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"It's fine. I'm fine," he said, trying to shake it off.
"I mean, no, no, it's actually not. This," I said, reaching out, pressing my palm to his side, feeling him flinch back, hearing the hiss out of his breath, "is not fine."
"They're not broken."
He would know better than me.
"Still. They're bruised," I insisted.
"They'll heal."
"You're so freaking stubborn," I told him, lessening the pressure on his side, pretending I didn't notice the way my thumb developed a mind of its own, slipping downward to slide over the edge of some of his abdominal muscles.
It was his shaky inward breath that snapped me out of it, drawing my attention back to his face.
There was openness there for a split second, gone so quickly that I didn't get a chance to interpret what I'd seen there. Then everything was locked down behind that cold, harsh new man he'd become.
"Okay, turn," I demanded, taking a steadying breath. "Let me look at your back," I added as he slowly moved.
There were bruises to be found there as well, some more violent than others. "Does this hurt?" I asked as I pressed my hand across his back.
"No."
"Liar, you just flinched," I accused when my hand went low on his back, out more toward his hip.
"It's not that bad."
"You're walking funny," I shot back. "Does it hurt down your leg?"
"Yeah," he admitted.
"I think you hurt your sciatic nerve. It runs from here," I said, gently jabbing fingers in near his spine, then gliding them down and outward, "and all the way down your butt and the back of your leg. It's going to bother you for a while. You might even have your leg fail you on occasion. Especially if you don't take it easy," I told him, realizing my fingers were sort of, well, jabbing him in the flesh of his upper, you know, ass.
My hand slipped upward, settling on his side instead. And since it didn't belong there, I made a show of pressing around the uninjured area.
"This seems okay," I said, wincing at how fake my voice sounded even as Niro suddenly turned, making my hand slip from his side right to his abs, my fingers slipping into the indents of them.
I swear our breaths sucked inward in tandem.
My head shot up, gaze finding his, seeing that spark again, something familiar, something so missed.
My Niro.
Except my Niro didn't make my chest feel so strange, so tight and skittery.
But this Niro, yeah, he did that.
As if that wasn't strange enough, there was an odd wobbling in my stomach as well.
Niro's hand rose slowly, reaching toward my head. Like he was going to pluck some leaf from my strands like he'd done so many times before.
Only instead, it slipped backward, going behind my neck, applying pressure even as his other arm rose, that hand moving to frame my jaw on one side.
This time, when my belly wobbled, I understood why, even if it seemed impossible.
That wobble, it was anticipation. It was attraction.
Before I could even fully wrap my head around that revelation, his hand at my neck was applying pressure, pulling my chest and stomach flush to his just a breath before his lips crashed down on mine.
I don't know what I had been expecting, if I could have been expecting anything since I never thought Niro would kiss me, but somehow I guess a part of me thought there would be a softness, a patience, a sweetness, the things that Niro had always shown me, if no one else.
But there was nothing soft or sweet or patient about his kiss. It was hard and rough and demanding. Teeth nipped my lower lip, forcing them to part, allowing his tongue to move inside, toying with mine in a way that left me feeling strangely claimed even as he retreated.
When his lips claimed mine again, they were somehow harder, hungrier than before. So much so that the cut on his lip ripped open again, making the metallic taste of his blood meet my tastebuds.
Even then, though, even then I didn't do what I knew I should have. Pulled back. Moved away. Put an end to it.
I couldn't.
I felt frozen in place, my body a bundle of nerves firing off with sensations I never should have been associating with Niro.
The weightlessness in my head.
The fluttery wings of my heartbeat in my chest.
The skittish pulse in my wrists, temples, throat.
The aching, heavy sensation of my lower stomach.
The acute awareness of the emptiness between my thighs.
A low, mewling sound moved up through my chest, throat, vibrated across our joined lips.
And it was that very sound that seemed to snatch fantasy back, leaving nothing but the cold, uncertain reality in its wake.
Niro simultaneously yanked backward from me as well as pushed me back, creating a void where there had been nothing but closeness, but a rightness I never could have known before.
