Page 13 of The Stolen Princess
“Blood,” Drake laughed. “I meant, does thebloodmake you uncomfortable?”
Oh.
She shrugged again. “No, it’s fine.” Maybe he was going to skip right over the wholenakedthing, or maybe she should explain. “Half-naked was what I meant to say. I don’t usually say the wordnaked.”
Except that in the last ten seconds, she had said it a hundred times.
He leaned back, making it easier for her to breathe. Her focus went to the wound again.
Nurse Myka was on the clock.
She rubbed the last of the cream into the deepest part of the gash, making Drake wince.
“I’m sorry I shot you,” she said as she met his gaze once again.
“I’ll probably never forgive you,” he said but there was a playful edge to his tone.
“Then I take back my apology.”
“You can’t take it back. I already heard you say it.”
She frowned. “Well, I don’t mean it then.”
“I never thought you did.”
“It’s not like I shot you to get you to ask me out on a date,” she said with an air of arrogance. “I shot you because you were annoying, and you’restillbeing annoying.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his mouth twist into an almost smile. “Adate? Is that a pre-Desolation term for courting?”
She pressed a bandage over the wound as she spoke. “Yes, but I think it was morefun and relaxed than courting. Back then, people would go places together so that they could get to know each other better. I read about it in a magazine article—actually half an article, because one of the pages was missing.”
“And where did you find a pre-Desolation magazine?”
Right.
Myka couldn’t come out and say that she read it in the artifact room at Tolsten House.
She waved her hand in the air, trying to come off as casual. “You know, pre-Desolation artifacts are everywhere.” Drake nodded slowly like maybe he believed her, so she continued. “The article was about some guy namedBachelor. It was his job or something to take different women out on dates.”
He quirked his lips upward. “Sounds like my kind of job.”
Myka rolled her eyes.
“What?” Drake asked, flashing his heart-stopping smile.
“Ugh. Are you one of those men that has a million girlfriends?”
He leaned forward. “Is that a bad thing?”
“It is for the girls,” she muttered.
“I’m up front with every woman that Idate. They know I’m not looking for anything serious, and they’re fine with it.”
“They aren’t fine with it.”
“They say they are.”
“They’re lying,” she said, tilting her head.
