He ignored her attempts to set her first two fingers on his pulse point and instead shook her free and reached to touch her hair. “You fixed your hair.”
She couldn’t stop the flush, but she did inhale deeply. Part of her was pleased he noticed. She might have even self-consciously gone to all the trouble to see if he would notice the effort she’d made.
“I like it. I also like it when it’s wavy. Or when it’s pulled into a ponytail. Or even when it’s wet because you didn’t have time to fix it.”
Yeah, more heat suffused her face. Was she ever going to stop reacting like that to him? She was just so shocked at this total about-face in their relationship. After never meeting her gaze or even seeming to know she worked in the same small bunker as him, suddenly the man woke up from a coma and openly flirted with her?
His hand eased around and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You blush easily.” He was smiling.
She grabbed his hand and jerked it away from her face, clasping his wrist and holding it against the bed at his side. “I need some time to catch up with this new, not-at-all-shy Graham.”
“That works out splendidly with my current timeline since I’m unable to stand, let alone anything else.”
She swallowed. “Okay, stop flirting with me. You’re making my head spin.”
He flipped his hand over and threaded his fingers with hers. How the hell was he so much more in control of his fingers today? “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? Just… I don’t know. Slow down. I can’t keep up.”
He squeezed her fingers. “I’m lying in a hospital bed in the back of a clinic with almost no muscle strength. I’ve been slow enough. I’m totally at the mercy of my body at whatever pace it decides to start receiving messages from my brain in a timely fashion.
“I just found out the sexy woman who’s way out of my league actually likes me. I’ve been in a cryostat for ten years. I got a bonus run at a second chance at life. Mysterious people are apparently not happy I’m getting that second chance. And for once, I’m not too terrified to go after something I want. So, no. Slow down is not really one of my options. I’m going to mentally chase you around the room until I can physically do so, and then all bets are off.”
She swallowed. She seriously didn’t think he’d spoken that many words total to everyone in the bunker combined in the three years she’d known him. “You sure you didn’t hit your head?”
He smiled wider. “For the first time in my life, I’d say my head is screwed on perfectly straight. Now, what’s the plan? Let’s get this physical therapy going so I can stand.”
She nodded slowly. That was the plan, though she considered telling him he needed to wait another week to start it just to buy her some time to acclimate to this situation. The room was spinning.
Yesterday, she’d been unattached and pining after a man she wasn’t positive knew her name. Today, he was hitting on her so hard he practically had them married.
As if he read her mind, he dipped his face closer to hers. “If you think I’m going to dawdle around and waste time when I should be pursuing you before you change your mind and get away, you’re crazy.”
He left her speechless. Again.
“Also, peeing into a plastic container is going to get really old, and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell you or anyone else is going to be washing me on this bed anymore, so I’m gonna need to get strong enough to stand to use the bathroom and take a shower super-fast.” He rubbed his chin with his free hand, brushing his palm up and down his cheek next. “I could use a shave too. This is going to get itchy soon.”
She smiled. “You’re in luck. It turns out I was a bit of a beautician in high school. I find it soothing. I can still cut and style hair, and I’ve shaved plenty of faces.” Though offering to do his was probably a bad idea. She prayed he didn’t make her so nervous she ended up slipping.
He tipped his head to one side. “You’re full of surprises. Okay, I’ll let you cut my hair and shave me, but only because my arms don’t work, and the idea is incredibly erotic.”
She groaned. “Stop that.”
“What? It is. Gorgeous woman shaving me? Every man’s dream.”
“Great. I’ve created a monster.” She yanked her hand out from under his and grabbed the remote for the bed before he could stop her, lowering it so he was flat. “Exercises first. Then I’ll consider switching from physical therapist to beautician.”
“Deal.”
“I’m going to stretch your legs and show you some lifts you can do to get the blood flowing and awaken your muscles.”
He yanked the sheet off.
She nearly gasped before she realized he had on gray workout shorts and a T-shirt. “When and how did you change clothes?”
“You were gone a long time. Marcie gave me everything I needed. Food. Drinks. A pan of warm water. Clothes. I managed.”
Lord, he was going to enter a marathon tomorrow. And then she wasn’t going to be able to run fast enough to avoid him.
After years of wishing she’d had the gumption to force him to notice her, now that he had, she felt rushed. No part of her had mentally prepared for this eventuality. She’d pictured weeks or months of thwarted efforts that would probably produce no results. She wasn’t ready for this new Graham who not only saw her but wanted her. Now. Today.
It was exciting, but also scared the hell out of her. She should just tell him she’d had no experience with men, and then she could stop worrying about it. Except she wasn’t prepared to have that conversation. How did a twenty-seven-year-old woman tell a man in his thirties that she was a virgin?
She didn’t even know how to flirt. Nor did she know how to date. And the thought of having sex made her both nervous and excited at the same time. Every time she stepped into the room and saw his smile, she felt even more drawn to him.
Forget sparks. He was lighting her on fire.
It was too soon for this to be happening. She felt like she was in a made-for-television movie in which the hero and the heroine had to solve their differences and get into bed in under two hours.
Unnerved and totally out of her element, she ignored her concerns and went through a series of exercises with him. The fact that he was so fit would have shocked her if she hadn’t already seen everyone else, including herself, come out of their preservation with the same surprisingly maintained muscle tone.
Of course, he needed therapy to get back to where he’d been ten years ago, but a lot of the work had more to do with getting the brain to fire messages than muscle tone. In addition, she remembered feeling dizzy and out of breath more often once she started walking around.
While she worked, her previously timid, serious, quiet, stoic, unattainable heartthrob kept talking. “Tell me about the threats. Why are we hiding?”
“Okay. So, Emily was the first to be revived. I told you that, I think.”
“You did.”
“Anyway, she went to her parents’ home for a few days to get reacquainted.”
“Shit.” He winced. “My parents. What do they know?”
“They would have been given a vague notice that you would be reanimated in the near future and that someone would contact them with specifics. Temple doesn’t like to jump the gun, just in case. You’ll be able to contact them soon.”
“Has anyone not survived?” He stiffened as he asked.
She set one leg down and picked up the other. The good thing about his running dialogue was that it kept her mind from wandering to his body. “Well, kind of. I’ll get to that in a minute.”
He frowned. “I keep interrupting. Go on.”
“I’m going to give a summary. We can expand later.”
“Sounds good.” He winced as she pushed his leg higher, stretching the back of his thigh.
“Okay, here’s the Cliff Notes version. Try to keep up.”
He shot her a goofy glare. “I think I can handle it.”
“You say that
now,” she teased. And then she set his leg down, looked him in the eye, and launched into the condensed version. “So Emily was the first to be revived almost a year ago. She and Ryan fell in love. She got kidnapped by a madman who wanted his daughter revived.
“Blair Rollans was her bodyguard. Emily had a tracker in her arm. The military hunted them down and saved the day.”
“Jesus.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “Don’t interrupt. I’m on a roll here.”
He grinned and made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Please continue.”
“Next to be revived was Tushar who then waited for Trish and the two of them went into hiding at a ranch in Montana run by an organization called SURVIVE. But the two of them had trackers also, and someone got their information, hunted them down, and tried to kill them. The bad guys are now dead for their efforts, and Trish and Tushar went back to the bunker.”
Graham’s eyes were wide, but he pursed his lips and nodded for her to continue.
“Dade Menke was the fourth to be revived. Blair took him to her cabin in the mountains outside of Falling Rock to sequester him. Ryan got wise and deactivated Dade’s GPS tracker that time. But, unfortunately, Dade had a dormant form of aplastic anemia that took over his body as soon as he received the cure for AP12.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah. That part sucks. He had an inheritance from his grandfather, so he and Blair took off to God knows where so he could live out the rest of his days in peace.”
Graham closed his eyes slowly. She couldn’t blame him.
She took a deep breath and kept going. “Next to be revived were me, Zeke, Grayson, and Colton.”
“Right. You said that yesterday.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hate how quickly your brain is working. I want to slap you.”
He scrunched up his face. “Sorry. Can’t change that. Go on.”
“Zeke hit it off with Michelle Houston, an immunologist from the second team, and the two of them traveled here with us after the explosion at the bunker. They left the next morning for God knows where.”
“I’m seeing a theme here. Is God seriously the only one who knows anything?”
“It’s possible. Though I do believe Ryan is privy to most of the information. He’s the leader of the second team. He and Temple are making most of the decisions.”
“I can’t believe Ryan Anand is a grown adult who cured a disease and made it possible for me to be here today.”
Kate took one of Graham’s arms and started stretching it over his head. “Wait until you meet him.”
“And he’s with Emily? She’s ten years older than him.”
“Not anymore.” Kate chuckled. “They’re the same age.”
“Right. So we didn’t age…” Graham lifted his free hand and held it in front of his face as if examining it for signs of aging.
“Not a single day. No one has shown any indication they aged at all.”
“Crazy. Hard to wrap my head around.”
“Agreed. Once you get over the technological hurdle that made up the past decade, you’ll start to forget time moved ahead of you.”
“How much change could there possibly be in ten years? We were already moving at lightning speed.”
Kate laughed. “You can’t even begin to imagine. Turn lightning into warp speed and you’ll be close.”
“And the rest of the team?”
“I can’t tell you much about anyone else because four had only been awake a month and four had only been awake a few days when the explosion happened. We all got scattered. I don’t know where a single person is right now.”
“But you’re in contact with Temple, right?”
“Marginally. I use a burner phone. Everyone is just trying to stay hidden and alive right now.”
“Have you called her yet?”
“No. I’m sure she’ll contact me. She knows the date you would have been awake, and she also knows how long it takes for each person to be reasonably coherent.” She shot him a wary look. “It’s not two days.”
He grinned. “I like to defy the odds. Now, about that shower…”
Chapter 6
Kate didn’t grant him the shower request, but she did leave for a few minutes and come back with everything she would need to wash his hair, cut it, and shave him.
She unlocked the wheels on the hospital bed and pushed the head of it away from the wall. Next, she sat on a stool behind him, lifted his head, tucked a towel under his neck, and proceeded to wash his hair.
He thought he’d died and gone to heaven, unable to speak while she massaged the shampoo in and then carefully rinsed it over and over into a plastic tub. She left a few times to get more warm water until she was satisfied.
While she propped him up farther, he watched her closely. She was all business, every move sure and precise. How had he let three years go by without telling this incredible woman how he felt about her? He was a fool.
He also didn’t recognize himself. He knew he’d been quiet and focused before they were preserved. Studious. Introverted. Shy. Somehow he’d never taken the time to live his life outside of medicine. He was thirty-five years old, and he’d never been in a serious relationship with a woman. Or any relationship.
The truth was that he was a virgin. He wasn’t embarrassed about that fact, but he was concerned about disappointing her with his lack of knowledge. Somehow he doubted that any amount of clinical data or online research had prepared him for the real-life experience.
It had been three years since Kate had joined the team and he’d become enamored with her. Before vitrification, he’d never had the balls to put himself out there. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he believed her to be out of his league.
But something in him had changed. Snapped into place since he’d awoken. He felt a sense of urgency to seize the day, emboldened by the fact that he’d learned the woman he’d lusted after had done the same from her side of the room for three years also.
They were both foolish.
She leaned close to him to snip away at his hair. Every time she reached for the top with one hand and cut with the other, her breasts came within inches of his face. He had to hold his breath a few times to keep from making a noise that would embarrass him and probably piss her off. The last thing he wanted was for her to stop.
When she was satisfied with his hair, she grabbed another basin of warm water, settled on the stool at his side, and proceeded to lather and shave his face. The woman knew what she was doing. “Tip this way for me,” she whispered a few times.
She took her time, smoothing her hand over his chin and then his cheeks as she worked. Finally, she was satisfied, and she sat back with a smile. “Not perfect, but good enough, considering the position you’re lying in.”
He grabbed her hand before she could move away. “Thank you.” His voice was gravelly. Unrecognizable. He was both humbled and enchanted. He would never forget this as long as he lived. “You’ve spoiled me. Now that I know what you can do, I’ll be expecting this treatment all the time.”
She rolled her eyes, her face turning red, but she didn’t argue the point, which he considered a win. “You need to rest. Sleep is the only thing that will help you get stronger.”
He held her gaze, still gripping her hand in his with the waning bit of his energy. He knew she was right, but he hated the idea of closing his eyes. Every time he did, he feared it would all prove to be a dream and he would not wake up again.
She smiled and leaned closer, stroking his face with her free hand. “I know that look. I remember that fear. I woke up in a panic for weeks and still do so occasionally. But I promise you this is real. I’m right here. You’ve been revived. And you need sleep.”
It was difficult, but he did manage to rest off and on that day. Now, it was late. After midnight. Kate was curled on her side on the cot, facing him, her expression peaceful in slumber.
Graham’s internal clock was totally out of whack. His c
ircadian rhythm acted like he’d gone through fifteen time zones and hadn’t fared well. He didn’t care at the moment because he’d been gifted with the opportunity to stare at Kate’s features at rest and memorize every nuance.
It was only fair. She’d had the ability to stare at him for a month.
He still couldn’t believe she had considered him for even a moment in their past life. He was shocked by her assumption that he hadn’t been at all interested in her.
For as much as she’d insisted she was into him, she was also incongruently skittish, which was not at all like her. He had no idea what that was about, but he intended to find out. Maybe she simply had his health in mind, but he thought it was something more complex.
It seemed like even though she obviously harbored feelings for him, she in no way had expected them to be reciprocated and found herself stepping back out of shock. At least he hoped that was all it was. If she’d decided now that she’d been handed the prize, she didn’t want it as badly as she thought, he would be fucked.
It was also possible she’d been lusting after a man she knew very little about who’d turned out to be quite different from what she expected. There was no doubt about that. Even he didn’t really understand how it was possible that he’d awoken with a seemingly altered, more courageous personality.
In his mind, he was the same guy. And he reasoned that circumstances were affecting his behavior. For one, he was emboldened by the fact that the woman he’d been attracted to had feelings for him too. That was huge and gave him courage he didn’t ordinarily have.
However, there was more to his shift in personality than just Kate’s returned feelings. This was the first time in his memorable life that he didn’t have specific responsibilities demanding immediate attention. All through school and college and his work for DEEP, he’d been under a constant time crunch. A race against the clock to study or memorize or solve something.
Having a to-do list he could never possibly accomplish was the only thing he’d known before now. In a way, it grounded him. He could always count on there being enough work to keep him busy. And the list was filled with subject matter he understood. Definitive responsibilities with definitive results.
Reviving Graham Page 6
