“Please, Niccolo. You’ve lost so much blood… At least pull over so we can try and staunch the bleeding.”
“I’m not stopping this car for anything until we leave the city.”
“What good will you be at fighting off the Espositos if you’re dead from blood loss?”
“I’m not going to die, so quit the theatrics.”
“But…”
“Georgia, that’s enough,” he warned through gritted teeth. “I need to concentrate, so do me a favour and keep a lid on your guilt until we get to safety.”
To his relief, she quietened, verbally at least. Instead of speaking, she fidgeted, her elbows poking out and moving as if in a dance.
Niccolo kept his attention focused on the road before him and the car’s mirrors.
It had been many years since he’d driven himself through London, but it wasn’t navigation he needed to concentrate on; it was all the other road users. He was confident that if they got a tail, he’d be able to shake them off, but first he needed to be able to identify any tail. Preferably while they were still in the capital. It would be easier to lose any chasing thugs on the streets he’d spent his university years exploring than in the unfamiliar countryside.
Now that he was fully in tune with the burning wound above his right hip, he could appreciate Georgia’s panic that he needed medical assistance, but there wasn’t time. He needed to get them to safety.
So intense was his concentration that he paid no attention to Georgia’s continued shuffling and fidgeting, not until she said, “Lean forward a little, and I’ll wrap my shirt around you to stem the blood flow.”
A quick side-eye revealed she’d removed the emerald-green shirt she’d been wearing and that all she now wore from the waist up was a lacy pale-blue bra.
His already overworked heart slammed into his ribs.
Dio, he’d forgotten how incredible her breasts were, as succulent and as voluptuous as the rest of her incredible body. An unbidden memory floated into his mind of a time she’d fed a rose-red nipple into his mouth and demanded that he suck it. She’d thrown her head back, he remembered. Her long white-blonde hair had cascaded down her back as she’d dragged her nails through his hair and ridden his cock with loud moans…
He hastily moved his stare back in front of him and blinked hard to clear the memory.
“Unless you want to pass out through blood loss, lean forward,” the woman who’d melted with her passion for him now snapped.
Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, Niccolo did as commanded, wincing at the lance of pain from the small movement.
He heard the click of a seatbelt as Georgia freed herself to get closer… how she’d removed the shirt with the seatbelt on was anyone’s guess… and twisted in her seat to face him.
He held his breath.
Georgia thought it was just as well that Niccolo’s car was Italian rather than English. His being to the left of her meant she’d be able to actually see the wound.
She didn’t want to see it, though. She felt sick to the pit of her stomach at what she’d done to him.
She wanted to plead that she hadn’t meant to do it. She hadn’t known it was him. Hadn’t even realised she’d stabbed him, had no memory of the knife in her hand meeting his flesh.
“Try and keep still,” she whispered. Pinching the hem of the blood-soaked shirt, she gently lifted it.
Bile rose up her throat. There was enough light pouring in the car from the streets for her to see the two-inch gash above his hip bone. At least, she thought it was two inches long. There was too much blood to tell for certain.
Niccolo’s blood.
More bile rose.
How long had it been since she’d stabbed him? Thirty minutes? An hour? How long did it take for someone to bleed out?
To think she’d kicked him while he was suffering this wound. And bit him. Oh, and hit him over the head with a vase.
With a deep wave of shame engulfing her, Georgia rolled the shirt as thickly and as compactly as she could, then slid it behind his back and used her free hand to loop it around his waist.
“Grit your teeth,” she warned shakily before pressing the shirt to the wound and holding it firm with her palm. A few inches to the right of the gash, she used all her strength to tie the ends of the shirt into a tight knot.
