Page 9 of Lonely Heart

My head jerked back in surprise. “You did? That was fast.”

His lips twitched. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I think you were in the shower for a while, so I had the time.”

“Sorry.”

Marco waved a hand in the air dismissively. “I don’t need an apology. As long as you’re feeling better, that’s all that matters to me.”

The more I was in this with him, the more I realized it might have been better it was Marco who was here with me and not one of my brothers. Because while I didn’t doubt that I’d feel safe with any one of them, that they’d all do whatever was necessary to protect me and make me feel safe, Marco brought a level of tranquility I wasn’t quite sure I would have gotten with Wyatt, Cooper, Tate, or even Liam.

Then again, that was just who Marco had always been. For all the years I’d known him, I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone else like him. He might have worked closely with Cooper, and they might have been best friends, but they couldn’t have been more different from one another.

Where my brother was generally irritable when it came to work, Marco seemed to never let anything bother him. It was like Cooper did the work because it was necessary; Marco appeared to do it for the challenge and the joy it brought him.

“Considering I don’t plan to leave here in this robe tomorrow morning, I should probably toss my things in the wash,” I reasoned, belatedly realizing he was no longer shirtless. “Wait. Where did you get that shirt?”

“I told you I had a couple of shirts in my truck.”

Hurt slashed through me. He’d left me alone when he promised he wasn’t going to leave. “So, you did leave?”

Marco shook his head and placed a hand on my elbow. “Not at all. I called down to the front desk to ask about the first-aid kit, and when Toby brought it up, I asked him if he’d mind running to my truck to grab the shirts for me. I have another one for you, so we can toss the one I gave you earlier in the wash with your clothes.”

If there was one thing that could be said about Marco, it was that as laidback as he typically was, he still knew how to get things done. “Let me grab the clothes.”

“I can do it for you,” he offered.

As kind as it was, my undergarments were in the pile. I wasn’t going to subject Marco to doing that on top of everything else he was already doing for me. “I appreciate that, but I can do it.”

Once I had the clothes in the washing machine, Marco approached with his spare T-shirt. “Did you want to put this on before I put some ointment on your cuts?”

If the shirt he was offering me now was anything like the one he’d given me when he had been cleaning my face in the bathroom, I could be confident he wasn’t going to get a free show. Marco was a big guy—both in height and bulk.

I took the shirt from him. “That’s probably a good idea.”

When I emerged from the bathroom a second time, this time wearing only Marco’s T-shirt, I made my way to where he was waiting on the edge of the bed with the first-aid kit. I sat down beside him, wondering if perhaps he felt any of the same nerves as I did. It was such an odd feeling, too, because I never felt nervous around Marco. Like my best friend, Ava, Marco had been an honorary member of my family from practically the first time he came around us.

If Marco did feel any sort of tension or anxiety now, he did an excellent job of concealing it, because he turned toward me and kept his eyes focused on the abrasions on my face. And as he applied the ointment to each of the cuts, all I could do was stare up and focus on him, on the things I’d always known were there but never took the time to appreciate. It was far better to focus on that than what could have happened if I hadn’t managed to save myself earlier.

Marco might have been like a member of my family, but if someone had been judging him based on his eyes alone, they might have believed we were blood relatives.

The Westwood family had bright blue eyes, my own shade sapphire. Marco’s were a deeper hue, a stunning midnight blue.

I had thick, dark hair. Marco’s was just as lush, but it was brown, the barest hints of blond peeking out if the light hit it at just the right angle. And he wore it just a bit longer everywhere, the top long enough to comb fingers through, and the back curling around his neck. Marco completed his look with a full beard. It wasn’t long or straggly; he maintained itwell. It accentuated his features and made him that much more handsome.

“You’ve got to breathe, Ivy.”

I hadn’t realized I’d stopped. As the flush of embarrassment crept over my skin, I focused on breathing again.

Eventually, Marco lowered his hands from my face and eyed his handiwork. “I think that should do it for now. Does it hurt?”

“It was stinging a bit before, but the ointment seems to be helping with that.”

“And the rest of you? Is there anything else that’s hurting?”

My pride,I thought.

“My muscles feel a bit fatigued, but I guess that’s to be expected. And there are the spots that have significant bruising already from where he grabbed me.”

I’d never known Marco to be an angry guy. He just never took things too seriously. But hearing the account of my injuries made his expression turn stony. His jaw clenched with the fury that swirled in his eyes. I braced myself for that rage to power forth, but Marco held it back. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t say.

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