“You’re cold.” Dammit, I should’ve thought of that. She would probably get pneumonia and catch her death.
Christ, I sounded just like my mamma, even after all these years without her.
She gripped her arms in tense fingers and watched the numbers rise above the door, saying nothing.
Swearing under my breath, I unbuttoned my shirt and draped it over her shoulders. She shot me a surprised glance before nodding her thanks and reaching up to grab the lapels. Then her gaze drifted over my bare, tattooed arms, slowly enough that my skin grew hot and tight.
Everywhere.
I wore just a white wifebeater underneath the button-down, and my rosary. It dangled free over the shirt though I always kept it tucked beneath. Before I could put it back where it belonged, she grabbed it, and touched the sharp piece of silver at the end. “A dagger,” she said, lifting her head until our eyes met. “Your rosary has a dagger instead of a cross.” She ran her fingertip over the blade and gasped as a drop of blood bloomed.
“Jesus, tesoro, take care.” She dropped the rosary and I gripped her wrist in both of mine. Without thinking, I brought her hand to my mouth and sucked away the blood, as my mother had always done with every hurt.
She gasped again, lower now, and the sound traveled straight into my bloodstream like a hit of cocaine. Lighting me up everywhere at once. My fingers gentled on her wrist and I allowed myself one more illicit kiss, fighting every urge that demanded I push her back against the wall, shove up that tiny skirt and show her what she’d made of me. I’d turned into an animal.
The elevator dinged as we arrived at my floor and somehow I managed to let her go. She stumbled back, her shoulders colliding with the wall, and I looked down to see her bare, wet feet curling over each other as a child’s might. That thought cooled my libido in a flash.
I walked out of the elevator and down the carpeted hallway, my footsteps soundless. Hers weren’t. The slight slapping of her feet went off in my head like gunshots.
Taking her inside with me would test me in ways I didn’t think I was strong enough to survive, but I had no choice. I wouldn’t send her home to sleep on the floor. Not after tonight. She needed to be taken care of. I was the worst possible option for that, but there weren’t any others.
Not for either of us.
After opening the door, I flipped on the lights. She followed me in and gasped again.
“You need to stop doing that,” I said before striding across the hardwood floor to the galley kitchen. I pried open the refrigerator door and took out an ice-cold bottle of Harp. After thumbing it open, I poured it down my throat in about six swallows.
I rarely drank, but tonight it was a necessary evil. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to stand myself. And I had to. For her. She needed someone to watch over her while she slept.
Her bad luck that person happened to be me.
When I finished one, I went right back to the source for a second. I stepped back to pop the top and she appeared at my side, holding out her hand. “May I have one?”
“Proper fucking English and all,” I muttered, pressing it into her hand. I’d grabbed another one for me when I realized what I’d done. “You’re too young,” I began, reaching for it.
She hiccupped out a laugh and moved just out of reach. “After tonight, you’re really going to pull the age card on me?”
Who was I to be the moral or legal police? I was the worst kind of thug, one who told himself he wasn’t. Because I had reasons for what I did. Reasons that had changed Carly’s life.
I grabbed my beer and shut the door.
We stood there drinking silently, feet apart, not speaking. I finished my second beer and tossed it in the sink, hoping the bottle would shatter. It just clinked around in the bowl until it came to a stop.
She set hers on the counter and turned back, wiping her hand over her mouth. “May I take a shower?”
My horror must’ve shown on my face because she quickly shook her head and stepped forward. She stopped right in front of me but didn’t reach out. “No, no, not that. I wasn’t raped. Jesus, I wasn’t. I’m just cold, and the rain made me all sticky…” She stopped and flushed briefly before shrugging off my shirt and handing it over. “Thank you.”
“Keep it,” I said gruffly. “You’re going to need something to put on. After.”
After was such a loaded word. I’d never noticed. Five letters that could change a person forever.
She glanced over her shoulder at the darkened hall. “That way?”
“Second door on the right.”
Nodding, she clutched the shirt between her fists, twisting as if it were rope. Then she disappeared up the hall.
I walked to the counter and picked up her beer. She’d barely taken a few sips.