Chapter 14
MIKEY
Scottie’s back faced me as she struggled to get her shirt over her head. The fabric ripped at her left arm, dried blood peeling like duct tape on hair. Her breath caught again and she paused, gasping heavily.
“Let me help,” I whispered.
She jumped at my voice and spun around, clamping the shirt back down over her torso. “Get out!” she hissed, pain cracking her words.
“Just…” I raised a hand in submission. “Just let me help.”
Her bottom lip trembled as tears welled up in her eyes. Her body shuddered as her eyes remained glued onto me. Slowly, she nodded and let her arms dangle down to her sides.
Cautiously, I stepped forward, everything in me crying out for her. She seemed like a shell of herself. As gently as possible, my fingers snagged the bottom of her shirt and slowly began working it over her head. With each tug of the skin, each catch of blood that ripped with my slow prying, her face tightened.
“Wait,” she gasped just as I’d managed to get the sticky fabric below her bust. I immediately paused.
“Scottie, I’ve seen a naked girl before. Unless you’ve got like three boobs, it’s nothing new,” I teased, attempting to lighten some of the tension.
She clicked her tongue.
“Bad timing?”
“Yes,” she replied, but the way she spoke that simple affirmation had me sighing in relief.
“There she is,” I tenderly said. Slowly, I continued working the shirt off of each wound, fresh iron liquid trickling from the cuts on the left side of her body. Eventually, it finally worked free of all of the blood and smoothly slipped off entirely, leaving her in nothing but her bra and pants.
Big, brown eyes met mine. She didn’t try to cover herself as her gaze remained locked onto me. The amber stones that swirled in front of me pulled me in. Thirty-two… Thirty-three…
How wrong this was slipped my mind. How forbidden any sort of fraternizing between teammates was, washed away. The overwhelming desire to take care of her flooded my system, unlocking any restraints keeping me at bay.
Her fingers slipped to the waistband of her pants and slowly began undoing them as I simply stood there, watching her. Studying her gaze and the surprisingly gentle soul that stared back. That hard exterior that had graced her face since meeting her was gone.
She stepped out of her pants, exposing even more cuts down her left hip. “You should see a medic,” I muttered, slowly tracing down every bruise forming on her rich, mocha-colored skin. Tracking my eyes across every cut, it took every ounce of self-control so fragile in my soul to not indulge in other parts of her body.
At least I knew that was not appropriate for this situation. No matter how inappropriate this already was.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, suddenly swaying in place.
My instincts kicked in. “Sit down,” I instructed. “I’ll be right back.”
“Mikey!” she hissed quietly as I slipped out of her cubicle and disappeared back into mine. Digging through my toiletries, I grabbed the small first aid kit I always carried with me because cuts and scrapes were rather common after a mission, and quickly whisked back into her shower stall.
She was seated on the edge of the bench, her hands kneading in her lap. Pushing aside her stuff, I swung a leg over like I was riding a horse and sat down, facing her left side. She gasped quietly, her lashes fluttering as she avoided looking at me.
“What are you so scared of?” I asked.
“What?” She sucked her lips between her teeth. “Nothing, obviously.”
I tipped my head and unzipped the little bag. “No? So, you refusing to look at me has nothing to do with being scared of seeing something you might like?” It was a bold statement, I knew that, so I quickly busied myself with digging through the kit for some butterfly bandages and disinfectant wipes.
A hysterical giggle escaped her lips and then she slapped a hand over her mouth. “Excuse me?”
“That’s it? I would’ve thought you’d come up with something a bit wittier than excuse me,” I teased and tore open the first alcohol wipe with my teeth.
“Well…you know what…this is…you’re wearing a towel and…I’m injured and you think a sex joke makes it better?”
“You’re the one that said sex jokes about Bernie and me were fair game.” I leaned forward and gently cupped her chin with my free hand. Goosebumps immediately rose on her skin. Such a visceral reaction to my touch. I stared at the pimples erupting all over her, and a shudder ran down my own spine. This was not good. Not good at all.
But so fucking good at the same time.
My breathing turned ragged. Unable to move or think, the distant plunk of water dripping slowly from a faucet somewhere in this small tent echoed loudly in my head. Heat poured into my core, and I swallowed stiffly, urging my fingers to get moving.
Finally, my other hand clutching the disinfectant wipe rose. “This might sting a little,” I gently warned, and she closed her eyes as I dabbed the damp cloth against the open wound on her cheek. Air hissed through her teeth, but she made no other sign that it hurt.
“What happened, Scottie?” I asked, peeling the backs off of a tiny butterfly bandage to help tape up her cut.
Her chin swayed in my hand. “Nothing. Just some guys caught me as I was leaving.”
“Hmmmm.” I leaned forward and squinted, carefully applying the first bandage. “So, why didn’t you radio for help? We’re a team.”
She pursed her lips and visibly rolled her eyes. “Are we? Because that’s the second time that Dom has perched me out of danger, where I’m only sort of effective.”
“Oh, come on, Scottie. You know that’s not what he’s doing.”
“Is it not?”
“No, Crow. The rest of us have been a team for, hell, seven years now?” I furrowed my brows and gently released her chin. Moving to her shoulder, I dabbed at her next cut and continued speaking. “We know how we work. Hell, those boys know me better than I know myself. I’ve literally seen every single one of them take a shit, okay?”
That earned a soft giggle. “So, what’s Dom doing, then?”
“Keeping you safe while trying to figure out how good you are. Can’t find out what you’re capable of if you’re dead.” I taped up her cut and then slid less than half an inch down her arm to her next wound.
“You should just go buy a fucking roll of Scotch Tape at this point if you’re planning on bandaging up every one of them,” she sassed.
I glanced up at her eyes and leaned back. “Alright, Scotch. I’ll stop, damn it. How about I go find some alcohol in Reyes’s tent and pour it all over your wounds instead?”
She grinned. “Fine, fine.”
As I returned to her wounds, her chest expanded slowly, and she tipped her head back. “I don’t know how I didn’t die, Mikey.” A whispered confession that I don’t think she intended on telling me just yet.
“I won’t let that happen,” I immediately said, keeping my voice low as anger roared hot in my belly. Shit, this was going to be a problem, I immediately knew that, but I couldn’t stop it, not at this moment. Rational thought had left the room.
“I don’t need you to protect me,” she snarled at me.
“Bullshit,” I calmly replied and pressed the pad to a small cut, cleaning things up around the wound.
“How dare you!” She spun her gaze toward me and shot an icy stare in my direction.
“I need you to protect me, too, Scotch. That’s how this works,” I explained, and tossed the used alcohol wipe to the side.
“What?” her steely glare widened into surprise.
“I might’ve died if you hadn’t been there. The asshole was choking me out while three other motherfuckers were holding my arms and legs.”
A gentle giggle like music to my ears danced around the shower. “Why does it not surprise me that it takes at least four assailants to even remotely make you think you might die?”
Opening a new alcohol wipe, I smiled to myself. “So, when do I get to hear you tell me you’re proud of me for biting that shithead’s ear off?” I teased.
“You knew exactly what you were doing when you threw me that cocky ass grin after spitting out his ear, didn’t you?” She inhaled sharply as I pressed the fresh pad to a rather larger cut.
“Sorry, Scotch,” I apologized, running the pad quickly around the surrounding skin to hopefully clean it up as rapidly as possible. “Does this mean you’re going to agree to actually let the team protect you?”
Her tongue flicked out and ran across plump lips as I worked on bandaging up this cut. “I guess.”
“Good. That starts with improving what I can only imagine are very sad CQC skills,” I teased.
And her palm slapped against my cheek, leaving a sharp sting.
Startled, I tore my gaze up from her arm. “The fuck was that for?” I asked, placing a hand upon my skin that had to be turning red.
“That was just for…for all of your assholery up to now. And for acting like you know everything about me.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
My chest rumbled, a grin stretching wide on my lips. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
She rolled her eyes and looked forward but said nothing.
“When I’m not actively out on a mission, do you know what I do?” I asked, returning to my work.
“What you do? Like your hobbies?” she questioned, cautiously glancing at me, and relaxed her arms.
“I’m a close-quarter combat instructor. I also train all different fighting styles and have fought in professional MMA matches,” I explained.
“If this is your way of offering to train me, my answer is no, Blondie.” She pulled her lips back between her teeth, but a smile crinkled at the edges of her eyes. Her brows suddenly stitched together. “How are you so good at fighting? And I know it’s not just because you’re an instructor and all that shit.”
Drawing in a breath, I slowly blew out through my mouth and dropped my hands to the bench. My eyes glanced at the tattoos littering my torso. I hadn’t ever even told the guys the full story, and here she was already asking about something in relation to them. Technically, asking for a second time. “You tend to be really good at something you’ve done for most of your life,” I finally quietly answered.
Slender fingers stretched toward my abdomen. Her fingers. She paused, hovering over one of the tattoos. “Can I?” she quietly asked.
I stared at her near-touch. I’d never even let Rachel… Yet here I was, not telling her no. I wasn’t immediately shoving her hand away. Maybe there was a reason for that. Someone else knowing might not be such a bad thing? But would she understand? If she really knew, would she accept me as I am?
Despite my reservations, I nodded once.
Her hand trembled as she stretched forward. While I closed my eyes, her fingers brushed against my skin. I heard her inhale.
And I snatched her hand away from my stomach. Tearing my eyes open, knowing that there was about to be disgust in her gaze, I immediately froze. Not disgust, but…compassion filled her eyes.
She didn’t move, barely blinked as I studied her. The feel of the raised skin, the scar beneath the ink, hadn’t closed her off. Unlike Rachel who didn’t even like to look at them, Scottie wasn’t grossed out by actively touching them.
Slowly, I opened my fingers, releasing her hand from my unnecessarily aggressive hold.
Her eyes softened, the pain on her face as a result of her wounds melted away, and her gaze shifted back to my torso. And just before she narrowed in on the tattoos, I caught her briefly raking up and down my body.
I almost made some comment about it, but as she placed her fingers back against the scar, any flirtatious, witty thought whisked away. All that remained was her touch, trailing across every mangled spot on my torso that I’d tried to hide with ink.
She didn’t say anything about it. She didn’t ask more questions. Instead, she explored each of them across my torso. Whatever burden I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying concerning them, floated away with every second ticking by as her fingers drew across my scars.
“Why crows?” I quietly asked, watching her touch make its way to a new tattoo near my right hip.
“What?” Her voice sounded distant, almost ethereal.
“Crows. You could’ve picked any childhood memory, but you picked a moment where you fed birds in your yard,” I explained, and her fingers paused.
Her gaze rose, and amber eyes met mine. “Legend says that crows can carry messages to and from the spiritual world.” She resumed tracing my burned skin beneath the ink. “The earliest memory I have is looking out my window and seeing a crow land on my windowsill. For whatever reason, the sunlight hit that bird just right, and his feathers no longer looked black but had this beautiful rainbow coloring to them.”
She sighed and mindlessly removed her hand from my hip, resting it on my thigh. “I talked to this bird, like a toddler does with my incoherent babbling, but he seemed to listen. And when I was finished, he simply flew off. He would return over the years, or maybe eventually it was a different crow, and then several crows started coming and going at once. They would all listen to whatever I had to say and then fly away.”
Her voice faded into silence.
“What does that have to do with the legend, though?” I gently asked, studying her far-off gaze.
She opened her mouth as boisterous chatter erupted outside the tent. Close, and getting closer by the second.
“Shit!” I exclaimed, my stomach jumping to my throat.
She leaped to her feet, backpedaling a few steps from me. “Hurry!” She pointed at the curtain.
Spinning on my heel, I quickly glanced out, and then raced back into my stall. Leaving my forgotten first aid kit behind without hesitation, I threw on my pants and shirt, bundled everything up in my arms, and escaped from the unexpected solitude that Scottie and I had shared.