Angel sat there, hands dripping sticky orange liquid. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I took the glass from him and set it down on the coffee table in front of us. “What happened here?” I traced a finger along the back of his hand and beside the marks on his wrist. They were bad. It wasn’t especially bright in here, so the simple fact that I’d noticed highlighted that they weren’t light bruises.
Angel let out a defeated sigh that did strange things to the inside of my chest.
“Uh—I fell.” He shrugged, and if I had to guess that wasn’t even a quarter of the story.
“These weren’t here earlier today. I’d have noticed.”
He flushed. “I’m fine.” He tried to wriggle his hand free and gasped. I didn’t let go, and he opened his mouth. I caught a wink of metal between his parted lips, and my blood boiled as it struck me, yet again, that his tongue was pierced. Fuck, did he know how to use that?
“Do you need ice?” My words came out strangled.
“Please.” His hand quivered in my hold and the blush on his cheeks deepened. “It’s fine. You don’t have to… to… do this.”
The server was back and held out a clean white rag toward Angel, but I snatched it from him. “Is there any way you could find me an ice pack or just throw some ice in a plastic bag and bring it back here?”
The server gave me a stiff nod and cut a sympathetic glance toward Angel as he left again. I used the rag to clean what I could of the sticky mess from Angel’s hands, and he let me. He surprised me as he turned his palm, so sweetly compliant, to allow me to wipe at his fingers. He never glanced away the entire time I took care of him, and intensely scrutinized every move I made. The attention was disconcerting, but I did my best to seem like I knew what I was doing.
He eyed me up when I gave his thumb one last swipe and winked at him.
“Why did you do that?” he murmured.
“Because you need to do something with that injury. I can’t let you sit around that way. You’re hurt.”
His mouth opened and closed and he shook his head while he stared around the room at anything except me. “No, I meant… you know what, thanks.” He shook his head and smiled.
“What?”
He tilted his head to the side and his grin twisted crooked and sweet. “You’re nicer than I expected.”
I snorted. “Don’t let this fool you. I’m an asshole.” The server came back with the ice pack, and this time he didn’t bother trying to give it to Angel, but handed it to me, which suited me fine. I’d been thinking about not tipping the little shit—now I’d have to. He’d gone well above and beyond, even if he had flirted with my date. I took Angel’s wrist and laid it out between us on the cushion and then rested the ice on top of it and the back of his hand. “There, that’s better.”
Angel shifted in his seat and nodded. Tears gathered in the corners of his dark eyes, so he must have been hurt badly, but he hadn’t planned on saying a word. I couldn’t quite figure him out. Why would he hide an injury?
His delicate wrist in my grasp had made me feel strong and useful, and when Angel gave me another tentative smile, a surge of goodness expanded in my chest until I felt like I could fly. An odd easiness settled between us as we sat for a while, icing his hand. Low music throbbed from the sound system, a house mix that wasn’t fast enough to invite dancing or slow enough to lead to fucking on the couches… at least not this early in the night. Toward last call someone would probably get tossed for being indecent. Everyone here paid too much for their membership to ever earn a permanent ban, unless they outright committed a murder on the premises. We didn’t talk, but Angel people watched. Occasionally he glanced down at the ice and then smiled at me, and I would smirk back.
The unspoken comradery was bizarre and nice.
After a while I was able to think around watching those pretty lips of his move. “How did your errand go? You said you had to help your dad, right?”
Angel groaned. “Fine.”
I removed the ice to check his hand, but his knuckles were still swollen and the bruising had gotten worse, not better. “Doesn’t sound fine.” I lifted his hand and decided that I’d already pushed to the breaking point today, so what was one more thing? I kissed right beside the mark on his wrist, warming up his cold skin. “Better?”
“Much,” he said, and I was surprised at the husky sweetness of his voice. “I’m not sure I want my drink. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can do that right now.” He touched his stomach, and I wondered if he wasn’t feeling well after whatever had happened that caused him to get hurt. More than anything, I wanted to ask what had put those marks on him, but I didn’t want to destroy the budding friendliness between us.
“Come on, then. Let’s get out of here. I have something to show you. You’ll like this.”
He stood fast and stepped back from me. “I will?”
I laughed and got to my feet. “As long as you’re not afraid to be alone with me.”
He seemed to draw in on himself and shrink. “Should I be?”
I gave in and touched the backs of my fingers to his cheek, brushing along that lip ring. The warmth of the metal had my gut coiling. “A man like you? No.”
His breath caught. “What does that mean?” He took a step back.
