“Nope. Rusty Eyes intervened, preventing Dick’s release from captivity.”
“Bastard got what he deserved then.”
Gray shrugged.
“That’s why you owed him one? The guy you drove off the road?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re even?”
“Guess so.”
The pressure on her head disappeared, but the body between her legs stayed. She slumped against the wall and dozed. Not for long. Chase pulled her back into consciousness when he pulled her butt forward on the counter.
Persistent fucker.
“It’s not time to sleep yet. Anything else hurt?” He tickled his fingers over her skin, along her collarbones, down her arms, and across her ribs. “Christ. You’re going to be a mass of bruises.”
No shit.
“Wake up, Gray. Tell me where you’re hurt.”
There it was. The clipped words, the demanding tone, and the steel-coated stop-messing-around voice. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve been borderline psychotic in her response. Lucky for him, she wasn’t firing on all cylinders. “Sore right shoulder. Bruised left hip. You already know about the ankle.”
“Let’s have a look.” He swept her heavy hair over her left shoulder, and she let her head fall with the weight until it met a solid object. Although, the solid object flexed in tandem with the limbs attached to it.
Nose pressed against his chest, her brain coasted, then registered an odd little tidbit. Chase smelled nice, like fresh air with a hint of pine and an underlying odor of male musk. He smelled like a man—a really big, rock-solid man—with capable hands.
He manipulated her arm, fingers pressing into her shoulder joint. “Looks like a pulled muscle. The bruise here is a couple of days old. You collect them on purpose?”
Gray snorted, more in hopes of getting his scent out of her nose than in response to his jab.
“How’d you get this one?” He traced the outline of a lopsided circle before he sat her up and away from him.
“Fell out of bed.”
His hands stilled on the waistband of her yoga pants.
She cracked one eye open and discovered his intense black peepers staring at her from under drawn brows and his full lips pressed together. She shrugged with the bruised shoulder in question. “What? Shit happens.”
Not the least bit amused, he shook his head. “Lean back and lift your ass.” Too tired to argue, her eye sealed shut, and she did as told.
He yanked her pants down, stripping them off her legs in one fluid motion.
Thank God she wasn’t flying commando.
His sharp intake of breath had her fully alert in seconds, but before she could stop him, his fingers made contact with the bruise on her hip, and her brain went into full-on spasm mode.
Two thousand volts of holy fuck coursed through her pain receptors faster than a lightning strike. “Stop!” she cried, wide awake now and seeing stars.
Capturing his hand, she pulled it away. Tears shimmered, on the brink and ready to fall, causing her vision to fraction and multiple Chases to appear.
“My God, Gray,” they said.
Chase clampeddown on his rage as he stared at Gray’s hip. She had a large mass of deep red and dark purple blood pooled under her skin. Where her thighbones met her pelvis, more bruises took on the distinct pattern of her climbing harness. The results of the swan dive branded in her skin.
“No!” Gray shoved hard at his chest, her body torquing to get by his. Where moments ago, she’d been half naked and half asleep, now she was stripped to her underwear, wide awake, and in fight mode.
