Page 78 of Heartless

That was the last thing she said to him for over an hour as she cleaned his wounds, sewed him up, and bandaged what she could.

“You have some burns. I’ve put salve on them. A couple of places might blister, but the rest aren’t too bad.”

That was better than he’d figured. He knew there was blood, because he’d felt the warmth oozing down the part of his back he could still feel.

“How many stitches did it take?”

“Five on one, eight on another, three on another.”

“Frankenstein’s monster’s got nothing on me.”

The silence told him his little quip hadn’t landed well.

She stood and silently put away the gauze and bandages.

“Hold on,” he said. “We need to do you.”

“I need a shower first.”

“All right. But take your shirt off and let me see what we’re dealing with.”

She could refuse him. There was no way he could get off this bed and pull it off her. This was her choice.

Myriad emotions still gleaming in her eyes, she pulled the shirt over her head. She wore a tank top and a plain, no-frills bra, which she removed and dropped on the floor. Despite her fury and his pain, his never-ending desire for her surged through him like a geyser. If he lived to be a hundred, no matter how many other body parts stopped working, he didn’t doubt that she would still be able to turn him on.

There was a small cut just above her left breast that needed tending to, but it probably wouldn’t need stitches. She had another couple of jagged cuts on her shoulders and a large bruise on her midriff.

“Your ribs okay?”

“Yes. They’re bruised, but nothing more.”

“Turn around.”

The look she gave him then told him she wasn’t as immune to this as she would like him to think. She had stripped for him multiple times. Each time had always led to hours of pleasure. Even though this wouldn’t be one of those times, the memories had both of them thinking of hot, sweaty nights and the sweetest, most intense pleasure that existed on this earth.

She turned, and he caught his breath. She had a couple of second-degree burns on her shoulder, a nasty, jagged cut on her lower back, and a vicious-looking bruise on her right side.

“We’ll need to treat those burns.”

“Yeah, I figured. A cold shower will help.”

“The bruise from when I tackled you?”

“Probably.”

He was surprised it wasn’t worse. He’d slammed into her hard to protect her from the blast.

She stood still for several more seconds and then said, “I’ll go take a shower.”

Her shoulders were slumped, and he knew she was doing her best to keep it together. With Livvy, it had always been fury and then tears. The shower would soothe her physical pain, but he knew she needed those moments to deal with the conglomeration of emotions spiraling through her.

When the bathroom door closed, he closed his eyes and listened. Though the shower came on and he knew she was doing her best to stifle the sounds, he had no trouble hearing her sobs.

His Livvy was sometimes as predictable as the sunset. She had her quirks—her peccadilloes, she would call them—and a couple of nervous tics that he’d always found endearing. She chewed on her lip when she was deep in thought, which he thought was the sexiest thing ever. And she had an M&M’s addiction that came out only before a major operation. He knew if he checked her bag right now, it would have a family-sized bag of Peanut M&M’s right beside her extra ammo.

Those habits had—

A thought came to him, and his entire body jerked at the notion that ran through his mind. Iris Gates had had a small quirk, too. During their interview of her, she had bounced her right foot several times as if she’d had a cramp. It hadn’t registered at the time, but as he thought on it now, that gesture struck him as strange. There hadn’t been the slightest indication that she had been nervous. She’d been way too experienced and poised for that. Admittedly, if she had already determined she was going to kill herself, something like that could have made even the calmest, most coldhearted person nervous.

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