Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

He looked down at himself, and then he saw it . . . more blood. Down there. On his still-erect shaft. It caused a shudder of primitive alarm to jolt down his spine until he realized that it wasn’t his blood. It was hers.

Olivia’s.

She exited the bathroom. Her smile was radiant. Perfect.

So fucking innocent.

God! Damn it!

She crawled back into bed with him and snuggled up to his chest. His arms closed around her automatically. This perfect woman. This beautiful woman. He should have left her alone. He wasn’t deserving of the gift she had given him.

Maybe she didn’t even consider it a gift. Maybe he was making too much of it. But damn it! He’d known her for too long to not think of it as such.

Present day

Greyson was still lost in the past when she joined him in the bathroom again. She had changed her dress, exchanging one pretty frilly thing for another. This was another long-sleeved lacy dress, a little longer than the previous one. In a light buttery yellow. She had tied up her hair and had a first aid kit under her arm.

“Sit down,” she commanded as she entered the small room. Greyson, seeing the familiar stubborn glint in her eyes, knew better than to argue and sank down on the side of the bath.

She tenderly lifted his hand and unwrapped the bloodied scrap of gray fabric. She glowered down at the ragged gash on his palm, while he took one queasy look before diverting his gaze. His palm was a mess, and he couldn’t really stand to look at it.

“How did you do this?” she asked, sounding completely grumpy.

“Not sure,” he confessed, keeping his gaze fixed on one of the tiny pearly-white buttons on the bodice of her dress.

“You’ll need a tetanus shot. It doesn’t look deep enough for stitches, but you may need some antibiotics. It would be nice if we could give it a proper clean, but without water . . .” She shrugged eloquently, and he grimaced.

“I’ll have it back on soon,” he promised. “I couldn’t work on the tap without turning off the water.”

Only he didn’t know why the water wasn’t back on.

“You can’t go back to messing around with the pipes after I bandage your hand,” she said sternly. So bossy. She’d been bossy even as a child. His mother had often called her impertinent, complaining that “the girl” probably believed she was a Chapman, she was so demanding.

His mother, while always so aware of appearances, had harbored a genuine fondness for Olivia. But that hadn’t stopped the older woman from resisting the prospect of Greyson’s marriage to Olivia. Citing their upbringing and backgrounds as prohibitively different.

But appearances had rarely mattered to Greyson when it came to Olivia. He had always wanted her, but once he’d finally had her, he hadn’t cherished her. He had allowed distrust and jealousy to cloud his relationship with her. And his relationship with his brother.

“My hand’s fine,” he said. He could be as stubborn as Olivia when he wanted. And he wasn’t about to fail at the first obstacle. He was going to prove to her that he could do this. That he could be useful to her. To Clara.

“I like the name, by the way,” he suddenly admitted, and she lifted her eyes to his and tilted her head. He loved how she could ask a question with just that head tilt. He elaborated in answer, “Clara.”

Her eyes shuttered. “I don’t care. You didn’t have any interest in helping me choose a name for her, so I picked one I liked.”

“You chose it as a dig at me,” he said, keeping his voice light. Once he had seen that first picture of the baby, the name hadn’t mattered.

No. It had mattered. It had mattered because it had been so damned right.

“But it suits her,” he continued. “It’s pretty and sweet and perfect, just like her.”

She shrugged, a quick, birdlike rise and fall of her narrow shoulders. “Like I said before, I don’t care. Your feelings on the matter are completely moot.”

Well, hell. That stung.

He cleared his throat. There was silence while she dug around in her medical kit for whatever it was she needed. She muttered bad temperedly beneath her breath while she worked, words and half sentences that just eluded comprehension. She had had the habit for as long as he’d known her—her entire life. She grumbled to herself all the time. Happy, sad, angry, or just concentrating. Sometimes it was a list of things she needed to do. Other times it was like this . . . irritated little words and sounds that made no sense to anyone but Olivia.

He had always found the habit endearing. Even now, when he knew she was probably cursing him beneath her breath, it was cute as hell.