Whilst he worked, he always covered his hips with something. A part of the bedding. The two halves of his coat. And then he stood on the far side of the rolling table.
"Comfortable?" When she nodded, he said, "I'll be right back. Holler if you need me, okay?"
Her healer disappeared into the bathroom and the door shut most of the way - but not completely. A shaft of light pierced through into the stall of the falling water and she saw clearly his white-coated arm reach in, turn a handle, and call forth the warm rain.
Clothes were removed. All of them.
And then there was a brief glimpse of glorious flesh as he stepped under the spray and closed the glass partition. As the auditory rhythm of the water changed, she knew his naked form was breaking up the free fall.
What did he look like, sluiced with water, slick and warm and so very male?
Pushing herself up off the pillows, she leaned to the side ... and leaned a little more ... and leaned more still until she was all but hanging off....
Ah, yeeees. His body was in profile, but she saw plenty: Carved with musculature, his chest and arms were heavy over tight hips and long, powerful legs. A dusting of dark hair sat upon his pectorals and formed a line that went o'er his abdomen and down, down ... so far down....
Damn it, she could not see enough, and her curiosity was too desperate and driving to ignore.
What did his sex look like? Feel like ...
With a curse, she awkwardly shuffled herself around so that she was on the end of the bed. Angling her head, she made the very best of the limited exposure of that crack in the doorway. But as she had moved, so had he, and he was now facing away from her, his back and his ... lower body ...
She swallowed hard and stretched upward to see even more. As he unwrapped the cleansing bar, water streamed across his shoulder blades and rivered o'er his spine, flowing onto his bu**ocks and the backs of his thighs. And then his hand appeared on the nape of his neck, the frothy suds he had called up in his palms going the way of the water as he washed his body.
"Turn about ..." she whispered. "Let me see all of you...."
The desire for her eyes to get greater access only increased as his soapy ministrations went below his waist. Lifting one leg, and then the other, his hands were tragically efficient as they went o'er his thighs and calves.
She knew when he tended to his sex. Because his head fell back and his hips curled up tight.
He was thinking of her. She was sure of it.
And then he spun around.
It happened so fast that as their eyes met, both of them recoiled.
Even though she had been caught and then some, she shambled back against the pillows, and resumed her former position, restraightening the blankets he had been so careful with. With her face aflame, she wanted to hide -
A sharp squeak echoed through the room, and she glanced up. He had burst forth from the bathroom, the shower left open and running, soap still clinging to his abdominals and dripping from off ...
His sex was a magnificent shock. Standing out from his body, the rod of him was hard and thick and proud.
"You ..."
He said something further, but she was too captivated to care, too enthralled to notice. Deep within her, a wellspring was released, her sex swelling and preparing itself to accept him.
"Payne," he demanded, covering himself with his hands.
Instantly, she was ashamed and put her palms to her hot cheeks. "Verily, I am sorry I spied upon you."
Her human gripped the edge of the doorway. "Not that ..." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Are you aware of what you were doing?"
She had to laugh. "Yes. Believe in this, my healer - I was totally aware of what I was regarding so thoroughly."
"You were sitting up, Payne. You were up on your knees at the end of the bed."
Her heart stopped. Surely she could not have heard him right.
Surely.
As Payne frowned, Manny lurched forward - and then realized he was really f**king naked. Which was a condition that occurred when a guy didn't just have his ass in the breeze, but was totally and completely, ball-numbingly erect as he pulled a birthday suit. Reaching into the bathroom, he snagged a towel, wrapped it around his hips, and then went over to the bed.
"I ... no, you must be wrong," Payne said. "I couldn't have - "
"You did - "
"I had merely stretched upon - "
"How did you get to the end of the bed, then. And how did you get back where you are?"
Her eyes went to the short footboard, confusion drawing her brows in tight. "I do not know. I was ... watching you and you were all I knew."
The man in him was astounded and ... strangely transformed. To be wanted that much by someone like her?
But then the physician in him took over. "Here, let me see what's doing, okay?"
He untucked the sheets and blanket from the end of the bed and rolled them up to the tops of her thighs. Using his finger, he ran it across the sole of her pretty foot.
He expected it to twitch. It didn't.
"Anything?" he said.
When she shook her head, he repeated on the other side. Then he moved higher, wrapping his palms around her slender ankles. "Anything?"
Her eyes were tragic as they met his. "I feel nothing. And I do not understand what you think you saw."
He moved higher, to her calves. "You were on your knees. I swear to it."
Higher still, to her taut thighs.
Nothing.
Christ, he thought. She had to have had some control over her legs. There was no other explanation. Unless ... he'd been seeing things.
"I do not understand," she repeated.
Neither did he, but he was going to damn well figure it out. "I'm going to go review your scans. I'll be right back."
Out in the exam room, he got some help from the nurse and accessed Payne's medical record via the computer. With practiced efficiency, he went through everything: vitals, exam notes, X-rays - he even found the stuff he'd done to her at St. Francis, which was a surprise. He hadn't a clue how they'd gotten access to that original MRI - he'd erased the file nearly as soon as it had gone into the medical center's system. But he was glad to see it again, that was for sure.
When he was finished, he sat back in the chair, and the band of coldness that shot across his shoulder blades reminded him he was in nothing but a towel.
Kind of explained that nurse's walleyed look when he'd spoken with her.
"What the hell," he muttered, staring at the latest X-ray.
Her spine was perfectly in order, the vertebrae lined up nice and square, their ghostly glow against the black background giving him a perfect snapshot of what was going on down her back.
Everything, from the medical record to the exam he'd just given her on the bed, suggested that his original conclusion upon seeing her again was the correct one: He'd done the best technical work of his life, but the spinal cord had been irreparably damaged and that was that.
And abruptly, he remembered the expression on Goldberg's face as it had become obvious that the difference between night and day had escaped his notice.
Rubbing his eyes, he wondered if he was, yet again, going crazy. He knew what he'd seen, however.... Didn't he?
And then it dawned on him.
Twisting around, he looked to the ceiling. Sure enough, all the way up in the corner there was a pod attached to a panel. Which meant the security camera inside could see every square inch of the place.
Had to be one in the recovery room. Had to be.
Getting to his feet, he went over to the door and peered out into the corridor, hoping that nice blond nurse was somewhere to be found. "Hello?"
His voice echoed down the hall, but there was no reply, so he had no choice except to barefoot it around. Without an instinct as to which way to head, he choose "right" and walked fast. At all of the doors, he knocked and then tried to open them. Most were locked, but those that weren't revealed ... classrooms. And more classrooms. And a huge, professional-size gym.
When he got to one marked Weight Room, he heard the pounding of someone trying to break a treadmill with some Nikes and decided to keep going. He was a half-naked human in a world of vampires, and somehow he doubted that nurse would be marathoning it if she were on duty.
Besides, going by how hard and heavy that footfall was? He was liable to open up a can of whoop-ass, instead of just a door - and whereas he was suicidal enough to fight anything that rode up on him, this was about helping Payne, not his ego or his boxing skills.