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Okay. She was okay. In a car with a naked stranger who might have made water spring out of the earth, but okay. About to get her ass fired, but okay.
Was she okay, though? She had the mother of all premonitions, assuming her ability to glimpse the future was real. But it might have been a slow descent into madness instead. Or a brain tumor that was done giving her warning signs. Or a hallucination. Or an aneurysm.
How long did people survive with a burst aneurysm?
She needed a doctor. Had to go to the hospital.
Shit. Good luck finding one nearby, with no GPS.
Her dashboard screen lit up, right on cue. Thank God. She stopped the car, unwilling to risk going down a cliff because she couldn’t wait a couple minutes, and set the Agria primary health-care unit, twenty kilometers from here, as her new destination. The light on the dashboard flashed five minutes past one in the morning. She was fired anyway. Daphne could wait another hour.
“We’ll go to the hospital,” she told Epimetheus, who watched her face intently through wild dark locks of his hair when she turned to glance at him. He probably didn’t catch a single word, but his being here calmed her. It made no sense, when she should be threatened by his size and nudity, but he emanated a quiet strength that grounded her jittery energy.
“They’ll look me over, and if you’re really real, they’ll look you over too. Maybe they’ll find someone who understands you.” More to herself than to him, she mumbled, “While I go pick up Madame Bitch.”
“Calling Daphne on mobile,” AVA said from where Elpida’s phone lay.
“No. No, no, no. Cancel.” Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Where was her phone? The voice had come from the floor, at Epimetheus’ feet.
“Can you get my phone?” she asked him.
He gave her a blank stare.
It might be her imagination, but she thought she heard Daphne screaming her head off.
“My phone.” She pointed between his legs. “Down there.”
One corner of Epimetheus’ mouth tugged upward. He gave a tiny shrug, sat back straighter, and with a sweep of his palm indicated his penis. Which was erect. And she had to keep thinking of it as penis, to ignore the words monster cock that flashed through her mind.
Did he think she was asking if she could have his cock? “No. Put that thing away. Argh.” She bit the bullet and dove between his legs, trying not to stare at the thing so close to her face. For someone who’d been underground till moments ago, Epimetheus smelled clean. And masculine. And she should stop sniffing him.
She snatched the phone and sat back up. The screen declared the call had failed.
Thank fuck.
“Hey AVA, tell Daphne I’ll be there in two hours. I’ve had an emergency,” she said. The text wouldn’t do much to calm Daphne down, but Elpida could say she did her best.
Her phone rang almost immediately, and she let it go to voice mail, then killed the sound. “And off to the hospital we go.”
It was awkward, driving in silence, with an extremely hot and very naked man sitting beside her. The Ford felt confining. She reached in the back seat for a denim jacket she left there a month ago, and dropped it in Epimetheus’ lap. “Not that this can hide much, but I run less of a chance of grabbing your thing instead of gear shift,” she muttered.
He watched her—not through the mirror, but looked straight at her. His scrutiny was unnerving.
“Can you understand any of the words I’m saying?” She snorted. “Of course you can’t. Maybe you bumped your head.” She pointed to her head, and jumped in her seat, making the car lurch, when he pushed his fingers through her hair and tucked a strand behind her ear. His touch was so electrifying, she wouldn’t be surprised if she had another vision.
Not a vision. A hallucination. Her visions only allowed a glimpse a few seconds into the future. She doubted she’d fall in love with him and die in the next few seconds. Though when his fingers lingered, she had the near-irresistible urge to rub her cheek against his palm and kiss it.
Tumor. Those tended to affect sexual behavior. Would the health-care unit have a CT scanner?
Epimetheus trailed his thumb along her jawline, and then ghosted it across her bottom lip.
Oh dear Lord, she wanted to wrap her lips around it and suck. And she was going to run off the road if he didn’t stop touching her.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said and leaned to the left.
He must have gotten the point, because he dropped his hand on his thigh and fisted it.
Boy, was it hot in here? Elpida cracked open the window. If she were alone, she’d be talking to herself. Since there wasn’t much chance of a conversation happening here anytime soon, there was no reason not to do the same.
“I bet you were mugged,” she said. “Maybe picked up a hitchhiker”—not that she’d seen anyone walking along the road all the time she was driving, but weirder things happened—“who attacked you and stole your car and money. And clothes, of course. He thought he killed you and decided to bury you.”
She scrunched her nose. “Nah. Why go through all this trouble? He could have ditched you by the side of the road. Same if you were a hit-and-run.”
She chanced another glance at him. He was mouthing something, as if tasting a word before saying it. But he didn’t speak. Just stared at her. Though the gold had faded from his irises, his dark eyes were still gorgeous. And this wasn’t a glance.
She snapped her head forward again. The road was empty, but all sorts of animals waited to be run over by a car in the middle of rural highways.
Gradually, the trees on the sides of the road gave way to the occasional house, and then a town came into view. Well-lit signs indicated the road to the primary health-care unit. Not all of them agreed with her navigation system, but she finally pulled up in front of the sliding glass doors. A night guard threw her a disgruntled look, but her most charming smile stopped him before he asked her to move her car.
Elpida reached in the door pocket for her belt bag, and hooked it around her waist as she got out of the car. “We’ll be right out,” she told the guard. Would they, though? More importantly, how was she getting Epimetheus in there without any clothes on? Her denim jacket wouldn’t cut it.
Oh! She had tablecloths in the trunk for sampling. She grabbed one and kind of threw it on Epimetheus as he let himself out of the passenger side without her help. He held the cloth in front of him, her jacket in his other hand, and looked at her questioningly.
She pointed to the denim. “Leave that in the car.” Then to the table cloth. “Put this on.” Nothing. She grabbed the jacket and threw in in the car, then shut the door. “Here. Let me.” Her offer to help wasn’t so she’d touch more of him, but when she wrapped her arms around his waist, to bring up the fabric at his back, her chest pressed against the hard planes of his body.
Epimetheus dropped his arms, trapping hers in place, and lowered his face until their lips were millimeters apart. Her nipples hardened, and her belly tightened with anticipation she shouldn’t be feeling. Would he kiss her?
Yes, please. She wanted him to. Needed him to slant his mouth over hers, press her back into her car, and have his way with her.
Was she going cave woman? The guy could be a blubbering idiot, for all she knew. They hadn’t exchanged a single meaningful word. But her body arched into his, a ball of molten need growing in her core, as his heartbeat reverberated against her chest and his hardness pressed into her belly. If she tilted her head up a fraction—
“Wanna move this inside?” the guard asked, and the moment was gone.
“Sorry.” Elpida hurried to tie together the ends of the cloth and tuck them in, only grazing Epimetheus’ skin with her fingertips, then clasped his arm above the elbow, to turn him toward the entrance.
He resisted for a heartbeat, and then allowed her to lead him through the sliding panels and to the counter with the sign that read Information.
A young woman with mussed hair and sleepy eyes looked up at her through the safety glass. “Good morning. How can I help you?”
“I bumped my head. And I... found this guy.” And the two things might be related. Though the way the woman’s eyes lit up when her gaze landed on Epimetheus, her expression turning completely awake and more than a little hungry, confirmed he wasn’t a figment of Elpida’s imagination.
“Right. Please take a ticket from there”—the woman pointed at a machine Elpida had missed beside the entrance—“and we’ll call your number when it’s up.”
Elpida looked at the empty waiting area behind her. “Wait for our turn?”
The woman nodded, still staring openly at Epimetheus. Greek public health sector at its finest. Elpida should have called her insurance and have Epimetheus and herself taken to a private clinic, but she hadn’t been thinking. They could leave, but now they were here, they might as well get checked out.
Epimetheus let her tug him to the first row of plastic seats, but stood beside her instead of slumping into one, like she did.
The large round clock on the wall ticked out twenty-three minutes, and Elpida was about to reconsider taking her chances with the local medical care, when the sliding doors opened and a police officer walked in. His curly blond hair spilled down his shoulders when he took off his cap and approached the information desk. The rules about grooming had to be looser here than in Athens.
The young woman at the desk beamed at him and said something Elpida didn’t hear, before pointing at her and Epimetheus.
The cop nodded and looked at Epimetheus over his shoulder, before turning on his heel and strutting straight to them. “I think you found my missing person.” He grinned at Elpida and held out his hand.