Page 18 of Twisted Secrets
He carefully moved his head from side to side. As expected, the bandages were a good fit and not going anywhere. Cillian looked at Olivia—really looked at her—for the first time since the attack. She wasn’t exactly dragging ass, but she looked as exhausted as he felt. If it hadn’t been for him, she already would have been home and safe and probably asleep.
Way to go, asshole. If you hadn’t been wandering the streets, this never would have happened.
He carefully stretched. The aches and pains were more annoying than worrisome. “I can make ithome on my own.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s late—or early, depending on your definition. I’ll get you a hotel nearby and stay with you until morning.”
“Sure. Thanks.” Under different circumstances, he would have been happier than hell at this turn of events. As it was, he didn’t have the strength to make a move even if she was willing. He was pretty sure pity was her sole motivation for helping him, rather than being so overwhelmed with his sexuality that she couldn’t wait to get him alone.You are seriously knocking it out of the park with this woman.
***
This was a mistake. An epic mistake. Olivia should have just called him a cab and sent Cillian on his way. Instead here she was, checking them both into Beacon Hill Hotel while he leaned heavily on the counter next to her. Its nightly rate wasn’t one she could afford, but it was the only hotel within walking distance.
Even though the night had cooled down to being nearly pleasant, she hadn’t enjoyed one second of that walk. She kept flinching at every little sound, half-sure that the guys she’d scared off had come back to finish the job. Or, worse in some ways, that Sergei would melt out of the shadows and demand to know what the hell she was doing with Cillian O’Malley on her arm.
Maybe she should have just called the damn cab and sent Cillian home, but as stupid as it was, she couldn’t help feeling kind of responsible for him. There was an old legend in a book that she’d read about as a kid that said if you saved another person’slife, you became responsible for it. She’d found the idea tragically romantic as a little girl.
Now? Now she was starting to think it was a giant pain in the ass. She had enough to worry about. She didn’t need some O’Malley with more charm than sense mucking around in her life.
He offered to leave multiple times and you ignored him.
So what? That doesn’t mean I want this.
It doesn’t mean you don’t.
She cursed under her breath as the front desk agent passed over the hotel keys, very carefully avoiding looking directly at Cillian. Their room was on the second floor, so she slid under Cillian’s arm to support him—not that he asked for it—to get him into the elevator and up to their door. He didn’t say anything as she unlocked it and pushed it open. She stopped short when she caught sight of the single bed. “Damn it. I asked for a double.”
“I’ll call the front desk.” He started to move toward the phone, but she grabbed his arm and steered him toward the bed.
“It’s fine. I wasn’t going to sleep anyway.” Even though she was so tired, she was pretty sure she was weaving on her feet more than he was. Dealing with Sergei yesterday and then Cillian and those thugs and then Doc Jones on top of everything…
It was a lot. A whole hell of a lot.
She sat down next to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like some asshole took a two-by-four to the side of my head.”
“No, really?” She rolled her eyes. “Are you still dizzy? Nauseous?”
He started unbuttoning his shirt. “Justfucking tired.”
“What are you doing?” She had to fight against the urge to slap his hands away and clutch the shirt together to hide the growing slice of skin on his chest the parting fabric revealed.
He didn’t stop. “I’m covered in blood and feel like absolute shit. I can’t do a damn thing about how I feel, but I can get this shirt off.” He gingerly shrugged out of it, and then cursed when the dried blood made the fabric stick to his skin.
Olivia moved to help him, trying not to notice how freakinggoodhe looked without a shirt on. The tattoos on his neck wound down, connecting with his sleeves and a giant mural over his left side, the ink only serving to accent a body that would have made her stop and take notice under any circumstances. Her fingers trailed down his chest as she finished unbuttoning his shirt, his skin almost hot to the touch. It was so strange that he’d been inside her but she hadn’t touched him like this. She stopped when his stomach tensed beneath her touch. “Am I hurting you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
She made herself stop stroking him and rocked back on her heels. “Right. Okay.” The tattoos created such a strange contrast—the pretty boy and the multitude of artwork inked into his skin—that she wasn’t sure what to think of him.
Hell, she hadn’t been sure what to think of him from the start. Nothing he did was on par with what she expected. It was enough to make her head spin.
She pushed to her feet, needing some distance between them since the whole of a king-sized bed wasn’t anywhere near enough. “Let me wet a washcloth and we’ll see about cleaning you up, since a shower is out of the question.” Doc Jones hadn’t explicitly said that, but getting the bandages wet seemed like apretty dumb idea.
“A sponge bath? Careful there, sweetheart—keep acting like that and I might actually start to think you like me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She couldn’t help a small smile as she ran the water until it was warm, and then wet the cloth. But her humor faded as she came back into the room, faced again with all that skin.Just do it. Nurses do it all the time and it’s not weird. Sure, but she wasn’t a nurse. She was a bartender who was having uncomfortable thoughts about a man who was injured.
