“I got… shot.” The words come out with reluctance.
“Shot?” I gasp in horror.
“When I was at the warehouse the other day. There was a sniper,” he sighs.
“Simon, I need to look at this. I need to make sure you’re okay,” I insist.
He shakes his head. “No, I’ve already cleaned the bandages yesterday. It’s fine.”
“Yesterday? When your wound is this fresh, the bandages need to be changed twice a day. You can’t just leave it like that. Come on,” I demand, holding my hand out to help him from his chair. “Where is the first aid kit?”
“Selene,” he grumbles, getting to his feet.
“No, I don’t want to hear it. Where is the first aid kit?”
We head into his bathroom, and he sits on the edge of the bath.
Carefully, I help him unbutton his shirt and slip it off his broad shoulders.
My heart is filled with relief that his expression was not one of hatred, but rather one of pain. Not that I want him to be in pain. But I want him to hate me even less.
“How did you end up getting shot?” I ask to keep his mind off the disinfectant I am about to wipe across his wound.
“A sniper was perched in the building opposite ours. He was taking potluck shots into the warehouse. It wasn’t a massive attack, not a lot of damage, but it was clear he was sent to send a message. Anyway, there is a young girl who makes our tea and coffee, and she was headed right into his line of fire. I had to pull her out the way, and I took the bullet instead.”
“You saved her life,” I whisper as I wrap a fresh bandage over his arm. He put himself in danger to protect one of the people who works for him. My father would never do something like that. Never. Not in a million years.
He shrugs, wincing at the movement. “Anyone would have done it,” he says.
“You’re wrong about that, Simon,” I mutter.
After a moment of quiet, I ask, “Why didn’t you tell me you got hurt?”
But now that the bandages are almost finished being wrapped, I am becoming more and more aware of him and less aware of the task I was busy with. Topless, tanned muscles, thick, strong arms, broad shoulders. A dark shadow of stubble across his jaw, maybe because he couldn’t shave, as it hurt too much.
I bite my lip as he answers me, but in all honestly, I am not focused at all on what he’s saying. My body is humming.
It doesn’t help that I am standing between his legs, my knees pressed between his thighs, and his hands resting absentmindedly on my hips. My fingers pause on the bandages. I’m done. But I can’t bring myself to move.
Beneath his touch, my skin is burning.
“Sorry that I didn’t tell you,” he says quietly.
“Oh, it’s…” I am about to say it’s okay, but he looks up at me, and his caramel eyes are like a drug I have been desperate for. His lips part as his gaze studies my face. I can barely breathe. I find myself leaning deeper into him, and his hands tighten on my hips.
Instantly, I want to escape.
I want to run from the thing I’m longing for the most.
I want to run from the fear of how this will break me later.
But I can’t run.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I snap instead, my voice raw with agitation and frustration. He doesn’t know it’s not even about the fact that he hid it from me. It’s about how he makes mefeel.And how I can’t control it.
“Selene, I was trying to protect you and the twins. I didn’t want you to worry, he says defensively.
“So, keeping secrets from me is protecting me? I think it’s just lying. You lied to me, and you’re trying to make yourself out to be the good guy,” I snap, frowning, but still not having moved an inch.
