“Nevertheless,” she said, “hold that towel under it while I douse it.” She used the peroxide, which he told her didn’t burnlike the alcohol had. “But you can still blow on it.” She rolled her eyes up toward him, and he grinned. “A guy can try.”
“Some have to try harder out of necessity.”
“Oh, now that hurt, and I’m not talking about whatever that stuff is you’re smearing on me now.”
“Antiseptic cream.”
He flinched a few times, although her touch was light, and he liked looking down on the crown of her head. As she turned it this way and that, her hair slid from one shoulder to the other, all sleek and satiny.
Fantasizing how it would feel sliding over his belly and thighs fell into the category of “impure thoughts,” which required extra time in the confessional booth. He tried to sweep them from his mind and picked up on what she’d said a moment ago. “Others have tried?”
Carefully dabbing on the cream, she asked absently, “Hmm?”
“Men.”
She raised her head from her task and looked up at him.
“Others have tried?” he repeated. “Did any succeed? Or give up and go away? Are any still trying, lurking about in the desperate hope that you’ll change your mind?”
“Are you asking if I’ve had affairs?”
“I’m on pins and needles.”
She returned to applying the salve. “I thought we’d established that I don’t talk about my personal life with patients.”
“Before we decide whether or not to talk about it, let’s establish whether or not you have one. Do you?”
“If I answer that, I’m talking about it.”
He smiled, although she was looking at his belly and didn’t see it. “I didn’t want it to come down to this, Dr. Reede.”
At his stern tone of voice, she raised her head again.
“I could play the cop card, you know. Take you to the station for formal questioning.”
“About my private life?”
“With a focus on your friendship with Roland Malone.”
“He’s a patient, not a friend.”
“So say you now. But I’d be interested to hear what you have to say after spending countless hours in an uncomfortable interrogation room.”
“I would say the same.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. When I really start applying the heat, big, burly bad guys crack after only an hour or two. It wouldn’t take near that long with you. I think the CAP unit has a pair of thumbscrews in a junk drawer somewhere.”
He saw her trying to conceal the smile tugging at the corners of her God-I-want-that-mouth-on-me mouth, but she calmly returned her attention to his wound.
She squeezed a dab of the cream from the tube onto her fingertip and began smoothing it over the thinnest part of the cut, which was just beneath his navel. She applied it in a swirling motion.
Sweet Jesus, if lust could kill you, thiswouldbe a mortal wound.
When satisfied that she’d covered the area, she capped the tube of antiseptic and reached for the box of butterfly closures. Taking out several, she lined them up with precision.
“What’s it going to be, doc?” he asked. “You talk to me here, or I haul you in.”
“Please do,” she said. “I could tell John Bowie about your escapade tonight. I would accuse you of kidnapping, you would be severely reprimanded for questioning me without an attorney present, and I would file a lawsuit against the police department for harassment and false arrest.” She opened the first closure and held it above the deepest part of the gash. “This may hurt.”
