“I’m… not,” he cut me off.
I swear it took everything in me not to roll my eyes. Fucking liar, liar, pants on fire. What? Did he think I’d exploit him if he admitted it? That was dumb.Patience, patienceee.“Okay.” I didn’t sound patient at all, and I knew it. “I’m concerned you’re not healing. That whatever your injury is, isn’t getting better. I’ve seen The Centurion dive into the ocean from like miles high. If I fell from a hundred feet, I would die. He shot back out of the water like a missile. Whatever you are… is unreal, and from what you said when you did that Hercules shit, you should be better, shouldn’t you?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then two. It didn’t get awkward until the third. But that’s when he said, in a grudging, tight voice that definitely sounded irritated as shit, “I should… be.”
I knew it! Not that I was glad to hear that.
I waited, keeping my face even, like him actually talking to me wasn’t still kind of a fucked-up miracle.
“I’ve never been… like this. Weak….” He trailed off and flicked those curly lashes at me. “This is… the longest it’s ever… taken me to heal.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he gritted those pristine, white teeth. “I don’t… like it.”
It was just as bad, if not worse than I’d imagined.
I rubbed my face and tried to think. There was only one option. Two, but I really wouldn’t leave him here alone while I ran away. “Are you sure I can’t take you somewhere? Is there some place that can help you heal?”Please say yes, please say yes.
His “no” was instant and sharp enough that I knew for sure I shouldn’t ask again.
Of course not. Why would he want to leave my double-sized bed in the middle of nowhere? I rubbed my face some more. “Okay, all right. No need to get your panties in a wad.” I side-eyed him. Did he wear underwear?
The Defender glared like he knew I was thinking about his undies.
Which I was, but that was beside the point. This was where he wanted to stay while he recovered… because he would recover. I was getting his ass out of here, and he was going to go back to being the incredible being he was, saving the planet and people’s lives. It was going to be my one amazing deed of my life. Sure, no one but us would ever know it had happened, but I would, and that was all that mattered. That I would know I had done something good.
That mattered to me. That mattered to me a hell of a lot more than I wanted it to, because I knew I needed to go and wouldn’t. Not until he was ready.
So I told him the truth, or at least part of it. “I just want you to feel better. To get better. That’s all.”
That got me a grunt that had me eyeing his T-shirt.
I was so busy thinking about what he had on that I almost missed his grumbled-out question. “Why don’t… you… have friends?”
Of all the things in the world I could have expected him to ask, that was the last.
How many words had he said to me in weeks? And now all of a sudden, here he was asking something personal. Not just a little personal either but really personal.
Or maybe I was just sensitive about it. Chances were that was it.
But honestly, it felt like a sucker punch with his strength right in the kidney.
Of all the things….
He didn’t even know my name! I hadn’t brought it up, and he hadn’t asked. He had no clue what town we were even in.
“Shouldn’t you… have friends? Family?... Boyfriend?” he asked, his face suddenly suspicious. “No one… ever calls you.”
Yeah, a punch to the kidneys. Maybe the face too while we were at it.
How the hell did he know that?
He must have sensed the question I was shooting him because he said, “You think… I would leave… myself vulnerable? I’m not… completely… unaware of… my surroundings.”
I bit my lip and couldn’t help the snarky-ass comment that snuck out of my mouth. “Looked like you were passed out to me.”
That got me a shot of those purple eyes. I even got a slight lift of his eyebrow.
I was pretty sure my kidney actually hurt though. “I have friends,” I told him, keeping my voice low and steady even though I felt anything but.
His “Hm” dripped with sarcasm.
