My mouth against his knuckles.
I love you.
His eyes darkened as if he remembered too. As if the words were sitting between us, alive and dangerous, waiting for one of us to be foolish enough to touch them.
I stepped back.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s a medical question.”
His jaw tightened.
“No chest pain.”
“Good.”
I reached for the blood pressure cuff because I needed something to do with my hands before they remembered how much they wanted to smooth his hair back again.
The door opened.
Dr. Bennett walked in with the kind of timing men only had when they were about to make everything worse.
Evan Bennett was one of the younger trauma attendings. Smart, charming, clean-cut, and fully aware of all three facts. He had sandy hair, rolled sleeves, and a smile that made half the hospital forgive him for being too pretty to work this many hours without looking destroyed.
I liked him well enough.
Professionally.
Mostly.
“Rourke,” he said, brightening when he saw me. “There you are.”
Dylan’s eyes shifted to him.
Slowly.
Dangerously.
I felt it before I saw it.
The temperature in the room dropped.
“Doctor,” I said.
Bennett glanced at Dylan’s chart, then at the monitor. “How’s our favorite gunshot wound?”
Dylan stared at him.
“Our?” he said.
The single word came out rough enough to sand wood.
Bennett’s smile faltered only a little. “Figure of speech.”
“Try another.”
I pressed my lips together and focused very hard on the cuff around Dylan’s arm.
Bennett looked at me with a faintly amused expression. “Patient charming as ever?”
