Chapter 5

“Dammit to hell, if you don’t stop poking at me I’m going to break your fingers,”

Kane snapped at Doc Martin as he pulled a long sliver of wood from his shoulder, staunching the bleeding with thick gauze.

The flesh of his shoulder was a mess, raw and oozing blood, as Doc worked to clean the area.

Sherra stopped just inside the well-equipped medical room and stared at the wounds in horror. Smooth, perfect muscle bunched painfully as Doc inserted another injection of anesthetic to deaden the pain before pulling more slivers of wood from the flesh.

Wounds had never particularly affected her. She had been helping Doc for years with Callan’s and often Taber’s injuries. But seeing Kane, his perfect flesh torn and brutalized, made her stomach heave threateningly.

“Sherra, I need more bandages,” Doc snapped as she paused behind him. “I already had to nearly sedate Merinus when she saw this and everyone else is busy.”

Rushing to the sink, Sherra hurriedly scrubbed her hands and arms down, rinsed and dried them before she rushed back to the gurney. Standing in front of Kane, she prepared the gauze, staring down at the utensils and the small metal bowl littered with wood fragments.

“Damned Dr. Jekyll,” Kane muttered with a grimace as the probing began again. He kept his head lowered, his shoulder hunched as though in pain, though she knew the area should be properly numbed by that point.

“It’s pretty bad. He’ll need a few stitches,” Doc murmured. “You were lucky, son. Those flying splinters could have buried in a lung.”

Sherra fought to control the sense of horror at the thought. Her stomach roiled as she swallowed tightly and prepared the sutures the doctor would need.

“You okay?” Kane asked her, his voice tense, his head still lowered.

“Fine,” she said thickly.

She couldn’t believe he was sitting there, that the attack had nearly taken him out. The fact that he was conscious and relatively unharmed amazed her.

“The others?” Her eyes rose to the doctor.

Doc Martin grunted in irritation as he worked another splinter free. “Minor. Limb clipped one of them. The other was thrown into a building. This one had the worse damage. If he would stay still I might manage to get the damned splinters out before next week.”

Kane had shifted again, turning slightly farther away from Sherra. She frowned at his bent head. Was he hurt worse than he was letting on? He was acting so out of character that she moved until she was facing him, then bent down to inspect his bare chest for any wounds.

She froze in horror as his head finally raised and a sigh of resignation slipped past his lips. The scarring was horrendous. Long jagged lines of flesh extended from one side of his dark chest to the other. One sliced through a small male nipple, others crisscrossed his chest like a crazy map of violence. He hadn’t had those scars at the labs. And she knew scars; these were old.

Dayan said he attacked Kane that night. That he should have been dead. Now I know why he was hurt so badly all those months that he was in the hospital, Sherra. They wouldn’t let me see him then. But the wounds were terrible. Sherra remembered Merinus recounting the evil that had spewed from Dayan as he attempted to kill her and Callan’s newly conceived child.

Kane’s gaze was hard as he watched her. “Are you going to pass out too?” he asked her warily. “Merinus has already had her go at it. I don’t think my shoulder can take another swooning female right now.”

His expression was savage, his eyes glittering with pain and rage.

“Sherra, I need that gauze,” Doc snapped. “Stop ogling that chest and hand it to me.”

She jerked upright, aware of Kane slowly straightening as much as Doc would allow. She handed him the gauze, her mind a morass of confusion. She had never expected to see such scarring on the man she had come to think of as invincible over the past months. Her own anger and tangled emotions aside, she knew she had never imagined a time that she could conceive anyone actually wounding Kane enough to immobilize him. She hadn’t completely believed Merinus until now. She stood there, disbelief filling her as she helped Doc automatically. Handing him what he needed when it was needed, fighting the guilt and rage that filled her each time his muscles bunched. He didn’t whimper or flinch; he endured the pain as though it were no more than an irritation.

“You didn’t need too many stitches, but this wound is a mess,” Doc said as he applied the last stitch. “You need to allow it to rest for a while, though. I’ll change the bandages daily, give you a shot for the pain tonight and keep an eye on it. If it gets infected we’ll be in for a battle. We don’t want that to happen.”

Kane only grunted.

Sherra stood silently as Doc gave him an injection for the pain, then bandaged the shoulder.

“Can you get him to his room?” he asked Sherra. “Everyone else is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They’ll let him get back in the fray rather than putting him to bed where he should be when this shot takes effect.”

“I’ll take care of it.” She nodded firmly, meeting Kane’s smirk as his head raised. Damn him, even wounded he had to be a mocking ass.

“He’ll be pretty dazed until he goes to sleep. Stay with him.” Her gaze flew back to the doctor as she began to prepare her excuses.

Was he insane? Stay with Kane? He was well aware of the effect that just being on the same property with him caused. He knew damned good and well what the same room would do.

“Don’t you give me that look, girl,” Doc snapped. “Someone has to stay with him and you’re the only one here. Now get him out of here.”

“Come on, kitten.” Kane’s voice was tired as he pushed himself to his feet, his other hand gripping the wounded arm. “Come tuck me in all nice and quiet and I’ll get you go peacefully.”

“Stay with him,” Doc snapped again as Kane finished speaking. “No argument.”

The world was just out to get her, Sherra decided as she pushed herself against Kane’s side, looping her arm around his bare back.

“I want a damned bath,” he informed her stiffly as they moved from the room. “I’m not touching my clean bed like this.”

She sighed. Yes, the world was out to get her. She prayed someone, anyone, would be available to help him other than her. She moved him to the elevator and hit the button for the main floor where Kane had taken a room. Thankfully, it would open up not far from his door.

“Did you get the bastard?” he asked her as they entered the elevator.

“Yeah. I growled at him and showed some teeth. He passed out cold as hell. I wish they’d at least send someone with backbone. These pansies faint if you smile at them the wrong way.”

Kane grunted. He was leaning heavily against her as the doors opened, though, an indication that the painkiller was beginning to affect him.

“Let’s get you to bed.” She led him from the box and toward his room.

“Bath first,” he reminded her as he breathed in deeply. “I swear to God, this day has been hell.”

It was a new day, but she wasn’t about to point that out to him. It was after two in the morning and dawn wasn’t far away. She knew he was up before five every morning and usually still awake at midnight. He worked as hard, if not harder, than any of her family.

“Fine. Bath.” What could it hurt? She would put him in the tub, wash his back for him and make sure she was there when he was ready to get out. No big deal. She knew Doc’s drugs. They would make him a little dazed, kind of woozy, but he could stand up on his own.

She didn’t anticipate what was to come.

He couldn’t unbutton the snug jeans. His arm was useless. Swallowing tightly, she unbuttoned them with trembling fingers, more than aware of the thick bulge beneath them. Keeping her eyes carefully averted, she eased them and his snug briefs down his powerful legs before he sat on the small chair beside the tub and let her unlace his boots.

Finally, gloriously naked and heavily aroused, he was able to step into the wide tub and lean back against it wearily. His head rested on the back, his eyes closing.

“You can’t go to sleep, Kane.” She was shaking as she watched the head of his cock bob along the tanned flesh of his abdomen. Only Kane would have a hard-on while he was half dead. It was just her luck.

“I’m awake,” he muttered. “Just give me a minute.”

He lifted his good arm, his fingers scratching lazily at his scarred chest. She followed the action, her eyes held captive by the thin scars, her heart aching at the pain they must have caused.

“He caught me outside the lab grounds,” Kane said softly, causing her head to raise, her gaze to meet his.

His eyes were dilated and drowsy now.

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to feel.

“Bastard thought he could bury me and just walk away,” he said softly, though his voice throbbed with anger and pain. “I managed to dig myself out and crawl through the brush. Some hikers finally found me. Half dead, fevered. They got me to a hospital, but I was pretty out of it by then. It was weeks before they were able to find out who I was. Months before I was coherent. By the time I was able to get help to you…” he swallowed tightly, “the labs were gone. They said everyone had died. Nothing was left.”

He closed his eyes again.

She thought he had just walked away. She covered her face with her hands. Even after Callan and Merinus had told her what Dayan said, she still hadn’t believed it. Not completely. Not clear to her heart. She didn’t until now.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

He shook his head slowly. “Fuck it. Help me wash this grime from my body, Sherra, so I can at least sleep a while. I’ll figure the rest of it out tomorrow.”

Sherra felt her heart slam into her chest. Her pussy was screaming out in victory. Her hands were almost vibrating in pleasure at the thought of stroking his flesh, even with the barrier of a washrag against it. Slowly, she knelt beside the tub and lifted the clean cloth from the small basket hanging on the edge. Dipping it into the water she lifted the bar of soap.

“Hair,” he mumbled, sitting up slowly and lowering his head. “Just use the soap. I do.”

She washed his hair carefully, then after laying a towel over the bandage, rinsed the short strands with a dripping cloth. Removing it, she began to wash him quickly, desperate to get it over with and get him into the bed and hopefully sleeping. There was temptation and then there was desperation. She was passing desperation fast. Her face flamed as he took the cloth from her and washed his hard, engorged cock and the sac beneath. His face twisted into a grimace of pleasure, the hard flesh jerking rapturously beneath his strokes.

“Enough.” Her voice was strangled as she took the cloth from him and wrung the water out of it. She held out a towel. “You’re squeaky clean and I’m tired of playing nursemaid.”

A slumberous, sensual smile crossed his lips as he watched her through lowered lids.

“And you do it so well,” he whispered, but forced himself to stand up. Water sluiced over his tanned flesh as he rose before her, staring down at her, daring her as his engorged cock filled her vision. It was wet, water running in streams along the mushroom-shaped head and heavily veined shaft. Sherra licked her lips, remembering much too well how good he tasted, how his groans of pleasure stroked her senses as her mouth had enveloped him. She swallowed tightly and quickly pulled the plug on the drain before rising to help him from the tub and towel him dry.

She thought she was strong enough to do it. She thought she could control the hunger and the need long enough to get him dry and in bed. But when she was once again faced with the thick length of his erection, she could only whimper in defeat. His hands tangled in her hair as she knelt before him. He held her still, though there was no reason to. Her lips parted as the velvety head of his cock nudged against them, opened and allowed him to take her mouth with one smooth, shallow stroke.

“God. Sherra.” His voice sent shivers cascading over her flesh as the thick, throbbing flesh filled her, stroking her swollen tongue as he moved his hips, caressing it as he thrust in and out of her lips with a strangled groan. She whimpered, closing her eyes as her hands gripped his thighs and she began to suck at the engorged shaft. Just like he taught her a lifetime ago, her mouth closed on him, tongue stroking him, milking the sensitive head slowly. His hands tightened in her hair, his body tensing as a ragged groan filled her ears and she felt his warm pre-come dripping to her tongue. It was salty, rich, making her realize how desperate she had been for his taste. She wanted it all, wanted to feel the hard hot spurts of his semen filling her mouth, coating her tormented tongue as he found his release in her.

“Sherra, baby.” His voice was hoarse as he fucked her lips slow and easy. “Baby, this is so fucking good I could die, but I’m going to fall to the floor any minute.”

To prove his words he nearly stumbled, a rough, tortured chuckle filling the air as she slowly released him. Looking up at him slowly, her breath caught at the stark male hunger in his gaze.

“Son of a bitch, I finally get my cock in that sweet mouth again and I can’t even stand up long enough to enjoy it.”

Sherra was shaking as she jerked back roughly, clamping her lips firmly shut as she stared at the moist length of male flesh. Dear God, what was she doing? She had lost her mind completely.

“Well hell,” he said roughly as he braced himself against the wall to stand upright.

“Guess I can forget the release, huh? Can I at least get some help into bed?”

She shook her head slowly. He was watching her with heated intensity and a sexual hunger that made her body flame in awareness. This was madness, she told herself fiercely. She knew better than to think that this could ease her hunger for him. It would do no more than make it worse.

“Damn.” She came to her feet, easing her arm around him and leading him from the bathroom to his bed.

“Yeah, curse for both of us,” he growled as she jerked the blankets back on the bed and he sat down slowly. “Son of a bitch, no way I’m sleeping on my stomach with this hard-on, Sherra.”

“You had it before I touched you.” She frowned as he watched her with mild accusation.

“For you,” he growled. “It’s been hard since the night you stepped out of the shadows in Sandy Hook. Dammit, I can’t even jack off enough.”

She almost lost her balance at the roughly voiced protest. Then she did lose it as he lay down before pulling her to the bed beside him. Leaning over him, she stared down at him, alarm streaking through her system. Too close. He was too close now for her to maintain any sense of control.

“You need to go to sleep.” Please go to sleep, she thought, oh God make him go to sleep.

But she couldn’t resist touching the light stubble of beard along his cheek, her fingers glancing over it, the sensitive tips tingling in pleasure at the rough feel. He watched her, relaxed for a change. She had never seen him so laid back, smiling at her easily, his eyes dark, filled with heat.

“You need to fuck me.” He grinned suggestively, his dilated eyes nearly black now as he watched her. “Come on, just once. I promise I won’t fall asleep on you,” he wheedled in a dark velvet voice that sent electric flares of sensation tearing through her body.

How was she supposed to fight this new, suddenly gentle Kane?