Page 26 of Devilish

“Don’t argue,” I said. “You don’t need an infection.”I reached for the tweezers.

“You’re the boss.”

“Yes, I am,” I agreed, scanning his face and arms for a starting point. Deciding on the cut along his cheek, I lifted my hand and tried to keep it steady even though my nerves were frayed to hell. Even worse, though, was that I hadn’t exactly thought through how close I would be to Lucien or the way the proximity made my heart take a flying leap out of my chest. His dark eyes stayed on my face, watching me intently as I plucked the small shard of glass from the wound.

I glanced down, looking for something to drop it in. Without looking away from me, Lucien reached for a washcloth and spread it out along his palm.

“Thank you,” I said, letting the glass fall into his covered hand before going back for the next piece. It was a shame for anything to mar such an attractive face, but hopefully the cuts would all heal okay once I got them cleaned up.

“You’ve done this before,” Lucien murmured as I dipped a washcloth into the cup of water and gently began to rinse the cut.

I shrugged a shoulder. “Not really.”

“No? Not even for a clumsy little brother or sister?”

“I don’t have any siblings,” I said. “But even if I did, I wouldn’t have been around.”

The heat from Lucien’s stare was intense, but I didn’t dare look at him, keeping my eyes focused on the job at hand. “Because…?” he asked.

I swept the blood from Lucien’s cheek and picked the tweezers back up. “My parents kicked me out when I was fifteen. There was no one else to take care of besides myself.”

There was a slight tic in Lucien’s jaw at my confession, but his voice remained controlled when he said, “You were just a child.”

“Yeah, well. Even children have to grow up.”

Wow, had I really unloaded that on him when he’d just survived an explosion? My problems weren’t anything compared to that, and I snapped my mouth shut and scanned the other gashes on his face.

The one at his chin had a fragment stuck inside, and with the tips of my fingers, I tilted his head back for better access.

That was a mistake. A big one.

My heartbeat stuttered at the sight of his neck, so close and so vulnerable…and so damn sexy. The way the dark scruff at his jaw tapered down his neck and all that tanned skin… I couldn’t stop staring. My lips tingled, aching to brush up against him, to see what he felt like. Tasted like.

Lucien kept still as I trailed my fingers lightly down the side of his neck. There weren’t any marks on this side, and it felt safe to touch him there without causing any pain. I didn’t even realize what I was doing, though, not until I felt the way his pulse raced beneath my touch. The rapid beat contradicted his calm exterior, and I froze, wondering if I’d gone too far.

“Did you get them all?” Lucien said after a long, silent moment.

I jerked my hand back. “Um. Almost.” I refocused on removing the glass embedded into his chin, that one a little deeper than the others. To his credit, he didn’t flinch, not even when I grabbed one of the wet cloths and held it firmly against the wound to stanch the trickle of blood that started up again.

Concentrating hard, I didn’t notice that I was standing between Lucien’s spread thighs until my hip brushed up against the inside of his leg. My stomach flipped, but I didn’t dare move and bring his attention to it. I didn’t want him to move away, even though I knew I should.

After cleaning the marks on his face, I looked over each of them again, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. Then I reached up, brushing his hair back from where it had fallen down his forehead, and didn’t see any scrapes there.

“Much better, but you’ll still need some antiseptic, maybe even a Band-Aid for your chin.”

“It’ll be fine.”

When our eyes caught and held, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I fell headfirst into those dark depths, and I had to brace my hands against his shoulders to keep myself upright. But the moment I touched him, his injuries came flooding back in my mind, and I dropped my hold, hoping I hadn’t made anything worse.

Before I could back up, Lucien reached out, his hand flexing against my hip to still me.

“I’m okay,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “Nothing got me there.”

My shoulders relaxed, but looking down at his arms, I could still see glass reflecting the light.

I retrieved the tweezers, and when he started to lower his hand, I shook my head. “Hold still for me.”

It was just a happy coincidence that his arm was at the perfect angle while he was touching me. Obviously I wasn’t above using whatever I could for my benefit.

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