Dangerous Desire

31

He stares at me for a beat. Then he shakes his head, mutters something under his breath, and stalks off across the living room toward the kitchenette. He returns with a glass and kneels beside the sofa, sliding his hand beneath my head to support it.

Annoyed at being treated like a baby, I grouse, “I can do it myself.”

“Oh, sure, go ahead, then.”

He pulls his hand away, and my head drops back to the pillow. I try several times to lift it to a high-enough angle to be able to drink, but for some reason the damn thing weighs five thousand pounds.

“I guess I can’t do it myself,” I admit sheepishly.

“No kidding.”

“But if you leave the glass on that coffee table, I’ll try again in a little bit.”

His exhalation is slow and sounds murder-y. “This Naz of yours must have the patience of a damn saint.”

From whatever bizarre combination of illness and trauma and drugs I may have been administered, hearing Killian say Naz’s name makes me teary.

Watching my expression, Killian asks sharply, “What is it?”

“I miss him so much. God, I feel like death. This safe house is cute. Did you save my life?”

He closes his eyes just longer than a blink, shakes his head, and presses his lips together. I think he’s trying not to laugh. Then he rises and goes into the kitchen. He rummages around in the cupboards, pulls something out of the fridge, then comes back with a baby bottle–shaped plastic container filled with pale yellow liquid, a roll of tape, and something in a bulky green wrapper. When he tears open the package with his teeth, that something turns out to be syringes and a catheter.

I’ve been in the hospital often enough to know this is an IV infusion set.

I watch with interest as Killian unwinds a length of slim tubing from the container with the liquid and readies the catheter. Then he uncaps the part with the needle and takes my hand.

“You have to swab it first.”

When he pauses to look at me with his brows lifted, I nod. “With rubbing alcohol. So bacteria from the skin doesn’t get into the needle.”

With the beleaguered air of someone of great intelligence dealing with a certified i***t, he says, “Extensive studies have shown that disinfecting the skin prior to injection has no measurable benefit.”

I frown at him. “That makes no sense.”

He deadpans, “Neither does your belief in love or God, but here we are.”

He slips the needle into the vein on the back of my hand on the first try, without causing the slightest sting. Then he tapes it to my skin, uncaps the short length of tubing attached to the catheter, and injects one of the syringes into the tube.

“Saline to clear the line of air bubbles?”

“Cyanide to stop your heart. Be quiet.”

He removes the protective cap on the infuser tubing and screws it into the extension tubing on the catheter. Then he opens the clamp on the infuser so the yellow liquid begins to flow.

When I sigh, he says, “What?”

“You didn’t wash your hands first.”

“For the love of God, woman.”

“You know, for someone who doesn’t believe in God, you sure mention him a lot.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll duct-tape your mouth.”

“I’m only saying that you’ve gone to all this trouble to kidnap me and save my life and everything, but you didn’t wash your hands—or disinfect my skin—before you started treatment. I could die from some random secondary bacterial infection.”

He glowers at me. “I should be so lucky.”

When I shudder and gasp, he demands loudly, “What now?”

“It feels like you injected ice water into my veins! You didn’t bring the meds to room temperature!”

He leans down over me, props a hand on the cushion under my head, and says into my face, “You’re going to be room temperature soon if you. Don’t. Shut. Up.”

I purse my lips. “Can I say thank you, though? For saving my life, I mean.”

He groans, rises, and turns away, heading back into the kitchen.

“I know it was only because you haven’t gotten whatever it is you want from Dimitri yet, but still. He’d be none the wiser. You could’ve pulled it off.”

With his back turned, he starts rummaging through cupboards again, muttering to himself the whole time about mouthy women and stupid infections and how he should call Naz again and tell him to hurry up and come get me before he loses his goddamn mind.

“Wait—what did you just say?”

Killian stops and looks at me over his shoulder.

My heart beating madly, I struggle to sit up. “About Naz. You talked to Naz?”

“Oh, now you find the strength to lift your head. I bet if I said his name three times in a row, you’d start levitating.”

“When did you talk to him? What did he say? Does he know I’m okay? How did he sound—is he worried? Is he okay? Oh God, Killian, please start talking before my heart explodes and I drop dead !”

He considers me with a look of mild disgust. “So this is what love does? Turns you into a blathering moron with a flair for melodrama and zero sense of self-preservation? I’d rather keep my dignity, thanks. This love nonsense is pathetic.”

“Killian! Please!”

He leans against the counter and folds his arms over his chest. “Aye. I talked to him.”