I confirmed the date of his last tetanus vaccine, pulled on gloves, and gathered supplies, trying to ignore the way my pulse had kicked up. This was different from all the other times I’d treated him. Back then, he’d been a patient. An inmate with mysterious injuries that may or may not have been self-inflicted.
Now he was … something else. Something I couldn’t name.
“Roll up your sleeve higher.”
He complied, pushing the fabric up.
I’d seen his arms before. The tattoos. The veins. The corded muscle. But somehow, seeing his bicep up close, inches from my face as I prepared to clean his wound …
“Jesus.” The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Knox raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”
“Your arm is …” I searched for a professional way to say it. Failed. “That’s a lot of arm.”
His lips twitched. “Is that your medical assessment?”
“I’m just saying.” I focused on the wound, cheeks warming. “When you’re stuck behind a desk all day, you forget that some people actually have muscles.”
“You have muscles.”
“I have noodles that aspire to be muscles.” I dabbed antiseptic on the gash, and to his credit, he barely flinched. “You have … whatever this is. Did you bench-press the entire prison yard?”
“Not much else to do in here.” But there was warmth in his voice. Like he enjoyed this. Me, flustered and rambling. Him, watching me with those silver-blue eyes that saw too much.
“All right. Tetanus time.” I prepared the syringe, then paused. “This goes in your deltoid, so I’m going to need you to push that sleeve up higher. Or take the shirt off. Your choice.”
I’d meant it as a joke. But Knox reached behind his head, grabbed a fistful of fabric, and pulled.
The shirt came off in one fluid motion.
Holy. Shitake. Mushrooms.
I was a medical professional. I’d seen countless bodies. Examined hundreds of patients. This should have been no different.
It was so, so different.
Tattoos crawled across his chest and shoulders, intricate patterns disappearing into the waistband of his pants. His abs were defined enough to count. Twice. The pendant I’d noticed that first day rested against the hard planes of his chest, rising and falling with each steady breath.
And his shoulders. God, his shoulders. They were broad enough to block out the fluorescent lights above him, casting his chest in shadow while the rest of him stayed illuminated, like some kind of sculpture I wasn’t supposed to touch.
My throat went dry.
I realized, too late, that I’d stopped moving entirely. Syringe in hand. Frozen like an idiot.
Knox noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His head cocked slightly to the side, that assessing look I’d come to recognize. But this time, something else flickered behind it. Something heated.
How easy it would be to reach out and trace one of those tattoo lines with my fingertip.
“See something you like?” The smirk that tugged at his mouth wasn’t arrogant. It was knowing. Like he could read every single thought currently short-circuiting my brain.
“I’m assessing for additional injuries.” The lie came out breathless. Unconvincing.
Knox’s smirk deepened. He didn’t call me out on it. He didn’t have to.
