“You’re bleeding.”
His words catch me off guard, so I flounder a little as he reaches for my arm to examine my wound.
I shove him away. “You were supposed to stay here and monitor everything from afar. That’s what we agreed.”
“Come into the kitchen. I need to take a look at that.”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“For God’s sake, Mia!” he finally snaps, towering over me in a display of assertiveness that I’m sure works very well to intimidate his little underlings. “Yell at me after you’ve stopped bleeding all over the carpet.”
He pulls firmly at my good arm and half drags me under the overhead light at the kitchen counter.
I try to ignore the fact that this is the first time he’s touched me in over a week. But his fingers bear the same calluses that clung to my skin in the throes of ecstasy, and it’s so, so hard to concentrate when it feels like he’s burning my wrist with his touch.
He disappears for a moment before coming back with a medical kit. I almost laugh at the sight of it: it’s huge and definitely war-zone grade, judging by the myriad of thick, slash-proof pouches inside of it.
We had the same one growing up.
“When did this happen?” he asks as he leans over my arm to inspect the damage.
I try not to hiss as he tugs gently at the tender skin. Under the harsh lighting, the long gash seems much deeper than I’d originally thought.
“Window,” I grit out. “I think the adrenaline masked the pain.”
“There still glass in it?”
I shrug as he pulls out a pair of tweezers and gets to work. The bleeding has begun to stem, but if I were being totally honest, I would tell him that I need stitches.
“Fuck,” I hiss as he applies a little too much pressure extracting a chip of glass.
Wordlessly, he withdraws and comes back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses before returning to my arm again.
I don’t bother with the glasses. I drink right from the bottle.
“I can’t believe you drove all the way back like this,” he mutters after a moment of silence.
“I can’t believe you shot that guy in the head.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I will take you to a hospital,” he says it like it’s a threat.
“I will bleed all over your carpet,” I also say as a threat.
“Are you sure you’re mentally sound? You just keep mimicking me. You’re usually more original than that.”
I scoff as I take another swig of whiskey. “Are you sure you’re mentally sound? You—oh fuck!”
It takes everything within me not to jerk my arm away as the pain shoots up my arm with lightning efficiency and shattering agony.
My head must have slumped at one point as I find myself staring at the counter. A hand is soothingly stroking the back of my neck.
“Hey.” His voice is so much softer, so much more earnest. Like the last conversation never even existed. “That’s it, that’s the last of the glass. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on breathing.
I’m inexplicably comforted by his tone, by the pressure on my neck.
“I’ve got some skin glue here. It might sting a little when I put it on, but that’s it. Okay?”
