Page 21 of Gunner

“More like, I doubt this is your first rodeo being the one on the other side of the gun.”

On either side, it wouldn’t be my first time.

“I’m going to have to stitch you up.”

She finishes cleaning me up, dropping the soiled cotton into the garbage can by my feet. Her floor is a pink puddle. A stain. Just like me. On her life.

She takes out a little pack from her kit and tears it open. Holding up the threaded needle she says, “I’m sorry. Ideally, I’d want to numb you up, but I don’t have any lidocaine and using a topical gel will irritate the wound.”

I shrug, “It’s not the first time I’ve been sutured without anesthetic.”

Her hands are gentle, but firm on my shoulder. The first stick of it in my jagged flesh makes me inhale hard. It makes my cock so much harder. It punches against my jeans. It’s not the pain that’s doing it. It’s how close Diletta is. How she’s focused entirely on fixing me. The heat of her coming through her gloves.

She’s too fixated on the wound to notice. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry.”

I grunt.

“You’ve been through worse. I get that too.”

She punctures that needle through my flesh again and again and each time, I feel the echo of that pinch in my dick. I’m so stiff that it’s painful.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

When she’s done stitching me, she grabs a towel off the rack and sets it on my lap, right over the bulge of my erection. If she notices, I’ll die, but she’s back to my wound in an instant, bandaging it up.

“You need to see a surgeon for this, or at least a doctor. I don’t think the bullet hit the bone, but if it caught it, you might have bone fragments and there’s a risk they could nick an artery. I’m not saying that to scare you, but so you’ll take this seriously. You’ll also need to monitor it for infection, I don’t have any antibiotics otherwise I’d give you a prophylactic dose.” She stands back, hands on her hips, so sassy that I’m relieved the towel is in a lump in front of me, hiding my raging hard-on. “Please tell me that whoever did this to you was just some punk kid who’s regretting his actions right now, and not an enemy that I really don’t want to get up close and personal with by you bringing them right to my door.”

Her speaking my greatest fear chokes me. Bile craws up my throat. I could be sick again, all over her floor. It would only add to the mess I’ve made, so I swallow convulsively a few times.

“Some punk,” I manage. Tonight, it was. “Club business.”

She cleans up the kit, checks the IV, then strips off her gloves. “Take off those wet clothes, get the towel on, and come to the bedroom. I want you lying down and warm while that IV finishes hydrating you. I’ll get something set up over the bed for it.”

I gape at her, and she blinks back when she catches me staring.

“What? I know you know where everything is.” She shakes her head like she can’t believe that now I’m on the inside and she’s the one who brought me here. “You came to me. I’m going to make sure that you stay alive until someone gets here to pick your ass up. If you die on me, I won’t forgive you for scarring me for life.”

She leaves, shutting the door behind her like my privacy means anything.

The tremors start as I kick off my soiled boots and get out of my jeans. Trying to peel off the wet denim wrenches my shoulder, which is already screaming at me. The IV line tugs at my skin. I want to rip it out, but I resist, knowing how pissed Diletta would be. I’m shaking violently by the time I get the towel wrapped around my waist.

I don’t even recognize myself right now. Weak, pathetic, here.

I keep my wet boxers on and secure the towel at my waist. It’s dwarfed on me, more like a loincloth than a bath sheet. I don’t have to worry about boner problems any longer. I probably don’t have enough blood flow to sustain it.

Diletta is outside waiting when I open the door. She deftly gets the IV bag down and stares at me in that clinical way that nurses have that says she’s going to stand for zero fuckery. I have no choice but to head to her bedroom.

Her bed.

She’s peeled back the covers. She was just sleeping there an hour ago. Her scent clings to the sheets, the pillows. Shampoo. Perfume. Laundry soap. Her clean, perfect skin.

“Get in.”

“Di—” I never nearly slip up. Something wary flashes in her eyes and her lips part, but I quickly recover. “Do you think that’s wise? I’ll bleed on everything.”

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