“Says who?”
“Me.”
“You are hurt.”
“Am I?”
The challenge in his eyes did not dull the certainty rising within me. I narrowed the distance between us and grasped the hem of his shirt, lifting without permission, tugging it up and away from his torso.
He raised his arms, letting me. Leaving himself bare to me. Skin, ink, and a swathe of injuries that bore the mark of another man’s fist. A burn to his palm. A gash to his ribs that bore the mark of ablade.
A feeling I barely recognised expanded in my lungs, pressure hitting my sternum, bending the bone. “Who did this?”
Ranger snorted, catching one of my hands before it landed on him, letting the other roam free. “No one you know.”
“Are they dead?”
“Nah, just fucked up.”
“Worse than this?”
“You doubt me, Vik?”
Never. I had seen Ranger fight many times. But this wound... this injury. It was superficial, taped, not stitched, but it was too close to his heart to quell the raw fury—thefear—roiling in my stomach. A few inches left, a few inchesdeeper, and he would’ve been dead.
My palm made contact with his skin. A mistake, I realised, the second we touched. This was nothing like taking his hand and tugging him up from the floor. Nothing like his long fingers wrapped around my wrists.
The current between us was witchcraft.
A nuclear weapon.
And my fragile heart was in the blast zone.
It did not stop me, though. I had made sacrifices for less. And I could easily give up my soul for his man. For this moment as I splayed my hand over his warm skin, tracing a bruise with myfingertip. “I am not an angry man, but I would advise against telling me the name of the person who did this to you.”
Ranger grinned. “Persons. Plural. It takes more than one ordinary motherfucker to body me in the ring.”
“This was an organised fight?”
“Grudge match.” Ranger shivered, goosebumps littering his skin, the only sign my touch was getting to him as much as it was me. “I thumped their dad, so they came for me.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“And you won.”
Not a question, but it earned me another snort. “Course I did. I’m not a fucking ninja, but I can handle a trio of coked-up bumpkins.”
“Bumpkins with knives?”
“Just the one.”
Ranger was not a liar. His story rang true. And made sense, given what I knew about the day-to-day politics of motorcycle clubs.
But still... this injury. I did not like it, except perhaps that it distracted me from just about everything, save the heat of Ranger’s skin beneath my palm.
“If you’re trying to hypnotise me out of asking you awkward questions, it’s not going to work.”
