Agony ripped across his entire torso and covered his body, stealing his strength and his energy until it was all he could do to stay conscious. Every single shudder brought a fresh wave of torture. Every breath a burning pain. And yet he could still feel Caroline’s soft fingers clutching his and her comforting presence at his side. She eased a hand up to his forehead, soothing the tension from his brow.

He could feel the sorrow and sympathy pouring out of her, battering his stalwart defenses into the ground, and for the first time in his memory, it left him vulnerable to a cascade of uncontrollable emotions. Emotions he wasn’t even sure he’d felt as a child. Warmth was fighting the agony in his chest for space. And then there was something more, something that went beyond a simple protective instinct, something that compelled him even now, at his weakest and lowest point, to want to take her into his arms and comfort her the same way she was trying to comfort him.

She made him feel like he had an actual heart beating in his chest. For the first time since Project Mayhem, she made him feel human.

“Caroline, got to move.” The words were nearly impossible to hear, and they sounded slurred in his own ears.

He’d been injured since his training and his enhancement, but never this badly. He was still on the verge of death, and no matter how quickly he could heal from this injury, his body needed to rest enough to recover.

“Hush now, we have to wait for the nurse to bring back the antibiotics. Plus, if you passed out as soon as you stood up, what good would it do either of us?” There was a hint of sarcasm in the words that was completely softened by the featherlight caress of her hands on his cheeks.

“What if she alerts the guards?” This whole thing could be some elaborate hoax to trap them in the hospital, get him too weak to move or defend them.

“So you’re telling me that this nurse who just risked her life for both of us, removed your bullet and stitched your wound, is now going to alert the guards after she just spent so much time trying to save your life?”

“You don’t have to be so grouchy about it,” he said.

“And you don’t have to be so stubborn. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever seen, but you have to rest if you’re going to get us out of this country. You and I both know I can’t make it alone. Agreed?”

She was right. He did need to rest. But he sure as hell didn’t want to trust a stranger in this hornet’s nest with either of their lives. He had to do it, comfortable or not, so he decided not to focus on it. Much better to focus on what he really wanted at this moment. To see Caroline. To touch her. “Uncover your face.”

She unwound the scarf from her face, revealing lips even lusher than he remembered. Her features were dainty yet strong, from her chin to her curvy nose and bold blue eyes. He couldn’t imagine a woman more perfect.

“I want to kiss you.”

A shadow flashed across her face, so brief he was almost certain he’d imagined it. Then her blonde brows eased and that look of loving kindness was back on her face. “You’re feverish. You don’t mean that.”

Using every ounce of energy he had left, he wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her down to him, until their breaths mingled together as one. “I might be feverish, but it’s not enough to keep me from wanting you.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying . . ..”

“Caroline, if you don’t kiss me right now, I might as well die right here on this table.”

She closed her eyes and lowered her head those precious few inches left between them, leaving him to wonder if she’d reject him.

He brushed his lips over her ears and her feather-light caress left him aching for more. He tightened his hand, pulling her to him so that his lips parted hers and his tongue penetrated her mouth. He needed to possess her, to explore every inch of her velvety sweetness. He delved deep, Caroline accommodating his need as she arched her back and tilted her head so that her mouth slanted across his. In that moment, something inside him melded with her and he felt as though they were one unit, existing in perfect synchronicity together. He didn’t feel any pain or fatigue; he only felt her.

And then the door burst open and he shoved her to the ground, reaching for the gun she’d propped against the bed and lifted it. He ignored the fresh wave of blood from his shoulder stitches, intent only on eliminating the threat to Caroline.

The nurse’s expression froze on a look of mingled shock and fear. It took him a full second to get his breathing under control, and then another second to lower the gun.

Caroline lifted herself from the floor and he fell back onto the exam table exhausted. Staring at the ceiling as he grappled with the dawning realization that the awareness he’d felt for Caroline back at the bunker had not been about the adrenaline rush of their escape. He truly wanted her as he had no other woman.

And that was a level of vulnerability he wasn’t sure he could handle.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were a guard.” He turned to Caroline, reaching for her even though he knew he shouldn’t. And as sick and twisted as he was, he accepted her comfort, savoring every single millimeter where his skin met hers even though they were only holding hands.

The nurse recovered her senses and quickly shut the door behind her, her stern look from before back in place. She set down a satchel of some sort. “Idiot man, I’m going to have to re-stitch your entire wound.”

He would have shrugged if it didn’t hurt so damn bad. “Automatic reaction. Too many people have tried to kill us today.”

Caroline trembled and he soothed his thumb over that little delicate L-shape between her thumb and first finger.

The nurse chuckled and began taking off his bandage. “And for once they failed. I’m only sorry there aren’t more men like you around.”

“Men willing to fight?”

She shook her head no. “Men who know how to.”