Page 30 of Dangerous Devotion

I swallow hard and assess the location. It’s low enough it would have missed his spleen but it’s definitely more than a quarter inch deep, which means stitches and antibiotic cream if our luck holds. If he takes an infection or it somehow nicked a kidney, we’re screwed.

I clean the cut, wash away the dried blood and sponge off the surrounding skin. There’s so much blood. I have to focus on the steps I need to follow to clean and suture this to prevent infection. All I can think is, Jack’s bleeding. Jack’s bleeding. My baby’s father is bleeding. It echoes through me with every pounding heartbeat.

My hands have a tremor in them, and I remember the ethics unit on how we shouldn’t be assigned to care for people we love. Our clinical objectivity is compromised, that was the main point of the chapter. I can see that now, because any rational thought is shot to hell knowing the man I’ll be stitching up is the same man who braces his weight on his forearms and licks into my mouth to swallow my cries when he makes me come. I pause and look at his face, the clenched jaw and brows drawn low, the hiss of breath between his teeth when he tries not to swear or moan from the pain of this stab wound.

I hold down pressure really hard on the wound, resist the urge to check every few seconds to see if it’s slowed or stopped yet. It seems like forever, and Foz switches out my compress when it’s saturated with bright red blood. After probably ten minutes, I lift the second compress off and see that it’s slowed to a seep. Relief seems to grab me by the throat and shake me in its jaws. He isn’t bleeding to death. That’s progress. I clear my throat and get to work.

I sink the needle into his skin, puckering the flesh together at the end of the gash, and I draw the stitch taut. I repeat this motion again and again. Sweat runs down in my eyes and I remind myself to breathe because I keep holding my breath and biting my tongue.

“Puncture wounds normally heal just fine as long as they’re kept clean and treated with antibiotic ointment,” I say, more for my benefit than for his.

“You need me to finish?” Foz offers. I shake my head.

“I can do this, thanks,” I say. “Thanks for your help.” I’m dismissing him because I want to be alone with Jack.

I glance at Foz pointedly and give him a nod. He discards his gloves and goes back out to the bar. I can see he wants to argue with me, think he should stay, but I’m his boss’s woman. That gives me the authority to send him away. He trusts me, I realize, or he would defy me no matter who the hell I thought I was.

“I loved you the first day you walked in here,” Jack rasps, his hand reaching for me but not quite making it. “I’m sorry ‘bout this.”

“It’s what I got paid for,” I say, and I mean it to be a joke, but I’m crying. I finish up the stitches and give him an antibiotic shot.

His eyes drift shut. I clean up the mess, the towels, the pieces of his bloody shirt on the floor, and stuff them in a trash bag. I wash my hands and blow my nose, try to stop crying and straighten up. Instead, I shut my eyes and grip the sink hard, make myself take deep breaths. Then I turn and throw up in the toilet, gagging and retching like all the terror in my body has to escape.

I rinse my mouth and try to quiet the choking sobs that won’t seem to stop.

He's sitting up on the desk when I come out of the bathroom. His face is tight with pain, but he’s more alert than he was before. “Come here, baby,” he says, “You’re a lifesaver, you know that? I mean it. Now get over here and don’t get spooked over this.”

“Spooked?” I say incredulously. “Like fear isn’t a valid response to seeing you with a three-inch puncture wound to your left abdomen?”

“You know what I mean. It wasn’t a big deal. You stitched me right up. I appreciate it, by the way. Not exactly what you thought you’d get when I asked you out for a meal.” He gives a dry laugh.

“Jack,” I say sadly, going over to him. He touches my cheek, the barest brush of his thumb across my cheekbone, his molten dark eyes on mine.

“Don’t leave me over this, Serena,” he says. “I don’t want to lose you, but especially not over some stupid mistake. I know what you’re gonna say—I should have got the cut seen to instead of trying to go to the diner and pass it off as fine. And you’re right, I should have.”

I wait for him to finish, but my mouth is dry, my eyes are wet.

“You’re no coward, Serena. You marched in here with nothing but knowledge of your father’s debt and asked for a job. You’ve never had a shortage of nerve. Don’t let it fail you now. You’re tougher than one piece of bad luck. Hell, you’re tougher than anyone I ever met. We’ve got our office all to ourselves now. I think we should celebrate.”

“You’re really doing this,” I say, my voice flat and small. “You want to brush this off like it was nothing. Then you think I want to hook up on this desk after I just scrubbed your blood out from under my nails.”

I don’t even try to keep the anguish from my voice. I want him to hear it this time. I’m not playing the cool girl who can roll with the danger and be efficient and levelheaded in a crisis. I’m being real with him. I could have lost Jack tonight, and the only reason I didn’t was that I called Foz in to keep me from falling to pieces and crying all over my bleeding lover.

“Just because it wasn’t a full-fledged assassination doesn’t make it nothing, and it doesn’t make me dramatic because it scares the hell out of me!” I go on. “I can’t live like this.”

“Break it down for me then. How do you want to live?”

“Other than ‘in an imaginary world where you’re not in the freakin’ Mob?’ I guess I want to live the way I was before I met you. Working and saving tuition money and taking care of my dad. No dance lessons, no slipping into an elite club for a quickie in the middle of the day, no high stakes danger and desire game. I’m not built for this kind of life.”

“Stuff like this doesn’t happen than often since I’ve taken over. It was way worse when my dad was in charge,” he says, like that’s a ringing recommendation.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I say, voice rising. “I had your blood on my hands. It’s still all over me. When you kept losing consciousness, I thought I was going to go crazy. I wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding, and I was praying like I should’ve been struck by lightning for the bargains I offered to make with God to save your life. I can’t believe you did this to me. You are such an asshole!”

“For getting stabbed,” he says wryly.

“For making me fall for you.”

“Come here,” he says and reaches for me again. I shake my head. I know if I let him touch me, I’ll stay. I’ll do anything he says as soon as he gets his mouth on mine. I’ll tell him it’s all right and I’ll climb on the desk and strip off my top and let him suck my nipples while I ride him right there where I put pressure on his wound and sutured it. I’d be ashamed afterward, but I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t let him fuck me right then and there. I have to stay out of arm’s reach. It’s hard enough when I can hear his voice, how incredibly reasonable and convincing he sounds, how seductive.

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