Page 48 of Deception & Desire

But I wasn’t about to pull over to patch it up. Not when the keen sting was the only thing reminding me to keep to the speed limit.

Going home crosses my mind. It would serve him right if I never showed up at the brownstone again.

I tell myself it’s my anger that tethers me to him. That the reason I pull up to the familiar building is because confrontation is always inevitable when I’m in this state. I’ve never shied away from this before; hiding away wouldn’t serve me now.

I tell myself it’s anger when I open the door and find him waiting at the bottom of the staircase, head in his hands. Dark blonde hair, entirely unkempt, falling over his chocolate eyes.

It has to be the anger. That’s the only reason my heart begins to race.

His head snaps up the second I walk in the door.

And oh, oh…the concern in his eyes would make a lesser woman swoon.

But there would be no need for his concern if he hadn’t intervened like that.

I wrestle off my jacket and kick off my boots and don’t bother lowering my voice. “You weren’t supposed to fucking be there.”

“You’re bleeding.”

His words catch me off guard, so I flounder a little as he reaches for my arm to examine my wound.

I shove him away. “You were supposed to stay here and monitor everything from afar. That’s what we agreed.”

“Come into the kitchen. I need to take a look at that.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“For God’s sake, Mia!” he finally snaps, towering over me in a display of assertiveness that I’m sure works very well to intimidate his little underlings. “Yell at me after you’ve stopped bleeding all over the carpet.”

He pulls firmly at my good arm and half drags me under the overhead light at the kitchen counter.

I try to ignore the fact that this is the first time he’s touched me in over a week. But his fingers bear the same calluses that clung to my skin in the throes of ecstasy, and it’s so, so hard to concentrate when it feels like he’s burning my wrist with his touch.

He disappears for a moment before coming back with a medical kit. I almost laugh at the sight of it: it’s huge and definitely war-zone grade, judging by the myriad of thick, slash-proof pouches inside of it.

We had the same one growing up.

“When did this happen?” he asks as he leans over my arm to inspect the damage.

I try not to hiss as he tugs gently at the tender skin. Under the harsh lighting, the long gash seems much deeper than I’d originally thought.

“Window,” I grit out. “I think the adrenaline masked the pain.”

“There still glass in it?”

I shrug as he pulls out a pair of tweezers and gets to work. The bleeding has begun to stem, but if I were being totally honest, I would tell him that I need stitches.

“Fuck,” I hiss as he applies a little too much pressure extracting a chip of glass.

Wordlessly, he withdraws and comes back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses before returning to my arm again.

I don’t bother with the glasses. I drink right from the bottle.

“I can’t believe you drove all the way back like this,” he mutters after a moment of silence.

“I can’t believe you shot that guy in the head.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “I will take you to a hospital,” he says it like it’s a threat.

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