LITMIR.BIZ

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rather I call.”

      She closed her eyes in pain, or perhaps annoyance. “No, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay. Thanks for the ride home, but you can leave now. I’ll be fine by myself.”

      Nick settled himself on the wide marshmallow of a love seat opposite her couch and linked his fingers behind his head. “I don’t blame you for wanting some space, but I’d be going back on my word if I left you alone.” He crossed his legs at the ankles. “Either I stay or you go back to Boston General. Got it?”

      She frowned. “I said I’ll be fine, Beef. I don’t need your help.”

      “Nick,” he corrected, ignoring the rest. “You call me Beef tonight and I’ll take you back to the E.R. and tell the doctor that you seized and I think you need every sort of invasive, embarrassing test imaginable.”

      “Fine. Nick. Whatever.” She gave in with ill grace, struggled to her feet and swayed. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

      He held a hand out to steady her. Should’ve known she’d be a difficult patient. She’d never made anything easy for him before, why start now? He’d probably have been better off leaving her in the hospital. But no, as he watched her shiver in the warm, cozy living room, he knew he couldn’t have done that.

      Growing up, he had learned early and well that it was up to him to protect the people around him. And if ever in his life Nick had seen someone in need of protection, she was standing right in front of him, trying to look tough and self-reliant even though the kitten skulking behind the television could probably have knocked her over with one tiny paw.

      Ever the politician’s son, Nick chose his words carefully. He couldn’t very well help her if she kicked him out on his ass. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if you black out and hit your head again? Then it’s back to the hospital and Nurse Mustache for sure.”

      She shuddered and he saw a flash of vulnerability beneath the prickles—a confused, hurt woman looking out through Genius Watson’s bruised eyes—and the image only strengthened his desire to help. “I need a shower, Welling—uh, Nick. My brain may not be telling me what happened today, but my body remembers.” She rubbed her arms and he noticed a series of marks on her shoulder, near her throat. Four bruises the size of a man’s fingers.

      He felt the anger boil low in his gut and hated the fact that an intruder had come into the lab and he hadn’t done a thing to stop it. He should have sheltered the people he worked with. He should have been smarter. Faster. Better.

      Genie shivered again, and Nick gave in to the urge to soothe. He touched her bruised cheek with the back of his hand, was surprised by the quick jolt that ran the length of his arm at the contact, and was even more surprised when the visible outline of a taut, peaked nipple showed through the thin hospital robe, mute testimony that she’d felt it, too.

      Whoa there, he thought, trying to quell the quick thump of his libido. Protect, remember? Protect, not ogle. You don’t even like her. And besides, she’s had a hell of a day. Leave her alone. Figuring that his conscience had a point there, Nick took a deep breath and willed away the surprisingly compelling image of Dr. Genius wearing nothing but a lab coat. “Well…”

      She frowned and the hurt moved to the back of those pretty gray eyes. “Don’t give me grief on this, Wellington. In case you’ve forgotten, someone broke into Thirteen today and…ruined the developer.” Her eyes darted to the shadows near the kitchen and she tapped her temple. “Whoever did it is up here— I saw him. I heard him. And I don’t remember any of it. I need to remember it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower and I’d like a little privacy.”

      She tried to brush past him, but her grand exit was ruined when she wobbled on the first stair. Cursing under his breath, Nick grabbed her elbow just as she was about to lose her balance and half carried her up the stairs.

      GENIE DISCOVERED THAT Wellington’s version of privacy was far different from her own when he helped her into the shower, pulled the see-though butterfly curtain closed and waited for her to pass out the hospital johnny and the zebra underwear.

      Her hands were shaking when she finally pointed the nozzle at the tiled wall while the water heated. She could see him standing by the sink, his broad shoulders and narrow hips made wavy by the plastic curtain, and she wondered what it was that she felt when he came near her. What were those warm vibrations that ran through her at his touch and made her snarl? Concussion, or something else?

      Something impossible that jittered in her stomach and confused her. She, who was never, ever confused.

      It had to be the circumstances, she told herself. She was still shaky, that was all. She’d been attacked—there, she’d said it—in her own lab. She could be excused for being shaky.

      A tear cruised down her cheek and she didn’t bother to brush it away.

      When the water was hot, she turned it toward her chest, careful to keep the stitches dry. She’d wash her hair later, but for now she let the heavy stream of water beat down on her breasts and belly, washing away her attacker’s unremembered touch and easing the soreness of the angry bruises at her hips and breasts.

      As she touched one of the black marks, she asked her brain, What happened? Who attacked me? Why? What had he hoped to gain?

      Genie frowned in concentration and her temples throbbed as her mind bounced up against an implacable barrier.

      It was no use. Frustrated and achy, she muttered a curse and looked through the rising steam. She couldn’t concentrate with Wellington in the room. He was too distracting. Took up too much space. “You can leave now,” she said, her voice echoing in the tiled bathroom. “I’ll call you if I have any trouble in here.”

      She saw his masculine outline, blurred by the moist air and the ridiculous shower curtain, shift from one foot to the other. “Are you sure? You’re not feeling dizzy or anything?”

      What would he do if she were dizzy? Get in the shower and hold her up? Scrub her back? Wash her hair?

      Protected from fear by the web of amnesia, her brain chose that moment to prod her with a mental note. Get a date. Suddenly, Genie could smell acrylamide and musk over the delicate perfume of Parisian soap, and she had a quick, improbable fantasy of Dr. Nicholas Wellington naked in the shower with her, his large, blunt fingertips massaging her scalp and taking the ache away. She imagined his big hands working in maddening circles, moving down her neck, across her shoulders, and down… She started to feel dizzy, but not in the way he’d meant.

      He would press himself against her backside—

      And push hard, grind against her in the bloodred light while the developer clanked and groaned so loud that nobody could hear her muffled screams.

      “What is it? Genie, what’s wrong? Do you feel faint?” She must have made some noise, because suddenly he was in the shower holding her tight while the water blasted them both, quickly plastering the clothing against his hard, sculpted body.

      He pulled the butterflies closed, making the shower into a warm, safe nest lit with bits of reflected color. There were blue butterflies, Genie saw as she stared at them rather than at the man who held her, and green and yellow ones that shone through with bright, warm light.

      Not red and black. And the roar of the water pounding down on them was the shower, not the X-ray developer. But she was still cold. So cold.

      “Genie!” His voice was sharper now, demanding an answer, bringing her back through the red-black mist. “Are you in pain? Do you want to go back to the hospital?”

      “No,” she managed to get out through chattering teeth, grateful for his arms around her, grateful when he turned the water even hotter to ease the chills that gripped her. “No, I remembered a little of what happened. Just a quick flash, that’s all.”

      “That’s enough.” His words were clipped, but his eyes were steady when she looked up into them. His hands were gentle on her body

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