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“Yeah …” I hated it when the guys called their wives or girlfriends that. “Yeah, that’s what I want to be.”
In one quick move he was out of the hammock and I was on my feet where he had placed me. I blinked, surprised to find him more than a yard away from me. His eyes were hard, but he couldn’t compl
etely hide the desire I saw burning in those silver-blue depths. “When I decide I want an ol’ lady, it won’t be with someone that chases after me, Raven. It might be a turn-on for some guys, but not me.”
After humiliating me with those words, he walked off. I stood there broken, my heart aching for months after. I didn’t even look at him, let alone speak to him. No one noticed, of course, because I refused to let anyone know that I was heartbroken over a dickhead like Bash Reid. During that time he went through a new girl every week, breaking me a little more every time I saw him with one of the sheep all over him. Just the thought of him screwing everything with a vagina back then still makes me crazy with jealousy.
Finally, a few months before I turned eighteen, I forced myself to get over it and move on. I started working at the bar and was nearly done with high school, so I needed to focus on what I was going to do with my life when school ended. My brothers had wanted me to go to college like Felicity, but I wasn’t sure that was the road I wanted to travel. I started taking some bookkeeping classes so I could help out more at the bar. Lord knows that my brothers weren’t all that great at keeping up with our shit anyway. Obviously that’s still true because I spend hours doing the books on Sundays.
When the Originals found out I was doing a great job with our books at the bar, actually putting us in the black, they hired me to do the books for some of their personal businesses. Some of those businesses are legit, but the majority not so much. But the Originals know that they can trust me with all of their finance secrets. I still spend most Saturdays working for the Originals instead of at the bar, but their business interests have expanded to the point that I now have to take care of it throughout the week as well.
I happened to be finishing up at Uncle Jack’s bike shop one night when I ran into Bash. The place was so quiet that I assumed everyone else had already left for the evening, and I wasn’t even watching where I was going as I walked out of the makeshift office Uncle Jack had made for me out back. Suddenly, I hit a wall of rock and nearly fell on my ass.
Strong, hot hands caught my elbows and jerked me back against the wall of muscle. My breath trapped somewhere between my lungs and my throat from surprise and the feeling of having his hands on me. Raising my head, I found those silver-blue eyes glaring down at me.
I clenched my jaw, hating and loving him all in the same moment. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
Bash took half a step back, putting some distance between us, but didn’t let go of my elbows. “Are you done for the night?”
“Yeah, all done.” I pulled free, needing some space before I did something embarrassing like begging him to kiss me. After seeing him practically having sex with a girl at the Originals’ booth two nights before, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted those lips on me.
“Can you clean this up for me?” he asked as I tried to move around him. That was when I saw the bloody gash on his bare bicep.
My eyes widened. “What the fuck, Bash!” It was deep and looked like it was caused by a knife. “Who cut you?”
He lifted his good arm in a half-shrug. “Some posers came into the bar and were causing trouble. They all pulled knives. Luckily I’m the only one that got nicked.”
“Nicked?” I exclaimed, getting a better look at his wound. “You need stitches!”
“I figured as much.” He grimaced at the blood still oozing from the cut. “Can you do it?”
I turned away from him, muttering curses under my breath. I was the one they all went to when they needed a few stitches or something nasty that needed tending too. There were countless times I had sewn up one of my brothers or one of their men. I never had to tend to Bash. Either he had never gotten hurt or he had someone else as a nurse. I wasn’t even sure I could turn my emotions off long enough to take care of his wound.
“It’s not that bad, Raven.”
I gritted my teeth and turned back around to face him. “Fine. But I can’t do this here. I need my kit and that’s at home.”
“Then let’s go.” He followed me home on his hog, and I dreaded what I would have to do the entire drive. I wasn’t faint of heart. The sight of blood had never made me queasy, and I had put needles and thread in plenty of people, yet the mere thought of doing the same to Bash made my hands shake.
I started boiling water as soon as I walked into the empty house. My brothers were all at the bar taking care of business in one way or another. It was Saturday night and I didn’t expect them to be home until early morning. Bash pulled up a seat at the huge kitchen table, turned it around, and straddled it. I felt his eyes on me as I went around the kitchen gathering all the things I would need.
Finally I sat down beside of him and started to clean the deep cut on his bicep. “How did the knife even get you? As hard as these damned things are, I expect a knife to just bounce off.”
A deep, husky chuckle fell from his lips. “I guess I’ll have to start pumping iron more. My muscles seem to have gotten a little flabby lately.”
I rolled my eyes and cleaned away the last of the dried blood. Now that I could examine the injury, I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought, but it still wasn’t pretty. I picked up the Betadine and disinfected the area. Most of the guys I had to do this to would have already been whining. Not Bash. He didn’t even flinch as I got the wound ready to stitch.
“I’m out of the numbing spray I usually have,” I told him, my voice cracking ever so slightly with regret.
“I’m fine, Raven.” He sounded more amused at how torn up I was and that pissed me off.
Gritting my teeth, I lifted the needle from the boiling water I had placed it in and threaded it. As I placed the tip against his skin my fingers started to tremble. I sucked in a deep breath to steady myself. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I made the first stitch.
He was quiet for the next five minutes as I put ten stitches into his arm and then placed gauze over the cut. With each stitch I was closer and closer to tears, and I stood as soon as I was finished, keeping my eyes on anything but him so he wouldn’t see. I wasn’t a crier. Very little could affect me to the point of tears.
“Raven …” he growled my name before I could take a step away from him. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back around to face him. I bit my lip, attempting to keep it from trembling. Long, rough fingers touched my face and wiped at one errant tear as it spilled over onto my cheek. “You should never shed tears for a bastard like me, Raven.”
I glared down at him through my watery eyes. “Excuse me for having a heart.” I pulled away from him and started cleaning away the mess I had made. “I’m done. You can go do whatever it is that Bash Reid does on Saturday night. I’m sure there are plenty of sheep down at the bar waiting for you.” There always were on Saturday nights, whereas on Fridays they were rarely around. It had something to do with the Originals and Jet handling club business on Fridays, but I couldn’t be sure.
