Page 13 of Carry Me Home
Hell, no. I was not going out like this.
I flicked his forehead.
“Jack.”Flick.“Wake.”Flick. “The fuck.”Flick. “Up.”
“Turtle—” His blue eyes popped open, boring into mine right as I gave one final, hard flick between his eyebrows. He blinked rapidly. “Janie?”
“Can’t—breathe—” I gasped.
In an instant, his hand was off my neck and his weight lifted from my body as he rolled to his back. I gulped in air. My lungs burned. My throat felt like I had swallowed a sword. And Jack—I twisted my neck to squint at him in the dim light.
Jack looked as shocked as I felt.
I rolled onto my side to face him. “Are you okay?” I asked softly.
He barked out a short, angry laugh. “No.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you okay?”
I breathed again. My lungs felt fine. My heartrate was still elevated, but it was slowing down. I swallowed. My throat still hurt, but even that had lessened. “I’m okay. I think you might have left bruises, though.”
He jackknifed into a sitting position. “Let’s get you to a doctor.”
“A doctor? Where do you think we are, Denver? The closest hospital is forty minutes from here.” I grabbed his bicep—mygod, it was aboulder—and tugged him back down. After a brief hesitation, he allowed it. “I’mfine,” I insisted.
“People keep using that word,” he muttered. “I don’t think it means what they think it means.”
I laughed. It only hurt a little. “You’re fine, too. Things can’t be that bad if you can still quoteThePrincess Bride.”
He scoffed. “Janie, I amnotfine.”
I looked at him. At the purple shadows under his eyes and the deep groove between his eyebrows. I wanted to press my thumb there and smooth his worry away. “I know,” I said softly.
I wiggled across the bed until there was only an inch or two of space between us. His gaze flicked down to me, his eyes dark as they studied me. With a sigh, he lifted one arm, curled it around me, and dragged me the rest of the way. “Come here,” he said gruffly.
I curved my body against his, resting my cheek on his chest. “You said something about a turtle. Was that…a code name or something? A person? Was that how you got this?” My hand drifted to the scar at his shoulder. The one that ended his career and sent him home.
“Not a code name. Not anything to do with my shoulder.” He twitched under my fingers. “My shoulder…that was a rescue mission that didn’t go as planned. My team made it out alive with the hostage, though, and that’s what matters.”
“I’m sorry.” He’d dodged the actual question. Whatever the turtle meant to him, he wasn’t going to talk about it. I didn’t push. Given his line of work, maybe he wasn’tallowedto talk about it. “And I’m sorry for flicking you.”
A low laugh rumbled near my ear. “I’d say that was the least I deserved.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” I meant that.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he conceded. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not my responsibility.”
I craned my neck to look up at him. His lips were pressed in a grim line, the muscle in his cheek popping like he was grinding his molars. I had a feeling that responsibility wasn’t something this man took lightly. Jack Price wore responsibility and duty like a teenage boy trying cologne for the first time, dousing his body with more because he couldn’t smell it on himself.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” I asked, my voice wary because Jack struck me as the sort that believed responsibility came with action, and I really didn’t want to leave this bed.
“Get you a glass of water.”
There was barely a second between the words leaving his lips and Jack leaving my bed, his large palm gently guiding my cheek off his chest to soften the landing. He padded across the room to the kitchenette: a sink, a small fridge, a microwave, and three cabinets hanging above the countertop. If he noticed the bare-bones layout of the place, he kept it to himself.
I propped myself up on my elbows and enjoyed the view while he located a glass from the cabinet and turned on the tap. God, that ass. I wanted to bite it like an apple. Scars peppered his skin, but that only added to the appeal.
Then he turned around and that was even better. He wasn’t even hard and it just…looked likethat. Long and thick and so pretty that my fingertips itched with the need to sketch him.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the glass from him. He watched while I took three grateful gulps in a row, his forehead knitted in a frown. The cool water soothed the rough, scratchy feeling.
