BEARing it All (Wylde Brothers 3)

“Wait.” Kenzie stood and gripped the edge of her shirt, pulling the two ends together tightly. Bram turned around, and her face heated even further when she realized he clearly didn’t care that she could see how aroused he was, because he made no move to cover it up. “Your uh…” She gestured to his chest, and he glanced down. “Can I return the favor and patch you up?” Surprise filtered across his face, and after a second, he nodded.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that. Let me just slip on some sweats.” He disappeared down the hallway, and Kenzie sat back on the couch, breathing out deeply. A moment later, he was back in the living room. She stood and tried to avert her eyes, but of course he hadn’t put a T-shirt on. The sweats he wore hung low on his waist, and that delicious V of muscle stood out starkly. “Where do you want me?”

On top of me, naked and sweaty.

Shaking her head at her ludicrous thoughts, she gestured to the spot she had just vacated. He leaned back and threw his arms over the back of the couch. Bram’s legs were slightly parted, and he took on a totally relaxed stance. She wasn’t about to stitch him up, because honestly, she had no clue on the first thing about that, but she could at least clean the wounds and put dressings on them.

After grabbing what she needed from the kit sitting beside him, she sat on the couch and leaned forward. The position was awkward and didn’t give her enough room to work, so she got down on her knees in front of him. Bram opened his legs a little more, and she flicked her eyes to him. His lids were lowered at half-mast, and the blue irises seemed to glow.

“I won’t bite, Kenzie.” He said the words low, and her temperature rose. Moving closer so she could fit her body between his thighs, she quickly went to work on cleaning the wounds. It helped somewhat to keep her mind off the obvious erection he still had.

The cuts and gouges were horrendous and numerous. She couldn’t dress them all, but she got the bigger ones covered and went to work on cleaning the smaller claw marks.

God, look at what they did to him. When she had first seen him, he had cuts and bite marks all over his body, but after the fight with Rook, his chest was now riddled with them, so much so that it made her lightheaded to even look at them.

For as horrifying as this situation was, and seeing as her future was on a ledge, she wanted to talk about how she was feeling.11This had never happened to Kenzie before, and she’d certainly never wanted a male. It was exhilarating to actually feel comfort and desire instead of fear and revulsion. Even after realizing what he was to her, and wanting desperately to just enjoy this moment, this time with him, she had to tell him she couldn’t stay.

“Thank you for saving me back at the bar.” She looked up at him to find him staring at her. “And thank you for tending to my wounds. A lot of people would have just looked the other way.” She poured some peroxide on a square of gauze and pressed it against one of the longer cuts. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, and she didn’t think he even breathed. “It isn’t safe for me to be here. If Rook is still alive, which I’m sure he is, he’ll come for me, and I don’t want you put in any more danger.”

A low growl left him, and she snapped her head up, surprised at the primal, possessive sound. Aside from that, he didn’t respond, just continued to look at her, and so she went back to tending to his chest. The minutes ticked by, and the silence descended on them. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about what she just said, so she let it go… for now.

“Do they hurt?” She ran the gauze over a set of nasty-looking teeth marks and winced when it started bleeding.

“I’m used to it.”

For some reason, she wasn’t surprised, but then again, her first impression of him had been raw, animalistic, and commanding. “Why are you used to it?”

He shifted on the couch, and his thighs brushed along her hips. A gush of wetness immediately spilled from her, and she prayed like hell the smell of the peroxide masked the scent of her arousal.

It took him a minute to answer, but when he did, his voice was clear and without a hitch in it. “It’s just what I do.” She looked up at him, but before she could question what he meant by that, he continued talking. “I get into a lot of fights, because I like it. It makes me feel good.” Kenzie focused on mending him, although his words had a strange feeling moving through her. Rook had liked fighting as well. Were her instincts wrong about Bram? Could he be just as unstable as Rook? What person enjoyed fighting and getting hurt?