Scoundrel's Honor (Russian Connection 3)

“My sharp-tongued vixen.” His gaze skimmed over her delicate features framed by a halo of honey curls. “Should you not be offering a kiss to ease my pain rather than lecturing me on my botched rescue? Which was highly successful despite your complaints.”

“Successful?” She regarded him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. And perhaps he had. He was lying flat on his back, bleeding onto a dirty Cairo street from a gunshot wound to his shoulder—his second gunshot wound in the past month—with his assailant only a few feet away, but all he could think of was the wonderment that his time with this lovely woman was not yet at an end. “You have been shot.”

“But you are safe,” he said softly.

She frowned, shaking her head in frustration. “You are the most aggravating—”

She was interrupted as Josef appeared at her side, a pistol held loosely in his hand.

“What of Valik?” Dimitri demanded.

“Dead,” the servant assured him. “What do you want me to do with the body?”

“Leave him for the jackals to enjoy,” he muttered, his pain making it difficult to think clearly. “For the moment I am more interested in bleeding somewhere other than a filthy street.”

“We must find a surgeon,” Emma breathed.

Dimitri shuddered. Any man who had traveled through the world knew one of the greatest dangers was putting his health in the care of the local doctors.

They inevitably caused more damage than they cured.

“Are you so anxious to see me dead?” he rasped.

She frowned in confusion. “Of course not, but you have just been shot.”

“I wouldn’t take my dog to the local surgeon,” Josef muttered.

“But—”

“Josef is experienced in stitching my wounds.” Dimitri headed off her arguments.

She grimaced, casting a jaundiced glance at his servant. “I suppose he has had a great deal of practice?”

“Enough,” Josef readily admitted.

“It is nothing to be proud of.” She returned her harried attention to Dimitri. “What if the bullet is still in your shoulder?”

Josef shrugged. “Then I will dig it out.”

“And risk it becoming inflamed?”

Ignoring his pain, Dimitri reached to grasp Emma’s hand. She was stubborn enough to go in search of a damnable doctor if she thought it best for him.

“I needn’t worry,” he said, his voice strained. “I will have you to nurse me back to health, milaya.”

Her eyes narrowed at his teasing, but the stroke of her fingers on his brow was exquisitely tender.

“How can you be so certain I will not leave you for those vultures you spoke of earlier?” she demanded.

“Because it is in your nature to care for others, even when they do not deserve your concern.”

Misery flared through her eyes and he silently cursed his thoughtless words.

The last thing he desired was to remind her of her worthless sister.

“Perhaps I have learned that caring for others is a dangerous emotion that is not worth the pain,” she said, her voice so low he barely caught her bitter words. “Emma—”

“Guards are coming,” Josef snapped, his hand tightening on the pistol and his slender body tense as he prepared for trouble.