Chapter 24: Healing Heart

My head hurt. What was worse, I didn't know where I was. The room was dark and I was in a bed. The only window showed me tall buildings nearby, but I didn't recognize them.

I felt weak too. As if I had a really bad flu. Swallowing hurt my throat and moving too quickly caused waves of nausea. Looking slowly around the room, I realized I must have been in a hospital. There were two chairs, a table, a TV on an overhead stand and next to my bed a small set of instruments glowing softly in the dark. An IV drip was attached to my arm and as I laid there I started to feel more and more pain.

I felt groggy too. It was probably medication to help me rest while I healed. Trying to think, I remembered the house fire and searching for my family. I had found Chloe and gotten her to safety, but everyone else had been gone. The only other thing I remembered since then was waking up in the bed.

To my right, a door opened and a woman dressed in white walked in. She was a nurse. When she looked at me she stopped. I didn't know why, I couldn't think clearly. Her eyes looked me over and became increasingly wild, like an animal that knows danger is near but not where. Stepping closer, she noticed my open eyes watching her.

"Mr. Setton? Are you awake?" Her voice was squeaky and too high to sound intelligent.

I didn't move, except to keep her within my sight; which was easy since she wasn't moving either. I watched her approach cautiously.

Tentatively she pressed her small, delicate hand to my forehead. If she was feeling for a fever, all she had to do was look at the instruments. It was fine with me. Her touch was more than welcome and with it I realized how much I needed more.

She must have noticed my open eyes or the difference in my breathing because she bent down to speak to me quietly. "Do you want me to get someone? Your girlfriend?"

Girlfriend? I wondered who she was talking about. It could have been Yvonne or Chloe. As far as I knew, Mandy was missing along with the rest of my family, but right at that moment I didn't have the strength or energy to feel the concern I should have. That did worry me though. I shook my head and fought to see the nurse's eyes. The room swam again. It might have been my injuries keeping me from feeling my girls. I didn't know.

The nurse stayed where she was as she studied my face. Her fingers softly traced my skin along a bandage I hadn't noticed. What happened to me?

She stood up and started to pull away. I reached out to catch her, and she caught my hand instead. Through a dry throat I croaked, "Don't leave."

She smiled back down at me. "I can't stay all night. I have other patients to attend to."

I pulled her hand back up to my face and rubbed it against my cheek. "Soft," I said quietly.

She stood close while I held her hand. The look on her face became curious and I wondered why but didn't have the ability to ask. I was weaker than I originally thought.

Her warm hand felt good. Very good. I couldn't say why but I wanted to feel her arm. Her skin was so soft, probably from maintaining that level of cleanliness hospitals require. She was also so very warm. I could smell her, not perfume or the stale air of the room, but her. Her skin, her light perspiration from walking her rounds, her. The scent moved through me and with a deep inhale, I felt invigorated. Almost instantly, I felt better, but that feeling also quickly started to fade.

The nurse's curious expression shifted to steady observation with my actions. She watched me closely for problems but at the same time was interested in what I was doing. I didn't know myself, but I knew what I wanted to do.

"Can I have a small favor?" I asked.

She looked me over for a moment, the way I looked at her and how I held her hand. Then she nodded, "Sure."

"Please, don't jump." I said as I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles.

She tensed at first, my request sounding odd, but that tension melted away as my lips brushed her skin.

I opened her palm and buried my nose in her loose fingers. Again, I inhaled and laid a small kiss on her soft skin. The warmth of her flesh felt so very good, and that was just her hand.

"Mr. Setton ... what ... what are you doing?" the nurse asked.

I looked up and caught the flutter of her eyes. I hadn't considered what affect I might have on her. I only knew that I felt better while touching her.

I let go of her hand and felt fresh waves of nausea and pain. Whatever I had been doing, had done more for me than the drugs the doctors had pumped into me.

The nurse's eyes snapped open. Her breathing had quickened and she looked at me like she had when she first came in. However, before she seemed skittish, now she was unsure. "Why did you stop?" she asked.

I swallowed, trying to wet my throat. "I thought you wanted me to."

She leaned forward, almost touching her nose to mine. Her eyes filled my vision and in them was something familiar. I heard a quiet clap of her clipboard falling to the floor and then she laid the arm of the same hand I had been kissing across my cheek. "I know I shouldn't, but I've never felt so ... so..." The she pushed her face to mine and kissed me.

That same warmth I had enjoyed in her hand filled me from her lips. I wondered briefly if my Charm might have had something to do with her actions, but was too weak to notice my internal grip on it. She was being careful though, not the complete animal that I had seen when my Charm had first manifested. It might have been a fantasy of hers, taking care of a patient like this. I wasn't sure I was up to the task, but the more we kissed the better I felt. Was something else going on?

She pulled back from the kiss and licked her lips. She touched me differently than she had before, it was more direct and deliberate. Then she took my hand and put it on her face. I could feel her skin, warm and inviting. She was young but still had a few years on me. There was also something else there. Something I couldn't see. Something about her face felt ... wrong. I started to ask, but she leaned forward and quieted me with her kisses.

With her hand on the back of mine, she guided my touch down, along her jaw line, along her neck, over the collar of her blouse and to the small mound of her breast. She squeezed my hand around her and looked up to see my reaction to what she was doing. I was curious, certainly, but with her uniform still on it wasn't the same. Touching her skin felt good. Touching her through the material didn't have the same affect.

She leaned down to kiss me again. Leaning on one arm with which she cradled my head, and using the other to help me to fondle her. Her kisses were making me feel better, but the idea of touching her was getting a bigger response.

The nurse must have noticed the shifting of the blanket that covered me as I became aroused. No part of her body was close to my crotch. When she sat up and looked down by body, it was obvious what was happening. She looked back into my eyes with a bit of shock, and then back to my swelling still covered by the blanket.

Continuing to hold my hand to her breast, she reached down and lightly ran her fingertips along my length. In the silence I could hear her. "Whoa..."

Being a nurse, I was certain she had seen plenty of penises before. Still, being drawn to a patient who is as well endowed as I was would probably be a different experience all together.

With more abandon, she wrapped her fingers around my girth and squeezed me gently. That felt good. Not as good as touching her skin directly, but better than feeling her through her uniform. A quiet moan escaped me.

The nurse looked back up at my face. By the look on her face she was probably expecting me to be in pain, but that wasn't what I felt. Most of my pain was gone. Replaced by building tension and need for this lovely woman to do more than touch me through the blanket.

I looked back at her with a steady gaze. I wanted her to pull away my blankets, uncover me and wrap her lips around the part of me she gently squeezed. More than touching her skin, more than her kisses, more than her scent, I wanted it.

She stood up, letting go of me, and pulled away my blankets. The night gown they put me in offered no resistance as she pulled it up from my legs and exposed my hardened flesh.

For a moment she stood there looking over the rigid pole lying on my belly. I wondered if she would do what I had wanted. I watched, waiting. She looked me up and down, several times looking up into my eyes as if to confirm that she was looking at a human and not some hybrid of man and animal.

Holding her gaze with my own, I took her hand and placed it on my throbbing flesh. With a nod, she looked down and began stroking me.

It only took her thirty seconds to bring me off. Regardless, I felt better. Much better. The nurse got some paper towels and began cleaning both of us, however, I was more interested in getting messier.

Taking a hold of her wrist and pulling her to me, I kissed her. There wasn't any resistance. If anything, she seemed eager for it and laid into me, forgetting about the mess.

Her previous kisses had been little, light pecks. Now she dove into me, trying to devour me at the mouth. Her energy made me feel better, more vibrant. I pulled her to me, trying to get her to climb up onto the bed.

Finally, she offered some resistance and pulled away from the kiss. "I ... No ... I can't. I want to but I can't."

I lay back, feeling good but somehow knowing that it wouldn't last. I needed sex. Why? I wasn't exactly sure, but it seemed like my abilities were influencing me. If I felt so much better after a kiss and hand-job, how much closer to being healed would I be after a good fuck?

I took the nurse's hand. She continued to shake her head in cute little movements. Something about her still troubled me, but I could see past that to the woman standing before me. Through our contact I shared memories with her. I let her see what I could do and why I believed I needed the sex. At the same time, in that same instance, I knew why she was resisting me.

Nurse Anna Geyer had been working at County General in Charleston, West Virginia for about a year. Her last intern was cut short when one of the patients filed a complaint saying that she was molesting him. The truth was the guy wanted bedside treatment like I had already gotten but she had refused. He filed the complaint and the following investigation proved nothing one way or another. It was his word against hers. Though she was technically in no trouble, the hospital chose to help her find somewhere else to work.

Loving her job, helping people through injuries and accidents helped Anna make it through that low point in her otherwise spotless career. Seeing me through her eyes, I knew she wanted to help me recover, just like every other patient she had ever attended. However, sex was not a means to that end. Sex was usually a sign of the patient having recovered, not a way to help the patient recover. Even though every fiber of her being wanted to climb into bed with me and do the dirty, hospital staff finding out or not, she fought it.