Cora awakened on the nurse’s next visit, but Slider didn’t, and she was glad. The man had looked wrecked—dark circles under his eyes, hair a raked-through disaster, shoulders hunched from the stress of worrying about his kid. He needed the sleep.
But she was also glad because lying there in the tiny bed with him allowed her to really look at Slider in a way she didn’t often otherwise take the liberty of doing. Her gaze ran over the longish lengths of his brown hair, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was as soft as it looked. Cora studied his face and tried to imagine what he’d look like clean shaven. She admired the sleeves of black-and-gray ink that ran up his arms, her gaze fixing for a long time on the intricate cursive K that filled the three inches on the back of his left wrist.
K for Kim. His dead wife.
How sweet was that? That he wore something permanently on his skin for the woman he’d loved and lost. What wouldn’t she give for someone to feel so deeply about her? Just once.
The rest of his art included realistic depictions of flowers and a wolf’s face, along with interlaced tribal markings and geometric designs that tied it all together. A burst of sun rays extended out from the round bulk of one of his shoulders.
Cora’s gaze dropped lower. Slider was entirely covered, of course. Not just by his clothes, but by the thin hospital blanket, too. But none of that could keep her from replaying in her mind’s eye what she’d seen that morning in the man’s bedroom.
It was one thing to have witnessed him asleep in his bed, nude from the waist up, a huge tattoo across his back—the Raven Riders name and logo. His back and shoulders were all raw muscle, sinew, and bone. The guy didn’t eat much, but he worked hard, and the result was a frame that was at once too lean and well-muscled.
And then . . .
And then he’d flown out of the bed naked as the day he was born, giving her an eyeful of his front before letting her look long and hard at his back as he’d dressed. And, wow, the Ravens tattoo had been even more impressive seeing him wear it and nothing else.
Of course, Cora felt like the world’s biggest degenerate for having enjoyed even a single second of the view, given why he’d scrambled out of bed that way. But, damn, some things could not be unseen.
And Slider Evans completely naked was one of them.
Because every part of him had been more impressive than the last. He had the rangy, dangerous physique of a street fighter. A way-too-intriguing line of dark hair that ran from his chest to his groin. The hard-looking ass of a Renaissance sculpture. And a cock that, mostly soft, had hung surprisingly long against his thigh.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Not because the thought of his sex bothered her, but because it attracted her.
And that was confusing. To begin with, she was never sure what to make of this man who rarely said much and, when he did, it was often little more than a grunt or a handful of grumbled words. But more than that, the last time she’d had sex, she hadn’t wanted it.
It wasn’t sex, Cora, she reminded herself for the hundredth time. Right. Okay. Fine. It wasn’t. It’d been . . . rape. But since the scumbag who’d done it could never do it again, there was no sense dwelling on it, was there? She was fine. She’d gotten away. She’d survived. Just like she always did.
She heaved a big breath and opened her eyes.
And found Slider watching her. That pale green stare locked on tight.
Cora couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to, even as her pulse kicked up and the sheer force of his gaze narrowed the room—hell, the world—to the eighteen inches that separated them. Her lips parted, a shiver raced over her skin, and her nipples hardened. Because Slider was suddenly looking at her like he was starving. And she might be the meal he’d been dreaming of all this time.
Or she was rocking some seriously desperate wishful thinking.
But she didn’t think so. Not when he reached across that gap between them. Softly, slowly, his hand cupped the side of her face, his fingers slid into her hair, his thumb stroked her skin, just skimming over the corner of her mouth. Once, twice, three times.
Cora didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t look away. She feared the second she did, whatever spell was weaving between them would break. She didn’t know what this was or what he was doing or what he even wanted, but she wanted the chance to find out. Plenty of men had looked at her with lust in their eyes during her almost twenty-four years, but no man had ever looked at her with such tormented longing.