Page 51 of Strangers in Love

Naked.

As he turned, I gasped. His eyes narrowed, but I only saw that peripherally because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the fist-sized bruise on his chest.

“What?”

The sharp tone of his voice startled me enough to break my gaze. “That bruise. Is that where…?”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “Bulletproof vests can stop a bullet, but it still leaves a hell of a mark.”

Since he knew I’d already looked, I indulged in my curiosity. All over his torso were various scars, with too many different sizes and shapes for me to figure out what they might be from. Then I saw that he had a band-aid on one arm, but it wasn’t the arm I’d seen blood on earlier. There was no bandage on that arm, but it did bear an ugly-looking wound.

“You need to go to the hospital,” I said, moving forward with my eyes fixed on it.

“It’s fine,” he said gruffly. “I glued it.”

I must’ve misheard. “You did what?” I looked up in time to see a hint of a smile.

“Superglue,” he explained. “Even ER doctors use it sometimes.”

“Won’t it scar if you don’t get stitches?”

And just like that, his expression hardened. It was only then that I thought of the scar on his face. I’d noticed it, of course. It ran from his left temple all the way down his cheek to just under his mouth, impossible to miss. Except it hadn’t seemed that important when I’d first seen it. Just a part of him like his rust-colored hair and vivid green eyes. Or the way his lips were twisting now that he thought I was fixating on it.

He was waiting, I realized suddenly. He was waiting for me to react, and I didn’t know which reaction would be best, so I just smiled and transitioned the conversation elsewhere.

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t want to go to the hospital or have me play seamstress, then you should eat. There’s plenty left.”

He stared at me for a moment before saying, “Let me get dressed first.”

And then he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me to wonder about this strange, fluttery feeling in my stomach. Because it couldn’t be attraction. Not here, not like this. Not with this clearly complicated man.

Thirty-Six

Eoin

Once I closedthe bathroom door again, I leaned back against it, my mind racing. What thefuckwas all that about?

First, she yelled at me, which was actually sort of cute, especially when I explained what I’d done, and she got all flustered. Then, she’d blushed all of a sudden, and it’d taken me a minute to figure out why. I’d always been good at reading people, but even a complete idiot would’ve been able to tell she was embarrassed…and turned on.

I’d let myself enjoy the moment, and then she’d gasped. At first, I’d remembered that I didn’t look the same without my shirt as I had eight months ago, and I’d assumed that she’d been reacting to my scars. Instead, she’d been staring at the bruise I’d just gotten.

I’d seen her hand move. Just a little. Something she probably even hadn’t been aware of. She’d almost reached out like she’d wanted to touch me.

And then it’d all gone to hell when she’d said the thing about me needing stitches to avoid scarring. Everything I’d been enjoying about this little flirtation had vanished. I didn’t need to be reminded that another scar was the last thing I needed. I’d never thought of myself as vain until recently, and her comment had just driven home the fact that a woman like her would always be put off by how I looked.

Except I could’ve sworn I’d seen surprise in her eyes when she’d looked at my face, almost like she hadn’t noticed the scar there before. After everything she’d been through, it wasn’t really that surprising that she hadn’t paid close attention to much about me, but an annoying little voice said that maybe it hadn’t been shock. That maybe she’d just taken it in the same way she had my other features. That her embarrassment had been because she really hadn’t thought about it rather than any sort of impoliteness. And she hadn’t asked what’d happened.

I tossed the towel in the corner with everything else and pulled on the sweatpants and t-shirt I’d grabbed. Since I didn’t usually wear underwear when I slept, I hadn’t thought to grab any. I’d been thinking too much about covering up my torso. I wasn’t about to go back out for them, though. Things were already awkward enough.

I shouldn’t have been alone with her in a hotel room tonight. We’d planned to meet in the alley where we’d all change clothes, and then Cain and Fever would have taken Aline to the plane while Bruce, Dez, and I went back to the hotel. We’d make some excuse about how our two buddies had done something stupid, and we’d been ‘asked’ to leave Iran immediately. We’d get our shit, check out, and then head back to the plane.

Of course, we’d had a back-up plan in case anyone had missed the meet at the alley. If two people arrived to take Aline to the plane, then those two, whoever they were, would get her onboard while the rest of us retreated back to the hotel as we were able. The only way we’d planned to bring Aline to the hotel would’ve been if only one of us had made it to the alley.

It would’ve been too far to go to the plane from there with just one of us to guard her. Everyone else would’ve then come back to the hotel, and we’d have pretended we’d bought a hooker for us all to enjoy. One of us would’ve taken her down in the morning to ‘get her a cab’ while the rest checked out. Then we’d have all gone to the airport together.

What we hadn’t planned on, however, was only one of us being in the hotel all night. If we’d had to be here with her, we would’ve taken shifts to make sure no one pieced together the arrival of a group of American men and the rescue of an American citizen. Now, if the kidnappers came after us, I’d be the only one protecting her.

The thought made my blood run cold, effectively killing the heat from those few charged moments when she’d been looking at me. I couldn’t think of her as anything other than a person who needed protecting. No matter how much my mind wanted me to remember what I’d been doing only a few minutes ago when I definitelyhadn’tbeen thinking of her as just someone to protect.

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