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Was he faking it to get back at me? Or did he really pass out?
I tapped two fingers sharply against his bearded cheek. “Rett!”
Son of a bitch!
I gently turned his head until I could see where he struck it and immediately saw the blood.
What the hell did I do?
I quickly parted his short, dark brown hair and was relieved to only see a tiny cut. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t more damage underneath from the contact.
Like a concussion.
Fuck! I hadn’t meant to hurt him.
But that was exactly what I did.
CHAPTER 10
Rett
I wasn’t sure where I was sleeping but wherever it was wasn’t very comfortable. Worse, my head was propped up on a very lumpy and hard pillow.
That same head also throbbed like I had a bad headache.
I needed to find a more comfortable place to sleep. This wasn’t it.
I opened my eyes and closed them instantly.
Was that two heads hovering over me?
I cracked my eyes open again. Enough to try to make out what it was without the light stabbing like a butcher knife through my noggin.
No, even with my blurry vision I realized it wasn’t two heads, unless they were identical twins.
Two of Chase would definitely be one too many.
Right now, it may be two too many.
The man was on his knees next to me and it took me a few seconds to realize the pillow under my head wasn’t lumpy because it was a crappy pillow, it was Chase’s lap.
And I was lying on the hardwood floor.
None of that made any sense.
I winced again at Timber’s loud whining. From the corner of my eye, I could see a blurry black and tan four-legged figure pacing back and forth. Then a second later my dog’s blocky head pushed between us, and his long snout poked my cheek.
Chase pushed him out of the way. “Timber, no. Not now. Go… Go… Somewhere.”
Timber, in fact, did not go “somewhere,” he plopped his ass down next to Chase, his head swinging back and forth between me and the man leaning over me.
I tried to ask, “What happened?” but my words came out sounding more jumbled and muffled than they should.
Or was that the cotton in my ears?
My head was still spinning and I had no idea how I got on the floor. Or why.
Worse, my head throbbed with its own heartbeat. And he was pressing on the back of my head with something. Damp cloth? Washcloth? Something wet.
Did I have a cut? Whatever it was, it stung like hell and throbbed to the same beat as the rest of my brain.
“You tripped.”
I frowned and shifted to get up.
“Don’t move.” Chase held me back down with one hand pressed to the back of my head, the other pressing against my shoulder.
“What did I trip over? Timber?” My dog was notorious for being where he didn’t belong, including under my feet. Sometimes I swore he was trying to take me out.
“The chair.” His lips thinned out.
“I tripped over a chair?” I usually wasn’t that klutzy.
When I reached behind my head, Chase smacked my hand away. “Don’t touch it.”
“It hurts.”
“That doesn’t mean you should touch it.”
I bit back my urge to roll my eyes and say, “Okay, Dad.”
Because he was far, far, far from my father. Especially with the things I wanted to do to the man…
Yeah, no. Chase was definitely not even close to being the same as my dad. On that note, I also wasn’t one to call other men Daddy.
I would normally be thrilled to have my head in his lap like this while he cupped it, but not in this situation.
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”
“Am I bleeding?”
He pulled a damp paper towel away and showed me some evidence of blood. “It’s only a cut.”
“Large enough for stitches?”
“No, but you’ll probably need a few aspirin.”
“Are my pupils blown?”
I held my breath when he leaned closer and stared directly into my eyes.
Damn. “Are they?”
He shook his head. His own pupils were wider now and his nostrils slightly flared.
“Then, no. I don’t want to go to the hospital. My insurance sucks.”
“I’d pay for it.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Why? I only tripped, right?”
“Right.”
A flash of memory ping-ponged through my foggy brain. I pressed fingertips to my lips in an attempt to make that memory clearer.
Lips…
Yes, it had something to do with my lips.
Did he punch me in the mouth? No. My mouth would be bleeding and it would hurt.
I remembered my lips tingling… And…
Holy shit.
Everything came flooding back to me.
The kiss I was losing myself in. A hard impact against my chest before I lost my balance…
My heart stopping and then leaping into my throat as I fell backward.
From where I now lay—mostly on the floor and with my upper body on Chase’s lap—my eyes flicked to the corner of the table where apparently I’d left a bit of DNA behind. A few hairs and a little bit of blood.
