“If I don’t, Blair, are you going to cuff me again? That could be fun.”
She was much too shrewd not to get what he was doing, using humor to defuse the situation and putting her on guard. But Blair was a caliber above any of the women he’d managed by his words and actions. Her response was too honest, only making it worse. Fuck, he was in deep trouble here. “Don’t tempt me, Kelly. I’m guessing it wouldn’t make you any more cooperative.”
Damn her. She just kept dancing around his asshole behavior, which was frustrating and a definite turn on. He didn’t want her to know how much it wrecked him to feel her push back for his own good. A phase he fucking hated, but with her it took on a whole new meaning.
He reached out and grasped her wrist, removing her hand from his arm, that hot, sweet little palm from his burning, aching skin. “I don’t know, being at your mercy has me intrigued.”
“Exactly. That’s how you move an immovable, invincible American warrior.”
“Huh?”
“Give him a mission.”
He threw his head back and laughed as she walked into the room without a backward glance.
Boomer caught his eye, and he raised a brow with a go-get-her-tiger expression.
He didn’t budge an inch, but inside, everything in him went loose and hot. Geezus, she had no idea what she did to him. No idea he was one breath away from losing every inch of control.
He gave Boomer the finger, and that grounded him in a moment when he needed it. Boomer’s grin anchored him.
When Skull made kissy noises with puckered lips, he gave him both fingers. They laughed hard. He was in for a rough ride going forward with this razzing group of hard asses, as Hazard and GQ noticed, smirking. He gave out more fuck yous just for the hell of it.
When he cleared the threshold, he saw she had a med kit already on the beat-up table someone had righted, a basin, some black fabric, and a white terry towel.
“This really isn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it is. You have blood all over you?—”
“It’s not my?—”
“Some of it is.” She touched the back of the chair. “Sit.” There was that clipped authority in her tone, and did it make him an idiot that it turned him on even more?
She settled in a chair beside him, reached for the towel, and immersed it. Gently, she started on his face, wiping at the blood, oh-so-gentle around his bruises. He closed his eyes, trembling at the feel of her tenderness, aching for more. She drew it down his neck, her other hand landing on his shoulder to brace the movements, and he could barely stand it. In the last week, he’d experienced aggression, urgency, sexual attention, weaponized desire, and military efficiency. He’d been physically battered, emotionally destabilized, raw from his family revelation, terrified of his own reflection. This moment felt undeserved, too intimate, bypassing his every defense, stirring longing he couldn’t, wouldn’t acknowledge, and doing something he hated, making him vulnerable in ways violence never could. He wasn’t used to softness. It rattled him more than the beating.
“What happened?” The words were all about gathering information, but her tone told him something else entirely. There was anger, empathy, and.…fuck him…care.
“They jumped me when I was sleeping.” His voice was a rasp. “Dragged me to the barn, hung me by a chain around my wrists, and worked me over.”
“Bastards,” she whispered, her voice seemed far away, like she was as lost as he was. When she reached his chest, dragging the rough terry over his nipples, his erection pulsed, throbbed. He caught his bottom lip in his teeth to keep himself grounded.
Violence he could handle, pain he knew how to survive, torture he could outlast, but this? Landmines. Blair was the real threat, not the cartel. Her touch reached him in a place no one had ever been able to access because of his walls, his barriers, his goddamned armor. He was starving for this…her compassion, again hating his weakness. This woman was disarming him from the inside out.
She murmured softly when she reached his abdomen and ribs, her touch gentling even more. He had no idea intimacy could be so compelling, so overwhelming, better than sex…well, almost. He grabbed her wrist, halting her, pushing back, stopping her without effort. She froze, her eyes warm and luminous, just as affected as he was. He hadn’t meant to let her feel how stubborn he was being, and he hadn’t expected that stubbornness to be reflected back at him, laced with determination. God, he wanted her to feel so much more…something inside him, something old, aching, and starved, softened for a beat. Melted, and it scared the hell out of him.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital to make sure your liver and kidneys aren’t severely damaged.”
“I’d know if they were. I’m very in tune with my body. Comes with the territory.” He opened his eyes, his skin humming from pain and pleasure. “Besides, that guy hit like a girl.”
She snorted, then giggled, and he was so fucking charmed, he almost reached out and captured one of those silky strands of her hair between his fingertips. Her gaze met his, and he lost his breath for a moment.
Breakneck wasn’t prepared for the punch she delivered.
Eyes like that didn’t belong on this earth. Eyes that seemed to shift with the light, with her breath, with her goddamn heartbeat. A starburst of yellow-green in the center, bright as a flare, bleeding out into forest green, deepening at the rim, deep amusement there, that delectable mouth lifting. His attraction deepened, went off the rails. He absorbed her, watched her, liking the way she held his gaze, liking the intimacy way too much.
Eyes that looked at him like they saw something.
For one split, impossible second, his bullshit, all the noise, the self-loathing, the fear about who he really was, quieted.
