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She nodded, and I got the sense she knew I’d rejected her. After ten years, I would have thought she’d gotten used to it. Still, each time it happened, each time I put up a largedo not crosssign, her face fell. She never pressed, never tried to seduce or manipulate me into agreeing, but that didn’t hide her disappointment.
After putting the papers back together and closing the folder, she turned fully toward me. “Okay, shirt off. Let me examine you, and that will be it. If you start having problems or find your range of motion isn’t what it should be, consider getting some physical therapy.”
I moved my fingers to the buttons of my shirt and undid them efficiently. When I managed them all, I undid the buttons at the cuffs, then slid the shirt off. I hung it over the back of one of the chairs.
When I turned back to Sasha, I caught that same look in her eyes from before. She’d locked her gaze on my chest, tracing along the bare skin as if she could feel it if she just stared hard enough.
And for my part, I sternly told my body to behave, to not react. If I could stay perfectly still on a roof in the rain for six hours waiting to spot a target through my scope, I sure as hell could convince my cock to ignore this whole situation.
“As you can see, I’m healed,” I said to break her out of her fantasy.
She blinked quickly and her cheeks flushed a deep red. “Sorry,” she said, reminding me of when I’d apologized for damn near the same thing. As fast as she said it, however, she shifted into her work mode. She came closer, leaning in to study the mark on my chest which had already almost fully healed. “The scar won’t go away,” she said. “It will fade, but that’s it.”
“It’s not my first scar, and I doubt it’ll be my last.”
She pressed her lips together before she peered at the old scars that covered me.
“How did you get so many?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her.
She hesitated, then reached for one of the deeper marks. It sat just below my ribcage—a thick scar from where a lucky asshole had driven a hunting blade into me.
Talk about embarrassing… I’d faced off against some of the worst people, but some biker in a bar had gotten the jump on me because he’d been high and thought I’d flirted with his wife.
His wife who had been only a coatrack near the door.Drugs are a hell of a ride.
The stroke of her fingers against my skin made me want to lean in, to let her touch all she wanted.
Instead, I wrapped my hand around her wrist to stop her, then waited until she lifted her blue eyes to mine.
And when she did?
I swore to myself that I’d never tell her the truth about myself, because if I did?
She’d never look at me like this again, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough for that.
Sasha
Jarrod’s large hand wrapped around my wrist made it hard to breathe.
Despite having treated his wounds over the years, Inevertouched him outside of that. My cheeks burned at the fact I was touching him like this now, that I’d done something so unprofessional.
Worse, he’d stopped me.
Not that I blamed him for stopping me. It wasn’t as if I wanted him uncomfortable, as if I wanted to push him into something. Jarrod was mysterious, quiet, dangerous, but always treated me with unfailing care.
He was also one-hundred percent not attracted to me.
The truth depressed me, but I’d forced myself to accept it. The sexual tension was all from one side—mine.
Who could blame me, though? Jarrod was unfairly handsome. He had eyes so light blue that they appeared silver. His hair was dark, which matched well with his tan skin. He had facial hair, though it was always kept short and neat. All of it made him look like some bad boy who I shouldn’t ever look twice at, yet I couldn’t deny having been smitten since our first meeting.
I gulped, then tried to put us back on track. “The scars do matter. They could have killed you.”
He tilted his head, his eyes pulling me in as they always did. “They didn’t kill me, though. The past doesn’t matter, not really. As long as I survive it, what use does thinking about it have? Why treat remembering pain like some badge of honor?” His voice dropped, and the next words came out so softly, I was sure I wasn’t meant to hear them. “As if I had any honor.”
I dragged my tongue over my bottom lip as I struggled to keep myself together. Why was it that I could save lives, that I could shut down everything else and do what needed to be done when it came to medicine, but the moment Jarrod looked at me, I became some air-headed bimbo who couldn’t string together a sentence?
