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I ran my gaze over his torso, too stunned to do anything about covering my own naked body.
Angry purple bruises the size and shape of fists peppered his ribs and abs. Cuts and gashes that could only come from knife strikes did the same, some weeping fresh blood that trickled down his body. Over his hips, down to his—
Fuck, he’s huge.
Jerking my stare up from his erection, I let out a gasp at the battered state of his face. His jaw and lips were as pounded as his body. A deep cut ran the length of his cheekbone below his left eye and also trickled blood.
It was his eyes that messed with me the most, however.
His eyes had always mesmerized me. There was a secret world of danger and violence in them I’d never been able to comprehend. I had even admitted to Mads one night, when we were sixteen and tipsy on my Dad’s secret bottle of Wild Turkey, that his eyes were sexy.
Right now, his eyes looked crazy. Scary crazy.
“Are you on drugs?” I asked.
There were a lot of things about Lucas that made him fall into the bad-boy category, but using had never been one of them.
Lucas liked being in control too much. I knew that.
But his eyes…
He stared at me, his chest heaving, his eyes…
Bright red fresh blood began to flow from his nose, and suddenly he staggered sideways.
“Jesus, Lucas,” I burst out, clawing myself off the bed.
I grabbed at his arm before he could collapse to the ground, steadying him with a flat palm on his chest—right above the tattoo of a raven inked over his heart. “What have you been doing?”
His gaze found mine. For a second, they were as direct and piercing as always, and then they fogged over with what I assume was pain but might be…something else.
“Ronnie?” he mumbled, raising a hand—bloody-knuckled, I noticed—to cup the side of my face. “What are you doing here? I’ll fucking kill them if they’ve hurt you.”
I frowned, alarm bells ringing in my head, my blood roaring in my ears. “We’re in my bedroom, Lucas,” I said calmly even as my tummy knotted. “You woke me in my bed. What happened to you?”
He brushed his thumb over my lips, fresh blood oozing from his nose. “Ronnie. I’ve wanted you since I first fucking saw—”
His eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground.
I couldn’t stop him. He was too heavy, too solid. Too boneless.
By the time my brain registered he was going down, and that I was still gripping his upper arm with a firm hold, he hit the floor, taking me with him.
We hit it hard. I heard a sharp crack as his head smacked the floor. My right knee did the same and pain shot up my leg. I tried to bite back a gasp, but it escaped me before I could stop it. I’ve had surgery twice on my knee for anterior cruciate ligament damage, the last operation only a year ago. Suffice to say, my bare knee striking my floor wasn’t fun.
“Goddamn it,” I muttered, wincing at the shards of pain spearing my reconstructed knee as I tried to shift Lucas onto his back, or at least get him into a better position on his side.
Worry ate at me. Worry and fear.
I hadn’t seen my mysterious bad-boy neighbor for three months, and this is how he turns up? And who were they? Who did he think had me? And what had they done to him?
Ignoring the screaming agony in my knee, I finally managed to move him into a position I hoped was more comfortable. I stole a second to run my gaze over him.
Jesus, he was beaten black and blue. There wasn’t a part of his body not bruised or cut in some way.
I tentatively feathered my fingers over the worst-looking wounds, uncertain what to do.
Did I call 911? I had no idea how injured he was. What I did have was an idea about how often the cops came looking for him in our house during the times he was AWOL. If I called 911, would he hate me for it? Would I be putting him in more danger?
