Mason retrieves a first aid kit—military grade, not the basic drugstore variety. He kneels beside my chair. Pine soap, leather, and something uniquely masculine fill my nostrils, making my pulse quicken and my thighs clench involuntarily. His movements are careful and clinical as he examines the cut on my temple, but his breathing changes, and his hands aren’t as steady as they were moments ago.
“Look at me,” he says softly, and I obey without thinking. The command in his voice is gentle but absolute, and my body responds before my mind can protest.
“Concussion?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light, trying to ignore how his proximity affects me, how something low and needy is stirring to life.
“Mild, maybe. Your pupils are responding normally.”
His fingers probe gently around the wound, and I have to bite my lip to keep from making a sound. When our eyes meet, there’s something there—a flicker of dark awareness that has nothing to do with medical assessment andeverything to do with the way I’m looking at him like I want to be devoured.
“This needs cleaning, but it’s not deep enough for stitches.”
The antiseptic stings, but his touch is so gentle I barely notice. My gaze travels over his face—the strong jaw, the way his dark lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, the tiny scar near his left temple. My body betrays me, responding to his nearness with a heat I thought was dead forever.
When his fingers trace the bruises on my throat, his jaw tightens, and something dangerous flickers in his eyes. His touch becomes impossibly tender, but there’s a possessive quality to it too, as if he’s claiming what someone else has damaged.
“Your husband did this?” The question comes out deadly quiet, but there’s something in his voice that makes arousal pool between my thighs despite everything.
“Steffan. Yes.” I meet his eyes, see the flash of something protective and possessive that should frighten me, but doesn’t. Instead, it makes me wet. “Among other things.”
Something dark and predatory flickers in his gaze—not just anger, but decision. Like he’s already decided I’m his to protect, his to heal, his to…
The thought sends heat racing through me.
“Show me,” he says quietly.
The command is soft but implacable, and I find myself obeying before I can think about it. My hands move to the buttons of the jacket before the decision fully forms. His eyes track every movement, dark and hungry.
When I reveal the bruises on my ribs, the marks on my arms, he makes a sound low in his throat that sends liquid heat straight to my core.
“These ribs—lift your arms above your head.” It’s phrased as an instruction, not a request, and my body responds to his authority even as my mind reels.
I try, wince, and shake my head. His hands hover near my ribcage, not quite touching, but the heat radiating from his palms makes me shiver with want.
“Bruised, not broken. You were lucky.” He sits back on his heels but doesn’t move away. His gaze travels over my exposed skin with clinical assessment that somehow feels more intimate than any touch. “When’s the last time you had a proper meal? A shower? Real sleep?”
The questions are so practical, so concerned with basic human needs, but it’s the way he’s looking at me—like I’m something precious that needs tending—that undoes me completely.
Like, I’m his responsibility now.
His to care for.
“I… It’s been a while.”
Mason studies my face, seeing too much. His thumb brushes away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen, the touch so gentle yet possessive it makes my breath catch and my nipples tighten against the fabric.
“Shower first. Then food. Then we’ll talk about what comes next.”
The way he decides for me, takes control so effortlessly, should make me panic. Steffan’s control was suffocating—every decision stripped away to isolate me, to diminish me, to make me smaller until I disappeared entirely. His dominance was about ownership of my fear, feeding on my helplessness like a parasite.
But this… Mason is different.
Mason’s control doesn’t take from me.
It gives.
Where Steffan demanded submission through terror, Mason earns it through protection.
Where Steffan made decisions to trap me, Mason decides to free me from the burden of choice when I’m too broken tobear it.
