8. Seven
Sierra put three new stitches in John before he let either of us near the bathhouse.
He sat John sideways at the kitchen table and cut away the dressing over his ribs. Two sutures had pulled through completely. A third hung loose in the swollen skin, useless except for making me want to find another Javelina to open up.
"You did this fighting?" Sierra asked.
"Some of it."
Sierra looked at the bruises darkening John's throat and jaw. "I see."
John's eyes found me across the table. I still had blood drying under my nails. Some of it was mine. Most of it belonged to the men in the shed.
"Needle," John said.
Sierra already had one waiting. He washed his hands, pulled on gloves, and numbed the skin around the torn sutures. John told him where to place the first stitch and how deep to take it. Sierra listened without arguing, which meant he was more worried than he wanted anybody to know.
I stood close enough that my thigh touched John's knee.
The needle went in. John didn't move. His hand closed around the back of my leg instead, fingers curling into my jeans.
Sierra pulled the edges of the wound together. The black thread passed through John's skin. A new bead of blood rose where the needle came out. My teeth ached.
"Easy, Percy," Sierra said without looking up.
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're growling."
I shut my mouth.
Sierra tied off the last stitch and covered the whole thing with a waterproof dressing. He checked the puncture high on John's thigh next. That one had held. So had the wrapping on his forearm, though blood from the shed had soaked through the outside of it.
"No soaking," Sierra said. "No spring. Wash around this and keep it dry."
"I know," John said.
"I know you know. I'm saying it anyway."
John pushed himself upright. Sierra put a hand against his shoulder and shoved him back into the chair.
"You get dizzy?"
"No."
"Would you say so if you did?"
"Probably not."
Sierra kept his hand on John's shoulder. "Sit another minute."
I stayed where I was, trapped between John's knees. His hand remained on the back of my leg. He rubbed his thumb once over the tendon behind my knee, a slow pass that made something inside me pull tight.
Sierra caught me looking down at it.
"Take him to wash," he said. "Before you bite through your own tongue."
I wound Nimue around my neck and took John to the bathhouse.
John sat on the dry cedar bench while I filled a basin. Nimue settled at the far end, away from the water, and raised her head to watch us.
I started with John's hands.
Blood had dried in the creases of his knuckles and beneath his nails. I took each finger separately, working the cloth over the skin until the water in the basin turned pink.
His hands… those big, gentle hands that spanned half my back when he held me, had blood on them, and I hated the sight of it with everything in me. Bruises ringed one wrist where somebody had grabbed him. Finger marks stood out along his throat. A dark stripe crossed his cheekbone from the pistol.
I scrubbed harder. Too hard, probably, but I had to get off more than the blood. They'd tainted him, and I couldn't leave even a hint of their scent on my man.
I dragged the cloth over his forearm, digging dried blood out of the hair. His skin turned red. I moved up to his shoulder, then his throat, rubbing over the bruises until his jaw tightened.
Every dark smear showed me another place they had touched what was mine.
I pressed the cloth against his cheek, and he flinched. "Hold still."
"Little one."
"It's not off yet."
"It is."
I scrubbed the same place again.
John caught my wrist. I tried to pull free, and his hand closed tighter.
"Let go."
"No."
"There's still blood on you."
"There's blood on you too."
"I don't care."
"I do."
He worked the cloth out of my fist and dropped it into the basin. My fingers stayed curled after it was gone, and I didn't know what to do with my hands.
John shifted forward on the bench. His knees opened around me, and he put one hand flat against my chest. "Sit."
"I'm fine."
"Sit down before I make you."
I showed him my teeth.
His eyes dropped to my mouth. "Those don't frighten me."
"They should."
"Maybe." He pushed.
I could have resisted. He was hurt, and I knew where. I could have twisted out of his grip without pulling a stitch. Instead, I let him put me on the bench.
John wrung out the cloth and stepped between my knees. He tipped my chin up with one finger and washed another man's blood from my face. Warm water ran past my temples and into my hair. His thumb stayed braced beneath my jaw, turning my head whenever he needed a better angle.
His knuckles brushed my cheek. The cloth passed over my mouth, my throat, the hollow behind my ear. Each touch stayed on my skin after his hand moved on.
My chest tightened until I couldn't pull a full breath.
I caught his wrist.
John stopped immediately. "Too much?"
I nodded.
"What do you need?"
I didn't have the words for it. My teeth hurt. My skin didn't fit. I wanted him closer and farther away and flat beneath me where nobody else could reach him. I wanted to crawl inside of him and wrap myself around his beating heart and protect it with my whole body.
My grip tightened around his wrist, and my breathing quickened. "I need to bite."
John held my eyes for a moment. Then he turned his arm and offered me the thick inside of his forearm. "Here."
"You're already hurt."
"That part isn't."
I looked at the bruises around his wrist.
"Bite above them," he said. "As hard as you need."
I closed my teeth over the muscle of his forearm, and the first bite barely left a mark.
"More," John said.
I bit harder.
His arm stayed steady against my teeth. His other hand returned to my face, moving the cloth along my jaw while I held him in my mouth.
The pressure helped. So did the heat of him against my tongue. His pulse beat beneath my lips, slow and alive. I closed my eyes and focused on that, and it soothed something in me I didn't know needed soothing.
He washed my throat. My shoulders. The blood from my hands.
When he reached my hair, he moved behind me and guided me down to sit on the floor between his legs.
I kept my teeth in his arm while he poured warm water over my head.
Blood ran out of my hair and down my chest. John worked his fingers against my scalp, untangling the strands without pulling, his big thighs bracketing my shoulders.
I put one hand around his ankle and held on.
He kept washing me until the water ran clear. Then I opened my mouth and released him. The marks of my teeth stayed in his skin.
John rubbed his thumb across the marks. "Better?"
"Yes."
He set the cloth aside and gathered my wet hair at the back of my neck. I leaned my head against his thigh. For a while, neither of us moved.
"I left you," I said.
John's hand stopped in my hair.
"I rode off, and they came through the gate while I was gone."
"They gave you a trail because they knew you would follow it. You were checking the fence. That was your job."
I ran my thumb over the marks I'd left above his wrist. "I should've known."
"How?"
"I don't know."
John's hand slid from my hair to the back of my neck. "You didn't do anything wrong, Coyote. You were just doing your job, and you came for me as soon as you knew."
"After they had you."
"Before they killed anybody."
"They could've."
"They didn't."
"Because you stopped them."
I turned enough to look up at him. "You were supposed to be in the bunkhouse."
"I know."
"I went there first."
"I moved into the shed."
"Without telling me."
"Yes."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Cruz knew," he said. "I told myself that was enough. It wasn't. I should have told you directly."
"Why didn't you?"
"You were gone, and I was tired. The bunk was too short. Too many people around me. The shed was quieter."
"You could've waited. You could've left a note or something. When I got there and couldn't find you, I thought something terrible must've happened."
"I know. I'm sorry."
My fingers dug into his ankle. "Don't make me look for you."
"I won't do that again."
"You say it like you understand."
"I woke up with a knife against my throat and my first thought was to wonder whether you knew where I was." His grip tightened at my nape. "I understand."
I turned back and pressed my forehead against his knee.
He gave me a minute before he spoke again. "I need something from you too."
I went still.
"Next time you find a trail in the dark, you don't follow it with one other man and no way for me to know where you went."
"Linc had a radio." I looked up at him.
"And still…" He sighed. "All I'm asking is that you don't disappear and leave me waiting to find out whether you're coming back."
"I didn't want you worrying."
John's mouth pulled tight. "That isn't your choice to make for me."
I flinched. Not because he was wrong. Because he wasn't.
I rose to my knees between his legs. Even like that, I didn't come close to matching his height. I put one hand against the center of his chest.
"If somebody puts hands on you, I'll take them off."
"I know."
I slid my hand up his chest and closed it around the back of his neck. I couldn't span it. Not even close.
"Just promise me you won't go somewhere I can't follow," John said, and he sounded exhausted. "I can't lose…" He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I just…don't want to lose anyone else."
"I promise," I said.
John searched my face. Then he nodded. "Come here."
"I'm already here."
"Closer."
I climbed carefully onto the bench beside him. John put one arm around my back and drew me against his chest. I tucked myself beneath his chin, one hand spread over the dressing at his ribs without touching it.
He smelled like well water, cedar, and the last trace of blood I hadn't managed to wash away.
Mine.
He smelled like mine, and that made everything feel better. I let him hold me, his chin on my head, and ran my thumb over the fading bite marks on his arm, wishing they'd stay.