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She nodded, keeping her gaze set forward on the flames in the fireplace.
Grabbing her by the elbow, he lifted it, twisting the back of her upper arm toward the firelight. A slight grunt vibrated from his chest.
That didn’t sound good.
As much as she didn’t want to, her head turned to look at him. His face only inches away from hers, his stare was solidly on her arm as he twisted it back and forth in the light. His face held that impenetrable façade on it, but his eyes were warm for a change, not filled with the cold disinterest they usually held.
But that had to be the glow of the firelight causing his eyes to look like that. The flames. That was the only thing.
“There are more shards in here than I thought there would be.”
She swallowed hard, letting her gaze slip to her upper arm.
Her skin was just as red and swollen as it was this morning when she’d attempted to pick the shards out with her fingernails. Angrier. Streaks of blood still clung to her arm. She hadn’t wanted to wash the area for fear of driving the glass splinters farther into her skin.
He leaned away toward the fire, dunking a washcloth into the bowl by his feet and she jerked against his hold as he brought it to her arm. “You—”
“I’m only going to drizzle it on your arm so the glass catches the light. That is all.” He squeezed the washcloth before she could argue, the coolness of the water a relief on her skin.
She relaxed. Slightly.
His hand slipped fully under her elbow, supporting her arm as he lifted it higher and picked up the tweezers.
Pluck, pluck, pluck.
The first three slivers came easily out of her skin and he wiped the offending glass shards onto a swatch of linen he’d set on top of his thigh.
Pausing, he glanced up and his brows lifted as he looked at her. His eyes searched her face for a second and whatever he saw didn’t stop him. He looked back down, working on the next section of skin, intermittently stopping to drizzle water over her arm.
Fifteen minutes passed of silent work, where she almost lulled herself into sleep for the heat coming off the fire at her. The only thing keeping her awake were the twitches of pain from the longer pieces of glass slipping out of her skin.
Rafe expelled a long sigh. “I need to drag the cloth over your arm. I got what I could see, but I suspect there are a few more shards.”
She nodded, watching him as he dunked the cloth into the bowl and rinsed it. His hands were incredibly gentle with her, more so than she would have thought possible for the size of him.
He set the cloth to the tip of her shoulder and dragged it downward.
Instant pain slid into her arm and she twisted away from him with a hiss.
He frowned, looking to her face. “The shards still embedded are probably throbbing now, so show me exactly where the pain is.”
Victoria looked down at her arm, grabbing at her skin to twist it farther forward as she tried to parse out the origins of the pulsating pain that had taken over the whole of her upper arm. She pointed to spot just below her shoulder. “Here.” Then to two more spots.
He picked up the knife, cleaning the top of it with the cloth, then set his nose close to her arm, looking at the top spot from all angles. “Look away.”
She didn’t need to be told twice.
Her head turned from him just as the tip of the blade sank into her skin. Her mouth opened in a gasp with an intake of a cry, but she managed to not jerk away. Not that she could have for his iron grip just above her elbow wouldn’t have allowed it.
She could feel the tweezers digging into the skin.
And then nothing. Freedom in that spot. Nothing chaffing deep in her skin with every movement.
“Point again to the next spot.”
She didn’t look, just reached over to her arm, her fingers crawling over her skin until she found the next embedded shard shooting stabs of pain deep into her bone.
He took care of the last two spots just the same. The tip of the blade and then the tweezers. As quick as possible, she reasoned. But still bloody painful.
