He opened his mouth, to protest probably, but then he looked at Bridget again.
He shrugged out of his coat. The shirt underneath was soaked in blood from elbow to wrist. Bridget gasped, and it admittedly made my stomach turn. There hadn’t been this kind of violence in my life for years, and certainly not since meeting Andrew.
“I wrapped it already. The bleeding slowed down,” he said, as if this wasn’t a gruesome sight. When he rolled up the sleeve to show a measly strip of gauze, already scarlet from his blood, he looked surprised. “Oh. I thought it slowed down.”
“Fucking hell, man, that looks nasty,” Andrew said, looking at Nathan with something approaching respect. I rolled my eyes.
“Ci sei o ci fai?” I asked Nathan angrily. “Are you truly this stupid? Sit down.”
Call it paranoia or just preparedness, but I had a full medical kit in the bathroom. I retrieved it and stalked back to the living room. Nathan was on the couch, Bridget next to him.
Andrew was keeping his distance, but he watched the two of them carefully. I arrayed the tools I’d need on the coffee table and propped the moron’s arm with a stack of towels to soak up the blood.
“This will hurt,” I said, then started disinfecting the wound.
To his credit, Nathan kept his stoicism throughout the cleaning. It was a nasty graze, the edges ragged, and there were bits of fabric from his shirt stuck to his skin.
“See? You would have had a nasty infection,” I told him, using a gloved finger to show him the stray material. “This is going to hurt even worse,” I warned.
Bridget grabbed his right hand and squeezed while I plucked the embedded fabric away and rinsed the wound again. While I cut away the ragged bits of flesh with a pair of smallscissors, Nathan turned his head towards Bridget with another hiss of pain. She was watching me work.
Once I was satisfied, I threaded the needle. “Ready?”
Nathan set his jaw. “Yes.”
When I finished the last stitch, Andrew stepped forward to carry the bloody towels to the laundry room. “You good?” he asked Nathan. Nathan’s head wobbled in what could have been a nod. “I’ll get you a drink.”
“You will probably not die now,” I said, wrapping his arm firmly in gauze. Nathan looked pale and sweaty from the pain.
“How do you know how to do that?” Bridget asked while I placed all the used tools in a bag to be thrown away. She was still clutching Nathan’s right hand, her fingers white from the intensity of her grip.
“Remember, carissima, I worked for bad men. There was always a need for someone to stitch a wound.” I removed my used gloves and didn’t say that it was Matteo who often needed stitches.
Now that the most pressing matter was resolved, we needed to settle the next issue. The apartment’s third bedroom was small and had only a futon, some spare exercise equipment, and the other clutter Andrew had shoved in there when he was preparing for Bridget’s arrival. I felt guilty putting our newest houseguest in there, but kicking Bridget out of her room was not happening.
The best option would be for Bridget to move into our room, but I didn’t think she would respond well to the suggestion, especially now that Nathan had arrived.
Do not think about it, I told myself for the fiftieth time that day. There would be a correct moment to dissect the complicated feelings I had about her sharing our bed, in more ways than one, but now was not the time.
While Nathan sipped from the glass of whiskey Andrew had poured for him, we showed him the futon he would obviously not fit on. “This is great, thank you.”
“You can have the other room,” Bridget said quickly. “I don’t need that much space and the bed is way more comfortable—”
“No way,” Andrew said at the same moment that Nathan said, “Absolutely not.” They exchanged a look. Andrew’s eyes flashed with a challenge.
“You are both saying the same thing, amore mio,” I whispered before a fight for dominance could erupt. It had only been thirty minutes. They could at least have the decency to wait twenty-four hours.
I had seen this play out before. When a new member joined Pack Agnello, there was always an uneasy period during which they had to work out their position in the group. For a pack of violent men, this usually involved fistfights, light stabbings, or, on two memorable occasions, murder.
I trusted the two men in front of me to confine themselves to yelling, maybe barking at each other, or perhaps just aggressive looks until one backed down.
One thing was obvious. Bridget had deep feelings for this Alpha, and if we wanted her in our lives after this, he would probably be involved too.
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Not only did other gunshots I’d stitched keep flashing in my mind, but more recent events kept intruding, too.
Bridget’s soft sounds of pleasure, the feeling of her pressed against me, the soft skin of her breast, and, of course, her scent.
It had been thicker than ever the night before. Not as potent as an Omega’s perfume could be, but still enough to causea physical reaction in me. I’d been rock hard as I watched my Alpha touch her. How much of that was a reaction to her and Andrew’s scents? How much could I attribute to the arousal I felt flooding from Andrew?
