She lowered her arm to rest on the blanket and sighed.
Crusher rose from the bed and retrieved the ointment and bandages. Quickly and effectively, he slathered her wound with antibiotic ointment. Anger burned deep in his heart. The woman should never have been abducted and then treated like a prisoner for Vasquez’s gain.
“You don’t have to do that.” She tried to pull her hand away.
He held on. “I want to.”
“You’re frowning,” she said.
“No man should treat a woman the way Vasquez treated you. Seeing these wounds makes me want to hurt him.”
“I’m okay. You saw to that by getting me out of there.”
He covered the sores with gauze and tape and then bound them all with a wrap. “Tomorrow, we should leave the wound open to let it scab over and heal itself.”
She nodded. “Thanks again.”
When he started to move away, she caught his hand. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor, you know. This bed is big enough for both of us.”
Crusher shook his head. “No, Marta, I have to sleep on the floor.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Why?”
“Because if I sleep with you, you and I won’t get any rest.” He stared down at her, wanting so badly to lie on the bed beside her. “Go to sleep, Marta,” he said softly and dropped down onto the pallet he’d made on the floor.
The cold, hard floor.
With his hands linked behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling, counting the minutes until morning while every cell of his being wanted to climb onto the bed with Marta, the beautiful scientist. There was only one place that would lead, and he wasn’t sure he could go there and walk away unscathed when he handed her off in Miami.
Chapter 8
Marta stared up at the ceiling long after Crusher chose the floor over the bed with her. Kissing him had been spontaneous, not at all planned or thought out. Had she read his response incorrectly? He’d kissed her back like he’d meant it—not like a pity kiss.
Or had it been?
In retrospect, she shouldn’t have done it. Hell, she hadn’t known she was going to do it. She’d just been staring at his lips, wondering how it would feel to kiss him. The next thing she’d known, she was kissing him—and he was kissing her back. She couldn’t regret a single moment of it. Now she knew what it felt like to be kissed by the ruggedly handsome former special operations soldier.
The only problem now was that she knew what it was like to kiss him.
And she wanted to do it again.
And so much more.
Sigh. What the hell was she thinking?
* * *
She must have fallen asleep sometime in the night.
Her next conscious thought was that there was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.
“Marta,” Crusher’s voice brought her awake.
She stared up into his blue eyes and blinked. A wedge of light shone through the partially open bathroom door, bathing Crusher’s short, sandy-blond hair in golden light. “Umm,” she smiled. “Decide to join me after all?”
His lips lifted in a grin. “I wish. Liza just texted me that our ride will be here in a few minutes.”
Marta sat up straight. “A few minutes?” She flung back the covers, leaped to her feet and staggered a few steps, still woozy from waking from a dead sleep.
