“Cluttered?” I offer.
“Something like that.” He holds my arm in place and helps me take the sleeve off and then curses in Sianese.
I don’t like the look of the bruises either, but I wish I knew what he said. I wish I had taken the time to learn the language like Laurel had.
Arc sighs, and his gaze lifts from my skin to my face. “I said I would kill them if the crash hadn’t done it already.”
“Oh.” I swallow because I want to thank him, but that feels silly… even though he knows that too.
His hand holds mine while he inspects me like a medical patient.
I wish I could tell if there was any int—stop it.He’s helping me. I need to focus on getting dressed and getting back to normal and getting… I meet his eyes and one is partially closed, like he’s wincing.
Oh my god I feel like such a dork just sitting here going through all these thoughts while he’s being forced to hear them and?—
He catches my face in his hand and makes me look up at him. “Calm down,” he says, and then, “Please.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t think it is, so you’ll just have to let me ask for forgiveness, or I’ll do it again and again in my head and no onewill enjoy that.” I laugh because I just realized he’s still holding my face.
He doesn’t move. “Do you want me to wait outside for this next part, or do you still need help?”
“I guess that depends on whether you’re going to get mad if you see me naked.” I suck some of the cold air in between my teeth. “It’s worse further down. I can feel it.”
“I will get mad.” He says it so calmly, I should probably be scared. “But Iwillkeep it to myself.”
Even with that promise, he curses when we get the leotard down to my hips.
“Come on, I know you’ve see wounds that are so much worse than this. No cuts, just contusions.” I grimace a little when he helps me step out of the stretchy fabric and I twist the wrong way. “It’s not even a flesh wound.”
“Just because I’ve seen worse doesn’t mean I ever want to see it on you.”
And he can see all of me right now as I stand in front of him in nothing but lime green smiley face underwear, all my ink, and mottled bruises.
Helooksmad. He looks like he’d like to go out to the wreckage and bring someone back to life just so he can kill them again.
“Arc?” I make him look at my face again. “The bruises will heal. If we don’t get me back into some clothes, I am going to die of hypothermia. Okay? Or at least lose a toe.”
He deflates a little and starts to untangle the pile I brought with us. “I like your tattoos.”
Instead of asking if he wants to see the rest—a joke that feels a little flat right now—I say, “Thanks, me too.”
He slides a rainbow striped tank top up over my arm, so I don’t have to raise it, and then helps me get it over the other side.
He barely even looks at my breasts when he pulls it down to my waist.
The look he gives me right then is stern. “You are injured.”
“I know.” My mind and my hormones are all out of whack, but when he helps me get those electric blue leggings on and I cozy up in a long sleeve violet sweater covered in the ugliest flowers you’ve ever seen, I momentarily forget and then am violently reminded.
Gasping at the sharp sensation of pain when I raise my arm the wrong way to get the sweater on, I hold on to his arms as he hovers his hands at my sides, not touching me.
“Any chance you ordered Epsom salts?” I ask. “I might want to live in that tub for a few hours.”
“Will that help?”
