These men could break me like kindling. This guy had just turned a prisoner twice my size into ground beef so severely, that inmate was now being tended to by the doctor. And here I stood, all five foot four of me, about to patch up his knuckles like he’d gotten them caught in a car door instead of slamming them into someone’s face.
You can do this, Harper. What’s the first thing you ask a normal patient? If you don’t see their chart first?
“What’s your name?”Look at me go!
The guy stared at me, as if … what? It was an odd question? He hadn’t expected me to speak?
“Knox,” he eventually answered. “Knox Blackwood.”
Jesus. Even his name sounded like a guy who could snap a tree in half.
I forced myself to look at him. Really look.
Most women would probably find him hot as sin. Hell, he probably could’ve posed for the cover ofHot Men’s Magazineso long as they didn’t have a morality clause.
Knox Blackwood was six foot four of solid muscle, the kind of man you crossed the street to avoid in a dark alley. Tattoos crawled up his arms and neck, disappearing into his buzzed hairline on the sides, the top just long enough to hint at sandy blond. His jaw was dusted with stubble, like he hadn’t shaved in three days, and the orange jumpsuit stretched across shoulders that could probably bench-press me without breaking a sweat.
Something glinted at his throat. A pendant on a thin string, tucked beneath the collar of his shirt. An odd detail for a man covered in tattoos—that was for sure.
But it was his eyes that stopped me. Silver with hints of blue, like a Siberian husky’s. Beautiful and predatory in equal measure. The kind of eyes that made you forget he was an inmate.
Until you remembered.
The cuffs confining his wrists on a chain, connected to a thick belt at his waist, helped you remember really fast. Standard restraints for a man who’d just rearranged someone’s face.
My hands trembled as I snapped on nitrile gloves. Knox tracked every movement, and I braced myself for … something. Aggression. Intimidation. The way men like him took up space, made themselves bigger, louder, until you felt like prey.
Instead, he leaned back slightly. Dropped his shoulders. Made himself … smaller?
No. That couldn’t be right.
“Where are you hurt?” My voice came out steadier than expected. Small victories.
He shrugged. “I’m fine.”
I grabbed a penlight from the tray. “Any head pain? Dizziness? Nausea? Vision problems?”
“No headache. No vision disturbances. No dizziness. No nausea.” The words rolled off his tongue like he’d memorized them from a medical textbook. Or repeated them a hundred times before.
“You know the concussion protocol by heart.” I raised an eyebrow. “Frequent flyer?”
Those eyes locked on to mine, and something about his stillness made my skin prickle.
But strangely, not out of fear.
His gaze moved over my face slowly. Not assessing for threat. Not sizing me up. Just … looking. Like I didn’t match whatever file he’d built in his head.
Then his gaze dropped to my hands, and he looked bothered by something.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly.
Something in my chest stuttered. “I didn’t say you would.”
“You didn’t have to. Your hands are shaking.”
I looked down. Damn it. He was right.
“You don’t need to be scared,” he said.
