If he hadn’t been hurting so much, he would have truly enjoyed having her straddle him.
Next time.
She put the flashlight at the top of the old headboard so that it shone down on him. “One hand,” she muttered. “I can’t believe I have to do this with one hand.”
He jiggled their connected wrists. “Use me.”
“You’re about to pass out on me.” She nibbled her lower lip. She’d taken the gloves from the first-aid pack. Put them on. “Don’t get an infection. Don’t get an infection...”
He didn’t think she was talking to him anymore. She seemed to be repeating that mantra to herself.
When she started applying pressure and digging that bullet out, he pulled in a deep breath. He locked his gaze on her face. Focused only on her.
He’d been shot on another mission, just a few months back. He’d been lured into a trap. Hit before he’d had a chance to call for backup. When he’d woken in the hospital, Tina had been there. “You were...worried about me,” he said, remembering.
She glanced at him. “Are you staying with me, Drew?”
“Always,” he whispered.
“Good. Because I’m not planning to let you go.” Her lips curved. She was so gorgeous when she smiled. Did she realize that?
She even had a dimple in her left cheek. A little slash that would peek out every now and then.
The dimple wasn’t showing at that moment. Tina had to really smile, had to really laugh, for it to come out. He’d caught her laughing with her friend Sydney once. That was when he’d first seen the dimple.
He’d been lost, staring at her.
“Stitching you up,” she said. “Just a little bit longer.”
He’d watched her that day, and he’d wanted. But there had been another mission waiting for him. There always was. And, even if there hadn’t been, he didn’t know how to approach a woman like her.
Wining and dining. Those were tricks that other guys used. He didn’t know anything about romance.
He just knew too much about death.
“All done.”
Drew glanced down. She’d put a bandage over his wound.
“Thanks, Doc.” He owed her. He’d find a way to repay that debt.
“Thanks for getting me out of that place,” she whispered back to him. A soft, wet cloth pushed over his skin and smoothed down his chest.
He tensed.
Her hand lightly stroked him. “Easy. It’s a bacterial wipe from the kit. I’m just going to clean the blood away.”
“Tina...”
Her hand stilled. She looked up at him.
Focus. “Don’t...leave the house.”
She nodded then smiled. One of those real smiles that flashed her dimple.
Gorgeous.
“I can’t,” she told him. Then she was the one to wiggle their cuff. “I can’t go any place without you.”