of what he realized
were hospital pajamas. The moment he touched his cock, he sucked in a hissing
breath.

Intact.

Smooth.

The words flooded his mind but turned cold
as ice water when he encountered the plastic tube inserted into his shaft.

With a growl of fury he snatched his hand
from his cock and reached over to yank the IV from his arm. Throwing back the
covers, he swung his legs from the bed, felt the pull of the catheter in his
cock and growled again. A distant part of his mind warned him not to jerk that
catheter out as he had the one in his arm. Instead, he pulled the tubing that
led to the collection bag from the port on the catheter. A trickle of urine
spread on the front of his pajamas then ran down his thigh when his feet
touched the floor.

For a second, his head swam and he wavered.
More urine ran down his thigh from the dangling catheter to plaster the cotton
to his flesh and that pissed him off. He tried to ignore it as he made his way
into the bathroom. Keeping his head down, he stumbled to the sink, trembling so
violently his teeth were chattering. He barely noticed the pale-blue hospital
pajamas, his bare feet that looked smooth beneath the hem of the pant leg. The
backs of his hands were likewise smooth, unblemished save for the few scars
that had been there since his childhood. He kept his eyes on the stainless-steel
sink as he braced his hands on its cold rim.

Drawing in ragged breaths, keeping his
teeth clenched to restrain the clicking, he slowly raised his head inch by inch
until he could see the lower edge of the mirror hanging above the sink. In the
mirror, he was stunned to see a thick mop of black hair instead of the light
brown that should have been there.

A full minute passed before he could raise
his head any higher. The sight of his forehead—natural, light creases running
horizontally across the otherwise smoothness—stopped his breath. Terrified of
what he might see, he raised his head all the way and his eyes widened as he
saw pale-golden irises instead of the green that had once stared back at him
from a mirror.

But it was his face that shocked him the
most.

Gone was the red expanse of uneven,
acid-blotched flesh.

Gone were the deep ridges of scars that had
been carved down his cheeks with a scalpel.

Gone was the hideous creature who had
stared back at him for so long he had forgotten what his real face had looked
like.

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement
and jerked his head around. The motion brought nausea galloping back to his
throat, caused him to grab tightly to the sink rim to keep from falling as
dizziness struck.

“I think you need to be in the bed,” she
said softly and held out her hand.

His voice was rusty, husky, little more
than a whisper. “The front of my pants is wet.”

It was a stupid thing to say but it brought
a smile to her lips. She came a step closer, her hand still stretched toward
him.

“My pants are wet,” he repeated, suddenly
ashamed of that situation.

“I’ll call the nurse to come in to take out
the catheter,” she said. “Thank God you didn’t pull it out yourself.”

He looked down at the dangling tubing with
the bifurcation of ports sticking out from the fly of his pajamas and shrugged.
“Balloon,” he said, the word so quiet she barely heard it.

“Yes,” she agreed and came another step
closer.

“No,
chere
,” he said, shaking his
head. He was still clinging desperately to the sink. “Reek.”

She stopped, obviously realizing he didn’t
want her to come into contact with him as he was. She nodded, lowering her arm.
“I’ll get the nurse.”

He didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
She must have realized that for she raised her voice—remaining where she
was—and shouted,
“Nurse!”

The sound of rubber soles slapping against
the floor made his heart stutter with fear for a moment but she was still
smiling calmly at him.

“Is this a dream?” he whispered.

“No dream, baby,” she said. “I’m here.
You’re safe.”

“Safe,” he repeated.

Another woman and two men suddenly appeared
in his line of vision and he gasped and stumbled back.

White uniforms.

Set faces.

His face paled, his eyes widened. He made a
strangled sound as he stumbled back and his back hit the wall. He brought his
arms up, crossed them over his face and slid to the floor, drawing his knees up
protectively as he lowered his head.

“Let me.”

It was her voice, speaking softly but
firmly. The smell of her perfume—almost forgotten—hit him like a brick as he
felt her hunker down in front of him. It was her gentle hands closing around
his wrists to bring his arms down to his bent knees.

“Taylor, you are on the Island,” she said.
“You are safe now. We have you, baby. We have you.”

Slowly he raised his head. She was just
beyond the crook of his knees. Her pretty hazel eyes met his and although she
was no longer smiling, her face was filled with encouragement.

“We have you,” she told him again and her
hands tightened slightly on his crossed wrists.

“No dream?” he asked, his lips trembling.

“No dream.”

He looked past her to the three people
crowded beyond the doorway. They were looking back at him but their eyes
weren’t hard and cold. They were filled with concern. Their faces weren’t rigid
with anger or schooled into dark purpose. They were creased with sympathy.

“Laci,” he said on a long, hitching sigh.

“Yes, baby.”

“Help me,” he asked.

She got gracefully to her feet and held her
hand out to him again. This time he took it—feeling the fragile bones in that
soft little hand, the warmth of it nestled within his own.

“Agent Reynaud, I need to remove your
catheter or you’ll start having bladder spasms,” the nurse said. “Will you let
the orderly help you up?”

His gaze snapped to the beautiful woman who
was his lifeline. At her smile, he looked past her to the smaller of the two
men looking in on him. He nodded.

Slowly the orderly came into the bathroom
and leaned over to grip him beneath his armpit. With infinite care, the man
hoisted him to his feet in front of Laci.

“I want to hug you,” he said.

“You can,” she replied.

“Not clean,” he said.

“We’ll get you cleaned up,” the orderly
said. He took a step forward as Laci moved back.

“
Don’t leave
!” he begged.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” she said.
She backed out of the room so he could track her movement, the nurse and other
orderly moving out of her way. She kept her distance as the orderly helped him
from the bathroom and to the bed.

“Don’t berate him for pulling out the
catheter,” he heard Laci order.

“I wasn’t going to,” the nurse said.

“I’ll get a basin,” the other orderly said.

As he reached the bed and sat down
gingerly, the orderly released his arm and bent over to hook an arm under his
legs to bring them onto the mattress.

“Pajamas are so much less emasculating to
our male patients than the gowns our female patients wear,” the nurse said in a
soft, unhurried voice. “And they are so much more comfortable.”

He was shivering as she drew a pair of
sterile gloves from a box attached to the wall. The gloves disturbed him
although the demons who had tortured him over the years never bothered to don
the latex protection. He flinched as she snapped the first covering on her
hand.

“I prefer pajamas,” Laci said as she came
to stand at the foot of the bed. She laid her hand on his bare foot. “Don’t I,
baby?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “T-shirt and pjs.”

“Give me a good old flannel gown any day,”
the nurse said with a laugh. “Summer or winter. I just like the feel of it.”
She moved to the side of the bed and the orderly faded into the background as
she kept up a steady narrative about her favorite flannel gown and fuzzy
flip-flops.

As she efficiently went about deflating the
catheter’s balloon and withdrawing the tube from his cock, Laci kept her eyes
on his. She rubbed the top of his foot in a way he knew was meant to distract
him but it was her beautiful eyes that kept him calm.

“I saw Agent Fallon on my way in,” the
returning orderly said as he walked over to the rolling bedside table to place
the washbasin atop it. “He said to tell you when you get a chance, he’d like to
come see you.”

“Misha Fallon was the first patient I ever
had here on the Island,” the nurse said. “Gave me a run for my money that one
did. I was on leave when… Well, you know.”

“I heard he can be hell on wheels,” Laci
observed.

“Sweetie, you don’t know the half of it!”
the nurse said with a snort.

He was aware the soiled pajamas were being
worked down his hips and he had enough presence of mind to lift his hips so
they could be guided down his legs. He had long since lost any shame at having
his body stared at and touched. The pain he had become accustomed to wasn’t
being visited upon him and he knew it wouldn’t as long as Laci stood at the
foot of his bed.

“Sit yourself up, handsome,” the nurse said
as she took hold of his forearm.

Obediently he levered himself to a sitting
position and barely winced as she removed his pajama shirt. Her hand to the
center of his chest, she let him know he should recline again and he did so
without too much thought of how defenseless he was naked and at a stranger’s
mercy.

“Would you do the honors, Agent Albright?”
the nurse asked, indicating the basin.

“No,” he said a bit too loudly, too
quickly. He blushed then tore his gaze from Laci for a moment. “I have no
problem with the orderly doing it.”

“I’ll do it,” the nurse said and he knew
the woman figured it would be less traumatic than having a male touch him. She
gave the men a quick glance and both quietly left the room.

As she bathed him he kept his attention
riveted to Laci. She continued to rub the top of his foot until the nurse slid
the warm washcloth down that leg. For the space of a moment or two as his foot
was bathed, Laci just stood there and as soon as the washcloth left his flesh,
her hand was back on his foot.

“Agent Albright, there are fresh jammies in
the closet,” the nurse said. “Would you mind fetching us a pair?”

“Sure,” Laci said. She patted his foot then
walked over to the closet. He followed her every move and when she came back to
hand the pajamas to the nurse, she moved to the foot of the bed again.

“My hands are wet,” the nurse. “Would you
help him get dressed?”

One quick flick of his eyes to the nurse’s
gloved hands and he knew she’d lied. Her hands weren’t wet.

“Not a problem,” Laci said in the same soft,
conversational voice she had been using since coming into his room. The soft
accent of her native Florida played on his senses like silk over flesh. She
laid the pj top on the bed and shook out the bottoms, bunched them to the
crotch then put one leg against the bottom of his foot. “Here we go, Tater.”

Her nickname for him finally caused him to
smile and he lifted his foot so he could put it through the leg of the pj. She
did the same to the other leg then tugged the garment up to his knees.

“Can you get it the rest of the way or are
you gonna be lazy about it?” she asked.

“I can do it,
chere
,” he said and
reached down to tug the garment over his naked hips, arching his back to settle
them in place. He turned his head to watch her as she came to the side of the
bed with the pj top.

“Up you go,” she said, holding the shirt
out to him.

He sat up again and threaded his arm
through the sleeve. Laci leaned a little behind him to drape the back of the
shirt over his shoulder then held it until he had his other arm inside the
sleeve. He pulled the two sides over his chest—happier than he had been in
years not to see the ragged, wretched scars that once covered him—then started
at the bottom to snap the shirt closed.

“Remember that time in Vegas when you
bought me those god awful scarlet-red shorty pjs?” she asked, sitting down
beside him. “God, I hated those tacky things.”

“But you wore them anyway,” he said softly
as the last snap clicked shut.