“You’ve seen me without clothes often enough that I’m pretty certain you know every tiny laceration and bruise on my body by now.”
He caught the slight edge of embarrassment in her voice. “Sit up and let me get your clothes off. They can’t be comfortable. And trust me, baby, I’m always happy to remove your clothes. Right now, I’m taking care of you, but later, I’m not going to be so impersonal. It’s getting more difficult.”
She lifted her arms for him to remove the blouse. He looked because he’d be a fool not to. He wasn’t a saint, and she had beautiful breasts. The stripes across them were definitely healing. He indicated for her to lie back so he could strip the skirt away as well. Her body was gorgeous. Those long legs, the curve of her hips, that tucked-in waist, the little curls almost as red as her hair in the sunshine. His body reacted, which was bullshit when he was a doctor and trying to be professional. He shouldn’t be noticing all those details, but he couldn’t help it. He already thought of her as his.
“You’re definitely healing. I don’t like that a couple of these lacerations are being stubborn. By now, they should be completely closed, but you’ve got a few that aren’t, the ones that were infected. I should have stitched them. They were deeper than I first thought.” He ran his finger along the line just below the red slashes under her breasts. “You’d been through so much already, but I should have just done it.”
“I think you’re being hard on yourself. They’ll heal.”
“Might scar, Zara.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. It isn’t like I expected to get out of there alive. A couple of scars won’t hurt.”
He carefully applied antibiotic ointment to each long slash over the front of her body. He cursed Zhu under his breath with each application, not understanding how a man could do this to a woman. She tensed under his hands a few times.
“Am I hurting you?”
“It’s all right. Just stings in a couple of places. I told you I couldn’t take pain.”
She kept her eyes on his face and he felt that impact. He found himself smiling. “What?” Because she was thinking something important. Color crept up her body. He actually felt the wave of heat. That made him more curious than ever. “Talk to me, baby. I want to know what’s going on in your mind.”
Her fingers crept toward the sheet as if she might draw it up. Clearly she was feeling vulnerable. “Turn over. I want to take a look at the bruising on your back.” If she was lying face away from him, it might be easier for her to tell him.
She obeyed him, easing her body over onto her stomach, lying gingerly, making certain to take care as she put her weight on the sheets. That was another reason he was certain she was right for him. She wanted to please him. She did what he asked, even if she was afraid, or in this case, if it hurt. She trusted his judgment. He knew part of that was because she’d had to trust him fast in extreme circumstances, but it was additionally because he came through for her every time. It was also instinctual.
“Now tell me.” His fingers skimmed the fierce bruising caused by the caning. Those bruises were in various shades of blue, black and yellow. Most of the damage was done internally, the inside muscles bruised.
“I wanted you to kiss me.”
She whispered her confession, and he went still. Her head was turned toward him, one cheek against the sheet, one eye hidden. The other looked up at him through the long fan of lashes. She looked shy. Embarrassed. But she’d had the courage to tell him the truth.
He smiled at her. That smile began somewhere deep inside him because that was where she was getting to him. He started out thinking she was right for him, not that he’d fall for her, but that bravery of hers, when she thought herself a coward, was too much for a man like him to resist. Her brand of courage wasn’t the kind everyone could see, but it was there, quiet and just as unswerving as his was. The fact that she would trust him with the truth when it was embarrassing to her, shattered him.
“Trust is a gift, Zara, and I won’t forget that you give it to me every day we’re together. I won’t ever abuse it.” That was one thing he could say with absolute certainty. He wanted a woman to accept him and the things he did, but that might mean she couldn’t know what he was doing or where he was going when he went on a mission. He would be up front about that. Zara would be the kind of woman who would understand. “Thank you for giving me your trust and for telling me what you were thinking. Kissing you is hard to stop once I start, but you want kisses from me anytime, princess, you get them. I’ll expect the same from you.”
Her lips turned up in a faint smile that had the strange effect on him of robbing every bit of air from his lungs. He turned his attention to examining the bruising on her body, but that wasn’t any easier. She had a body that just spoke to his.
“You have a gorgeous ass, did you know that?” He rubbed gently over her buttocks, where those long dark lines were.
“No, not really. No one’s ever really looked at my … um … bum.”
“Ass, baby. Perfect, beautiful ass.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
He trailed his palm over the stripes on her upper thighs. Zhu had hit her precisely, laying the cane on almost every square inch of her back, buttocks and legs, doubling up every other stroke. The same was true of the whip. Zhu definitely knew anatomy. Under any other circumstance, Gino might admire his handiwork. Zhu’s skills were the kind a man like Ciro Spagnola needed, which was why Gino had them.
“Tell me what you like, Zara. Your favorite things to do.” He tugged on her arm to indicate she could roll over again. He had to put a T-shirt on her before he examined her feet.
“I like being outdoors,” she admitted, slowly sitting up as he went to his drawer to retrieve a clean shirt. “We had a big barracks, but there were always guards. Every minute of our time was directed by Whitney’s schedule until late evening. When I was allowed to go to school, even though he had men watching me, I would go outside at night and just look at the stars. I wanted to see mountains and rivers, forests, waterfalls. Everything. I haven’t experienced those things yet. As an adult, he still had guards on me and the rules were even stricter than when I was in school.”
He pulled the shirt over her head, noting she had more arm movement than before. The enhancements Whitney had given her aided her body in healing fast. “How long did he give you before those capsules break open? Was there always a set limit he told you about ahead of time?”
She nodded. He went to the end of the bed, sat and picked up her ankles to examine her feet. Zhu had definitely done the most damage there, either deliberately hurting the tendons or uncaring that he did so. Gino was certain the damage he’d inflicted was deliberate.
“Depending on the job he’d given me and where it was, he would change the time. In this case he gave me four weeks. We discussed the possibility of a lockdown because Bellisia had gotten caught in one. I had given talks to three businesses before Shanghai, in three different cities in China. We should have about a week and a half before those capsules break open.”
“Have you ever had one break open early?”
She shook her head. “It did, supposedly, happen to one of the other girls. She was doing something for him and didn’t make it back. They brought her body home, and she’d died of the virus. He said the capsule broke open early, but Bellisia didn’t think so.”
“What did Bellisia think happened?”
“They wouldn’t let us see her. We tried to sneak into the morgue, but Whitney had posted guards. Bellisia said if it was the virus, we would have been able to see her. Whitney had her cremated so we never knew for certain.”