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He nodded and eased onto his back, the expanse of his chest seeming as big as the damn bed. She was careful with the adhesive tape, gentle as she lifted the gauze. Good lord… The skin that had been perforated by the staples just fifteen minutes ago was completely healed. All that remained was a small pink line down his sternum.

“What are you?” she blurted.

Her patient rolled back toward her. “Tired.”

Without even thinking about it she started stroking him again, the sound of her hand smoothing up and down his skin making a hushed noise. It wasn’t long before she noticed that his shoulders were all hard muscle…and that what she was touching was warm and very male.

She took back her palm.

“Please.” He caught her wrist with his unmarked hand—even though his eyes were closed. “Touch me or…shit, hold on to me. I’m…all adrift. Like I’m going to float away. I can’t feel anything. Not the bed…not my body.”

She looked down at where he held on to her, then measured his biceps and the breadth of his chest. She had the passing thought that he could snap her arm in two, but she knew he wouldn’t. He’d been ready to rip the throat out of one of his nearest and dearest a half hour ago to protect her—

Stop it.

Do not feel safe with him. The Stockholm syndrome is not your friend.

“Please,” he said on a shaky breath, shame constricting his voice.

God, she’d never understood how kidnapping victims developed relationships with their captors. It went against all logic as well as the laws of self-preservation: Your enemy cannot be your friend.

But denying him warmth was unthinkable. “I’ll need my hand back.”

“You have two. Use the other.” With that he curled himself around the palm he held on to, the sheets getting pulled farther down his torso.

“Let me switch sides then,” she muttered as she slid her hand out of his grip, replaced it, then laid her newly freed palm on his shoulder.

His skin was the golden brown of a summer tan and smooth…boy, it was smooth and supple. Following the curve of his spine she went up to his nape, and before she knew it she was stroking his glossy hair. Short in the back, long around his face—she wondered whether he wore it that way to hide the tattoos on his temple. Except they had to be for show—why else would he put them somewhere so noticeable?

He made a noise in the back of his throat, a purr that rolled through his chest and upper back; then he moved away, the shift tugging her arm. Clearly he wanted her stretched out next to him, but as she resisted, he eased off.

Staring at her arm in the tight clutch of his biceps, she thought about the last time she’d been entwined with a man. Long while. And it hadn’t been that good, frankly.

Manello’s dark eyes came to mind….

“Don’t think of him.”

Jane jerked. “How did you know who was on my mind?”

The patient released his hold on her and slowly shifted around so he faced away from her. “Sorry. Not my biz.”

“How did you know?”

“I’m going to try to sleep now, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jane got up and went back to her chair, thinking of his six-chambered heart. His untypeable blood. Those fangs of his in that blonde’s wrist. Glancing over to the window, she wondered if what covered the glass panes was not just for security but also to keep out daylight.

Where did it all leave her? Locked in a room with a…vampire?

The rational side of her rejected the thought out of hand, but at her core she was logic driven. With a shake of the head, she recalled her favorite quote from Sherlock Holmes, paraphrasing it: If you eliminate all possible explanations, then the impossible is the answer. Logic and biology didn’t lie, did they? It was one of the reasons why she’d chosen to become a physician in the first place.

She looked down at her patient, getting lost in the implications. The mind reeled at the evolutionary possibilities, but she also considered more practical matters. She thought about the drugs in that duffel bag and the fact that her patient had