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He poked. Prodded. Asked, “Does this hurt?” a couple of times, and she said no, nothing hurt, at least not any more than it should have.
She heard the whisper of paper tearing and then the cold swipe of antiseptic on her skin.
“What’d you do?” she asked coldly. “Raid a pharmacy?”
“Turn,” he said, and she complied, the shirt still clutched to her breasts.
More poking and prodding. This time, a couple of the pokes and prods made her jump, and he muttered something under his breath.
“This will hurt,” he said, and, merda, it did, but she knew he was doing what had to be done, pulling out thorns, testing whether a swelling near her collarbone was a simple reaction to an insect bite or plant toxin, or if it was an indication that some creature had burrowed beneath her skin. None had, evidently, because he finally grunted in what she figured was approval and swabbed her with more antiseptic.
She could tell when he found the bruises from Skinny’s fist under her rib cage.
He went very still.
Then he looked up at her and she caught her breath at what she saw in his eyes.
“Which of them did this?”
His voice was low, an animal’s growl.
“It doesn’t—”
“Which one?”
“The tall one.”
“Was he also the one who hit you in the face?”
He sounded casual, as if he were asking who’d made the dinner reservations, but that look in his eyes was still there.
“Yes.”
He nodded and went back to work.
Okay.
She’d made a bad judgment.
This man was absolutely not a lapdog.
He was hard and dangerous, and she knew he would do whatever it took to protect her. Silly, because she was a modern, independent woman. She didn’t need any man to protect her. She didn’t even like the concept and yet…and yet…
His gaze dropped to her breasts.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Was he going to ask her to let go of the shirt? Was he going to run those lightly calloused fingers over her breasts?
It was a ridiculous thought to have in a ridiculous situation.
He wouldn’t.
And even if he did, it would only be in the interest of finding out if she had wounds on her breasts. There would be nothing intimate in his touch.
Somebody should have told that to her libido.
