Instead, I watched him bring his gaze up from my mouth, and when our eyes met, I held mine there, open and willing, and vulnerable.

And then he dropped his head—just as we’d both wanted him to—and he put his mouth on mine. And I pressed mine to his, right back.

And that ache of longing I always felt when I was around him?

The moment his mouth touched mine, it melted away.

Duncan’s kiss was all warmth—firm and soft and urgent all at the same time, and I’ll bet anything that mine was all those things back, but what I remember most was this impossible combination of opposites: it felt dangerous and safe at the same time. Shocking and soothing. Electrifying and relaxing. Impossible and inevitable.

Like we’d left the ordinary world and landed in a place where everything could happen.

And I just gave all the way in—and let myself be everything: alert and relaxed, awake and dreaming, lost and found.

He dropped to one elbow to free a hand to roam over my hair, my neck, my shoulder as he pressed, and pulled, and touched, and—I don’t know—explored and excavated and ignited, and I let him. I wanted to soak him in.

Until.

Duncan shifted position—and then he caught his breath and pulled away.

I opened my eyes.

He was wincing.

“Oh, my God,” I said, instantly pulled back to reality. “Are you hurt?”

“I just—shifted the wrong way.”

Carefully, he transferred his weight back to a better position, and his face relaxed a little.

I edged out from under him. “Oh, my God!” I said. “What are we doing? We can’t do this!”

“Just a cramp. It’s practically gone,” Duncan said, but his face was still tight. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” I said. “You’ve just had surgery—”

He snorted. “Cryosurgery.”

“None of this is fine!”

“I fully disagree.”

He pushed into a sitting position at the edge of the bed again, like before—clearly defeated by whatever pain he’d just felt—and pressed his hand to his side.

I climbed off the bed and came around to face him. “Did we just hurt you?” I asked. “Should I—call the nurse?”

“Just a cramp,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m good.”

Then, as if to prove it, he opened his eyes and smiled at me. His hair was all messed up, falling over his forehead. Old Duncan. Right there.

I might have swooned a little—before I came to my senses.

“Oh, my God! I took advantage of you! You’re on drugs!” I was supposed to be looking after him, not—whatever this was.

That made him burst out with a laugh. “You couldn’t take advantage of me if you tried.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “None of this is your fault. I’m just irresistible.”

I flared my nostrils at him.

And then he did look better, and then he gave me a delighted smile. “You just kissed me!”

“Um. You kissed me, pal.”

His frown at this gave way to a grin. “Yeah, but you kissed me back.”

“Only because you fell on me.”

“I should fall on you more often.”

But he was shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe it.

“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “You’re going to forget it, anyway.”

“I won’t forget it,” he said. “Even if I don’t remember, I’ll remember.”

But then I shook my head to clear it. “We just need to stay focused,” I said. And then this came out spectacularly wrong: “We just need to get your clothes off and get you to bed.”

He gave me a wry smile. “Sold.”

I let out a growly sigh. “You know what I mean.”

Safe to say, I had never been in a situation even remotely like this one.

We still needed to get him out of that suit. “Can you … change your own clothes?” I asked, hoping his answer would be, No problem.

Duncan gave a big nod. “No problem,” he said.

But then he didn’t move. Just stared at the sweatpants like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “Or maybe I could use a little help.”

I sighed.

No big deal. This was a medical situation. I’d taken men’s clothes off before. It wasn’t rocket science. I frowned to get into an all-business mind-set, then said, “Hold still. I’m going to help you.”

He was still sitting on the edge of the bed. Swaying a little.

I untied his tie, my fingers nudging at the silk knot until it released—unable to not notice how sexy even the most mundane action seemed in the wake of that kiss. Then I slid it from around his neck with a zip and tossed it on a chair nearby.

Sexy.

“You smell good,” he said then. “But I knew that already.”

“Just … focus.”

Next, I shifted to those stiff leather oxfords of his, tossing one and then the other with a clomp across the room. Then I peeled off his black dress socks, and he wiggled his toes at me, as if to say hello. Then, I stood. Frowning harder, I said a quick prayer that he’d be wearing underwear, and I stepped closer to unbuckle his belt, unhook his pants at the waistband, and unzip his zipper, all in quick succession. Then he had to stand up a little so I could work his pants down over his—thank God—boxer briefs, and then I helped him step into the sweatpants.

All of it: inescapably sexy.

Once all that was done, I figured we were through the hard part.

“Okay, pal. Can you get your shirt off on your own?”

After the pants, the shirt really should have been a breeze.

Duncan nodded, but then his fingers were too rubbery to do the buttons. I watched until I realized the attempt was doomed, and then I stepped in to help. At one point, he put his hands over mine, met my eyes, and said, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I never get taken care of,” he said, like it was a fascinating fact he’d just noticed. “It’s nice.”

“Me, neither,” I said.

He shrugged his dress shirt off, and I got a whiff of his deodorant, which reminded me of a scented candle I used to have called Winter Beach. Time for the undershirt. I reached down and pulled up the hem as he lifted his arms obediently. I raised his undershirt up and off—and that’s when I saw his torso.

That’s when I saw what he meant by “ruined.”

Because the whole left side of his body, armpit to hip, was covered in scars.

fourteen

I gasped, and I pushed back a little—the shock of the sight reverberating through me.

I didn’t mean to, but I did.

He looked like he’d been chopped up with a butcher knife and then stapled back together.

At my reaction, he remembered it. “Don’t look!” he said—dopey enough that he put his own hand over his own eyes. “Pretend you didn’t see.”

I’d expected something, of course. I knew he’d just had surgery on that side to reduce some scarring. I’d skimmed the post-op instructions on the ride here. I’d been expecting … a sterile gauze pad, maybe?

I don’t know. Something … smaller. Not … this.

He had a thick, fifteen-inch incision scar running along the contour of his ribs from just under the armpit to the bottom of his rib cage. It was not a clean line—it was dark red and jagged, puffy and stippled, angry and chaotic. He had red marks along both sides where they’d stapled him back together. Below that, closer to his hip, was another, shorter incision with round scars underneath it. And around toward the front, on his chest, just under his nipple, there were two round discs of scar tissue that I thought … as soon as I saw them … had to be— “Duncan, what happened?”

“You don’t know?” He blinked at me.

I was holding him by the shoulders now. “I don’t know anything. Tell me.”

“Yeah. I got shot.”

“When? How? Who shot you?”

“At my last school. It wasn’t just me, though. It was … a few people.”

“Duncan—” I shook my head. “What?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want them to tell you. I tried to keep it quiet. Hoping for a fresh start, I guess.”

It was all coming together. “A school shooting?”

Duncan nodded. “The Webster School. One killed, two wounded.”

“I think I heard about that one.”

Duncan seemed to tense up. “Yeah. Well. It’s hard to keep track of them all these days.”

“I just didn’t know you were even teaching there.”

“We really lost touch, huh?” Duncan said, more to himself than to me.

“Does it hurt?” I asked him.

“Yes and no,” Duncan said. “Mostly now it’s just that the scar tissue inside has kind of hardened, and that was uncomfortable … so that’s what this surgery was for. They had to go in lap—” He paused, like he couldn’t make his mouth say the word. “Lap—”

“Laparoscopically?”

He gave an approving nod. “You’re good at that.”

“So, no stitches.”

“The nurse said it’ll feel like a bruise. A really big, bad bruise.”

“Can I take another look?” I asked.