Chapter 18
B lood soaks through the left shoulder and arm of his white button-down.
“Max!” I yell for my escort.
Where the hell did he disappear to? Blood drips from Rurik’s fingertips.
“Mira.” Rurik grabs me with his right hand, pulling me closer to him. “Max is getting the kit, it’s all right.”
He must have lost a lot of blood. He’s delusional.
“You’re not all right. You’re bleeding out.”
“It’s a graze. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” I argue, inspecting his face and the rest of him for any other injuries.
As I maneuver my hands over his chest, all I feel is his hard muscles. He doesn’t wince once.
Max shows up a moment later carrying a medical kit.
“You need a doctor. We should go to the hospital.”
“No hospital.” Rurik shakes his head as he takes the kit from Max and dismisses him with a jerk of his head.
“Where is he going?” My voice rises, teetering on a shout as Max gets back in the elevator.
“I don’t need him right now. He has other things to do.”
“I hope getting a doctor is one of them.”
A hint of a smile pulls the edges of Rurik’s mouth.
“You’ll do fine.”
“Me?” My stomach is back to doing flips. “Why would I do it? You have men that can do it, and there are a million doctors in this city. Alexander had one come to the house for Megan; call that guy.”
He places his heavy hand on my shoulder.
“You’ll do fine. Let’s go in the kitchen. The lighting is better there.” He stalks off ahead of me, drops of blood trickling onto the floor with his movement.
“This is insane.” I wash my hands in the kitchen sink, throwing a look over my shoulder at him sitting at the table.
A pained scowl settles on his lips as he peels the fabric away from the wound on his shoulder. Even from where I’m standing, it looks bad. Blood still leaks from the deep wound.
I swallow hard, settling myself.
“The kit should have everything you need.” He drops his bloodied shirt to the floor at his feet and pushes the first aid kit toward me.
“Does it have a medical degree in there, cause that’s what I really need right now.” I survey the contents inside.
“You can do it. You’ve sewn up a hole in your jeans, you can do this.”
I snap my attention to him. “How do you know that?”
“I told you. I was watching you for a while. You tore your jeans at the diner one morning, and you had stitched it up before your night shift at the Dive Bar.”
“Stitching fabric isn’t the same thing as skin.” I sort through the kit, pulling out the gauze first. “You’re still bleeding.”
“It will stop soon. Just put pressure on it, and it will stop.”
“You don’t want to do it?” I offer him the folded-up gauze.
“You can’t hurt me, Mira. Just do it.”
I move closer to his left shoulder and gently lay the gauze over the wound. It’s an ugly thing, but it’s the only unsavory part of this man.
Well, that’s not the sort of thinking I need right now. I should be focusing on getting him cleaned up and stitched up, so he’ll stop bleeding all over his house.
“I need to press harder,” I mutter to myself, laying my hands over the dressing and pushing down on his shoulder.
He grits his teeth but makes no sound as I put more pressure on the wound. After a moment, I peel back the gauze to gauge my progress.
Nope. Still bleeding.
I rise up to my toes, pressing harder onto the wound. Rurik shoots me a heated look, his jaw flexed. His nostrils flare as his breath gets heavier.
“It stopped.” I blow out a relieved breath several minutes later and drop the bloody gauze to the table beside the kit.
“You need to clean it. There should be a bottle of saline solution in there; use that.” He inspects the wound, poking gently at the edges. “It’s going to need at least four stitches.”
“Four?” I was hoping just butterfly Band-Aids would do, but after inspecting it more closely I know he’s right.
After I flush the wound, cleaning off the dried blood around it, I grab the iodine I found in the kit.
“You don’t need that,” he says.
“Oh, you wanted it to get infected?” I hold the swab over his sliced flesh.
He eyes darken. “Fine. Do it.”
There’s a small flinch when the iodine touches his injury. It probably stings like all hell, but it’s his own fault for getting shot and having me do this in the first place. After I dab the antiseptic around the wound, I pick up the suture kit.
“This is gonna hurt. Even with the numbing they did, it still was uncomfortable when they stitched my head.”
Reminding him of my own wound probably isn’t the best course. His face pulls tight into another scowl as he lifts his gaze to my own stitches.
“They don’t hurt now,” I hurry to add before he gets himself worked up over nothing.
“I’ll be fine.” He presses his hands into his knees, steadying himself.
“Maybe you should take a few shots of something? Vodka? It might help.” I turn to look for something in the kitchen, but he grabs me, yanking me back.
“I’ll be fine. I need to stay sharp.”
“I doubt a shot or two would make you drunk.”
He raises his eyes to mine, his forehead wrinkled in the sexiest way.
“Then how would it dull the pain?”
“All right, fine.” I open the suture kit and inspect the small, curved needle.
Like every other warm-blooded American woman, I’ve seen enough medical dramas to have a general idea of what to do with this thing. But now that I’m looking at it, it looks impossible.
I’m all thumbs pulling it out of the packaging. The curved needle is thin, and I drop it twice before I get a solid grasp on it.
After several deep breaths I bring the suture closer to him. He moves in his seat, putting his knee between my legs so I’m straddling him. It’s a better position, so I don’t argue.
“You sure you don’t want to have something to drink?” I give him another chance.
“Nope. Just do it.”
“Well don’t go whipping out your belt when this hurts,” I mutter, bringing the needle tip to the wound.
He laughs. It’s low and soft, but it’s there.
“I’ll try to contain myself.” He watches as I bring the needle to the wound .
He hisses when I sink the needle in the first time, grabbing my thigh as I pull the stitch through.
As I make the second stitch, I check on him. He’s watching me, his jaw tensed. Pain shines in his gaze, but he’s holding it in.
It’s a horrible job, and it takes me six stitches, but I manage to get the wound closed up. He eyes my work as I finish the last stitch.
“They’re all crooked.” I point out with a frown.
“You did good,” he says sincerely. “You have to tie the end before you cut it.”
Right. I blow out a breath. Thankfully, it’s not too different from ending the stitch on a tear in a seam, and I manage to get the knot close enough to the skin that it shouldn’t open up.
He rolls his shoulder, grimacing only slightly.
“Perfect.”
“Far from it.” I roll my eyes and start to clean up the mess on the table.
But he must not like that, because he grabs the back of my pants and pulls me into his lap.
“Are you going to tell me who shot you?” I question him as he settles me on one knee.
I’m straddling him again, and he’s pushing his leg up so that he’s putting pressure on an already sensitive spot. Just being near him seems to make my body respond, having him so close has only made the effect worse to control.
“Does it matter?”
“Was it my fault? ”
He tilts his head slightly at my question, his eyes wandering over my face. It’s this quiet interrogation that sets my nerves on fire.
“Why would it be your fault? For once, you did what I said, and you stayed put.”
“I don’t know. You didn’t try to go after Marco on your own, did you?”
“No. Marco’s being dealt with in other ways for now. I went to turn the iPad over to the person looking for it.” He brushes a lock of hair from my forehead.
“The guy you got the iPad for shot you?” It’s my turn to be confused.
“No. He was dead when I got there. Whoever killed him shot at me.”
“Oh.” I nod as though it makes perfect sense, all this shooting and killing. “Did you kill him?”
His expression darkens. “No. He got away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry I didn’t kill him?”
“I’m sorry you got shot at.” I shake my head, trying to clear away all the fog this man puts in there with his touch.
“So, you don’t want me dead. That’s a good start.” He rests his hands on my hips, playing with the hem of my shirt.
“A good start to what?”
“Us.”
I roll my eyes. “Rurik, there isn’t an us. There can’t be an us.”
“Okay.” He lifts his good shoulder in a shrug.
“You agree? ”
He laughs. “No, but I’m not in the mood to fight you tonight.”
He slides his hands up my shirt, over my stomach to my breasts. I tense, but he’s gentle in his touch, cupping them and fondling my nipples.
“We shouldn’t…” I try to get off his lap, but then he pinches my nipples through my bra, keeping me trapped in place.
“Why not?”
I wince. “Because it gives you the wrong impression.”
“I already know we’re going to be together. You’re the one who refuses to admit it.” He releases my nipples, which should relieve the pain, but it intensifies it as the blood rushes back in place.
“I thought you didn’t want to fight tonight.”
He pushes my shirt up and pulls it over my head, dropping it to the floor besides his bloodied clothes.
“We’re not going to fight. You’re going to be a good girl and do exactly as I say.”
I laugh.
“Oh? I will?”
“You will.” He reaches behind my back with one hand and expertly opens the latch on my bra.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I’m injured, and if you don’t behave, I’ll have to punish you. It could open my wound. And you’d have to stitch me up all over again.”
“This is blackmail.”
He grins. “Not quite. But close. ”
He cups my breasts again, squeezing them, and leans into me, bringing his mouth to one nipple.
“So be good and let me suck on your tits.” Before I can think to protest, he wraps his mouth around my areola and sucks, flicking the tip of his tongue over my pebbled nipple.
“Fuck, you have beautiful breasts,” he says before placing a warm kiss between them and moving to my other nipple.