Chapter 288
Chapter 288:
“Take the shirt off,” June commanded. The bitterness of a wronged wife had vanished from her voice entirely, replaced by the freezing, absolute authority of a doctor.
Cole froze and turned his head to stare at her in shock.
“I said take it off,” June snapped, moving toward the bathroom to retrieve her professional medical kit. “Before the fabric fuses completely to your muscle tissue p>
Cole slowly, agonizingly began to unbutton the shirt. He peeled the fabric from his shoulders, and the wet, tearing sound of silk pulling away from blistered raw flesh made June’s stomach violently lurch.
“Lie face down on the bed,” June ordered, snapping a pair of sterile latex gloves onto her hands.
Cole walked to the bed and lowered his massive frame onto the white sheets with painstaking slowness.
June stood over him. She opened a bottle of sterile saline and poured it across the full expanse of the burn.
Cole’s entire body convulsed. A muffled groan ripped from his throat, his massive hands seizing the bedsheets with enough force to tear the fabric.
W𝘦𝘦𝗸lу 𝘳е𝘭е𝘢𝘴е𝗌 𝗈n
June’s cold, gloved fingers touched the raw, scorched skin along his shoulder blade, applying a thick, careful layer of medical-grade silver sulfadiazine cream. Her stomach churned with every millimeter of contact. A wave of nausea climbed her throat, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, using the sharp pain to anchor herself.
She forced her mind to detach, mentally reciting the Krebs cycle, reducing him from the monster who had terrorized her into a mere biological specimen — a collection of damaged tissues requiring protocol. It was the only way she could continue without breaking. The physical proximity was suffocating and deeply dangerous. She could smell the heavy musk of his sweat beneath the sterile scent of the cream, a combination that made every instinct in her body urge her to pull away.
Cole turned his head on the pillow. His dark, bloodshot eyes found her face. He could feel her small, cold fingers moving across his ruined flesh, and for him the agonizing pain was entirely eclipsed by the overwhelming, toxic intimacy of her touch.
“June…” Cole whispered, his voice a broken, desperate rasp in the quiet room.
June did not look at his eyes. She kept her gaze fixed entirely on the wound, her jaw tight, held in place by the suffocating gravity of his physical suffering.
June pulled the white medical tape taut, securing the final square of sterile gauze over the searing, blistered burn spanning Cole’s back.
Her movements were entirely mechanical — no ounce of unnecessary force, no trace of human comfort. The only sound in the hotel room was the sharp, clinical friction of tape adhering to skin.
Cole lay face down on the mattress, the agonizing heat radiating from his destroyed flesh blurring his vision. But beneath the pain, a sick, desperate satisfaction coiled in his chest. She was touching him. She was taking care of him.
He inhaled slowly, catching the faint, clean scent of gardenias on her skin — the smell of the four years they had spent together.