“Other guy?”
“You were in a fight.” I stepped closer and reached for his chin.
My fingertips made contact first. Just the pads of two fingers against the hard edge of his jaw, but the instant I did, he went still.
The stubble there was rougher than I expected. Warm. The kind of texture that would rasp against softer skin. Against a woman’s cheek, for instance.
I shut that thought down. Hard.
Slowly, I tilted his chin up toward the light, and his gaze lifted with the movement, locking with mine.
Something flickered in those husky eyes. A warmth I hadn’t expected. Almost like surprise, but softer. Like he hadn’t anticipated my touch would feel like this either.
My breath caught. This wasn’t the first time I’d touched him, yet it very much felt like the first. Again.
For reasons I didn’t understand. Or maybe I did, but didn’t want to.
The split lip was still bleeding slightly at the corner.
“A split lip is a telltale sign of a punch to the face.”
“Maybe I ran into a doorknob.”
“Was it attached to a slingshot?”
I released his chin. Reached for the antiseptic. And realized, with growing unease, that I was going to have to get a lot closer to treat this.
Knuckles were one thing. A lip required precision. Proximity. The kind that made my pulse accelerate.
The problem was geometry. Knox was a big man. Long torso, broad shoulders, thick legs that hung off the exam table and created an obstacle course between me and his mouth. I tried approaching from the side, but the angle was wrong. I’d be working blind.
He must have noticed my awkward maneuvering because without a word, he shifted. Spread his knees apart.
Creating a space.
For me.
I stared at the gap between his thighs like it was a trap. Which, in a way, it was. Step into that space, and I’d be face-to-face with him.
That’s a clinical position,I told myself. Being a nurse meant being in intimate positions sometimes. Stethoscope under clothes. Hands on bare skin. This was no different.
No different.
I stepped between his knees.
Immediately, I realized what a spectacular lie I’d just told myself. This was nothing like pressing a stethoscope to someone’s chest. This was standing in the V of a man’s thighs, close enough that his body heat bled through my scrubs. Close enough that when I looked up, his face was right there.
I tried to ignore how his breath ghosted across my wrists as I worked. Tried not to notice that his lips were full, slightly parted. The bottom one was plush, even with the split marring it. The kind of mouth that belonged on a movie screen, not in a prison infirmary.
The kind of mouth a woman could get lost thinking about.
I was not that woman.
I was a medical professional. I noticed these things clinically.
Clinically.
“So …” His voice was low. Almost conversational. “First week’s almost over.”
