“I’ve got to do it,” I tell her, studying her as I lay back down.
“Is that so?” she snaps, standing up and gently places a pillow under my knees as she tucks me in.
“Yeah,” I answer simply, ignoring an inexplicable need to explain myself to this woman. “Will you lie down next to me?”
“Let me check your burns first,” she responds. Since they aren’t bothering me, I assume she wants to put a little space between us. “Are you in any pain?”
“Whatever I was on is wearing off, but I’ll survive,” I answer honestly and she lets out a little hum, almost like she disagrees with me.
“I managed to get you some human grade painkillers. Just a few so I need you to take it easy with them,” she tells me, and I suspect this isn’t the time to mention that I can get oxy anytime I want it, so I stay quiet as she gathers supplies, washes her hands, and pulls on some gloves.
“Bastard,” I hiss when she unwraps the gauze from my left leg, swearing to myself that I’ll make Davis pay for this.
“I can’t begin to understand what he was even doing,” Everly murmurs as she gently inspects the burn marks.
“He had fun doing it, I remember that much,” I mutter, but realize she has a point.
Except for one spot where he must have used the end of the knife to pierce out the eyes of a tiger tattoo that I have curled around my calf, she’s absolutely right. It looks like someone gave a marker to a two year, allowing him to scribble on a wall.
The only twist being that instead of markers, it was an extra-long lighter, and he used my calf and foot in place of the wall.
“Were they questioning you?” she asks.
“No. The one guy used my face to unlock my phone, the man in the sheriff’s uniform handled the caning, but this was compliments of your friend from the bar,” I tell her, then instantly wish I had spared her the details when I see a shudder roll through her body.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her eyes glued to my leg as she checks each spot. “I made everything worse. I should have just ignored him.”
I wiggle my toes to get her attention and there are tears in her eyes when she looks up at me.
“I meant it when I said you apologize too much. None of this was your fault,” I say, holding her gaze. “Earlier that day, I accidentally blew up part of their operation.”
“Accidently?” she asks, her lips twitching.
“Don’t tell my brothers,” I answer, keeping my voice low as I lean forward and looking around like we might be overheard. “But it actually was an accident.”
“Will they not think you’re a badass anymore if they know it was an accident?” Everly leans forward, her tone and motions matching mine making me laugh.
“Honey, they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am a badass.”
If I wasn’t pretty certain that I look like roadkill before I said that, her laugh would have convinced me.
“Okay, badass, tell me the truth now,” she says after a moment. “How are you feeling? Is your stomach tender? Any excessive aches anywhere? Be serious.”
She adds in the last bit when I look down where my dick is, but I understand that if I die from internal bleeding that she didn’t catch, her career and life will go south really fast.
“The bruises hurt like hell, but nothing else really stands out. I wouldn’t mind a pill and a nap, if I’m being honest.”
She nods, and has finished reapplying ointment to my legs, rewraps them and reaches for the piss bottle, holding it up in question.
“Actually, I think I’m going to need to hit the john,” I tell her, fairly certain that my breakfast is flying though my system like a high-speed train.
“I wheeled you in here using a gurney sized for household pets,” she tells me, and I immediately shake my head. “Fine, but we’re going to take it slow and if you feel even slightly lightheaded, you have to tell me.”
Lifting my finger up, I cross it over my heart. Which brings up my next item. “Not that I mind being naked around you, but could you toss me a shirt from that pile? You know how fucking cute you are when you blush like that?”
“Here, let me help you with this,” she says when I try to take the shirt from her, and quickly realize that barely being able to lift my left arm would make it hard to get it on. “I should have stuck to button down shirts.”
Once it’s mostly on, she kneels in front of me to put a sock on my uninjured foot before grabbing a bag of toiletries. “Okay, just take it slow now.”
