“Done,” Fiona said, stepping back and shaking her head. She looked at me and touched her face. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I looked away. “Never seen that before.”
Gavin stood and put a clean bandage over the stitches. “It’s not so bad. Fiona’s good at it.”
Fiona leaned up against the counter and stared at him for a long moment as he pulled on his shirt and let out a sigh.
“Are either of you going to tell me what happened?” she asked.
I stared at Gavin, trying not to panic. The memory of that bastard attacking us played over and over in my mind. It happened so fast—one second, I was embracing him, thinking about kissing him, and the next he shoved me away and was fighting for his life. He moved so fast and seemed to know exactly what he was doing, but I was still terrified.
“You don’t want to know,” Gavin said. “Seriously, Fiona. You really don’t.”
“This has to do with those gangsters,” she said.
He nodded gravely. “Like I said.”
She looked down at me. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” I pushed myself up to my feet. “He took care of us, okay?”
She shook her head and gave him a look. “You shouldn’t have to take care of anyone.”
“And yet if I didn’t, Erica would be in a much worse position right now.”
“He’s right,” I said. “If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”
She shook her head and put her medical things away in a black bag that snapped shut. “You know how I feel about this,” she said. “You can keep playing this crazy game, but I think you should go to the police.”
“Understood,” Gavin said. “Thanks for the stitches. I owe you one.”
“Whatever. Glad you didn’t do it yourself at least.” She walked to the door. I lingered in the kitchen, arms wrapped around myself. She looked back over her shoulder at me and seemed like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself at the last minute, shook her head again, and left without another word.
Gavin stared after her then locked the door. “We can’t bring her here again,” he said.
I blinked, a little startled. “What?”
“Cosimo probably has my place watched. I don’t want them to think they can use Fiona against us.”
“Do you think they’d do that?”
He gave me a long look and I knew what it meant. He walked over to a cabinet, took down a glass, then found a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a glass. He drank it down then nodded at the bottle.
“Want some?”
“No, thanks.” I stared at his side where he’d been sliced open and I could still see the blade slide through his skin, the blood seeping down along his skin, his muscles rippling, his face drawn in pain and determination.
I’d be dead without him. I knew it, deep down in my bones. That guy hadn’t been sent to kidnap me, to take me away, or anything like that—he’d been sent to murder both of us.
Some part of me hadn’t really thought it would come to this. I knew Cosimo was dangerous and I was afraid of him, but I believed Gavin when he said that nobody would try to murder him. Maybe I was naive, or maybe I was desperate for a way out of this mess, but either way we were both very, very wrong.
He turned to me and tilted his head. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t think you do.”
He stepped toward me. “We didn’t get to finish what we started back in the street.”
I smiled a little. “And what did we start?”
“Come on, we had a good time at dinner. You were standing there, looking up at me like you couldn’t believe your luck, and I was—”
“Oh, god, that’s not true.”
“I was thinking about how good your lips would feel against mine.”
I felt a chill run down my spine, but it was a sheer bolt of excitement. I sucked in a breath and bit down on my lip harder than I’d intended, but I needed to do something to calm myself down. I felt a surge of desire run through me and I knew he was right—we’d come close again, so close to kissing, and I knew I shouldn’t, I knew I was making a mistake.
But he came closer to me. I backed up and felt the counter against my ass. He loomed over me, so big and muscular, and I flashed back to that knife, the guy’s screams as Gavin kicked him in the face—and a strange thrill crawled up into my throat. I wanted to see Gavin hit that man again, wanted Gavin to break him, break all of them.
“You were thinking about how I nailed that dinner and made you look good,” I said, trying to hide my need for him, but I knew my cheeks were bright red.