Taking the bloody shirt out of his hands, she dropped it in the trash can. It was ruined beyond all possible repair.
She grabbed a hand towel off the hook by the fridge and soaked it under the faucet, then pulled a chair out at the kitchen table and sat.
“Move closer,” she instructed. “Let me get you cleaned up and see how bad this wound is.”
“I’m fine, Alina. The guy barely nicked me,” Trevor protested but obeyed. “Most of this blood is from right after it happened. It’s probably already stopped bleeding.”
“Right,” she muttered as she gently began cleaning the skin around the gash across his ribs with the washcloth.
Damn, it looked more like he’d been torn open with a dull chainsaw blade than hit with a bullet. It must have skipped along the muscles and bones instead of going straight through. She supposed that was a good thing. Still, the slice seemed deep. Any rational person would have been in an emergency room right now, demanding sutures and pain meds.
Trevor was right about one thing, though. The worst of the bleeding had stopped. If anything, it looked like the gash was actually starting to seal itself with new flesh. That was hard to believe, considering how severe the wound had been. She’d never been one to get queasy at the sight of blood, but since her partner was the one bleeding, it got to her a little more than usual.
“Talk to me,” she said as she used the towel to wipe up a fresh dribble of blood running down his lower ribs. “So I don’t have to think about what the hell I’m doing.”
“What would you like to talk about?” he asked. “Other than my inability to avoid getting shot, I mean.”
She couldn’t believe he was cracking jokes. “I don’t care. Anything.”
When he didn’t respond, she decided to ask him about something that had been on her mind ever since she’d seen the way he moved tonight.
“Why don’t you tell me about what else you can do as a shifter? I’m not sure why, but I’d assumed that your abilities were limited to keen senses, claws, and fangs. But after seeing you fight, I’m guessing there’s more to it than that?”
He shrugged, making the gash start bleeding again. “You’ve pretty much seen the majority of what I can do.” He paused as she tossed one bloody towel in the trash and grabbed a fresh one. “Beyond all the enhanced senses, I’m faster than a normal person, both in speed and reflexes. I’m stronger than someone twice my size, and I can take a lot more punishment as well as heal faster. Within a couple of hours, this”—he pointed at the wound—“will be closed up completely, and in a few days, it’ll look like it’s months old. It won’t be long before you’ll have to know it was there to even find it.”
“That must come in handy,” she said, wishing like hell her teammates in the CIA had been shifters. Maybe some of them would still be alive.
“I won’t lie and say my healing ability hasn’t saved my ass a time or two,” he admitted. “But I try to use my coyote instincts to keep from getting into screwed-up situations in the first place. Trust me, I’d much prefer to be clever and tricky and not get shot at all.”
“I’m all for that,” she agreed.
Thankfully, the gash had stopped bleeding for the most part. It was still painful looking, but she breathed a sigh of relief knowing he was going to be okay.
“So what happened tonight?” She tossed the second towel in the trash and picked up a third to clean off the dried blood from the rest of his torso. “Why didn’t your coyote instincts for trouble keep you from getting hit?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was a little distracted.”
Trevor didn’t elaborate. Then again, he didn’t need to. Alina was well aware of the fact that he’d taken a bullet because he’d been worried about one hitting her. She’d seen him jump to take out that big guard as the man had been about to shoot her.
“Thanks for covering my back,” she said softly. “I know you got hit because you were more worried about me than yourself, so…thanks.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’re partners.”
Trevor might have been making light of what he’d done, but Alina appreciated it more than she could put into words. She hadn’t had a real partner since Turkey, and it wasn’t until now that she realized the biggest thing she’d missed was knowing she had someone who’d watch her back.
Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and she forced herself to finish cleaning off the dried blood on Trevor’s stomach. It was while she was absorbed in the meticulous task of wiping down every square inch of exposed skin that she became aware of the fact that he was an extremely fit man. It was hard to miss when her face was only inches from his very well-defined abs.
Well, she’d been looking for something else to focus on so she wouldn’t start crying, and Trevor was definitely a distraction. Her partner had the body of a Roman god, with shoulders, pecs, and arm muscles that made it obvious he worked out a lot. But he also had that lean, ripped look to him that make her think more of Tarzan than a weight lifter. And the way those rippling abs disappeared into his beltline, showing off just the sexiest hint of happy trail was definitely interesting.
As she lightly traced the wet towel back and forth across his lower abs and that absolutely mouthwatering trail of manliness, it dawned on her that she was in a somewhat compromising position. Seated in front of Trevor, her hand inches from his belt buckle and the very obvious bulge in his dress pants, thoughts of tending to his wound suddenly took a backseat to the memories of what it had been like kissing him tonight. And the stuff she was remembering weren’t the kind of thoughts she should have been having about her partner.
Alina knew it was supposed to have been a fake kiss as part of their cover, but if it had been fake, then her real sex life clearly sucked, because she’d never been that turned on from a kiss in her life. She’d actually gotten excited from a thirty-second make-out session in the middle of a crowded club, which was completely crazy. She wasn’t a teenager. She wasn’t supposed to get all tingly from a simple kiss. If they hadn’t been on a mission, she could only wonder how far she would have been willing to take things.
Crap, she was getting tingly all over again, simply thinking about Trevor’s lips on her. Not to mention the feel of his strong, muscular body under her fingers.
Strong, muscular body under her fingers. Say what?
Alina gave herself a shake and discovered that at some point, she’d tossed the last washcloth in the trash and was running her hands back and forth across Trevor’s drum-tight abs, getting damn close to the danger zone around his belt buckle.
