Liam was finished with demolition on the apartment. Which was really too damned bad because he wasn’t anywhere near done working off his sexual frustration.
He slapped the next two-by-four across the saw horses and measured, marking the cut, and lining up the blade of the miter saw.
This whole just friends thing with Riley was going to kill him. Liam couldn’t decide whether to be insulted or envious that she found it so easy. He sure as hell didn’t. Thanks to their weekly training sessions, he knew exactly what all those curves felt like—heaven. Keeping his hands off her these last two weeks—off the mats anyway—as he plowed ahead on the apartment renovations had proved a helluva lot more difficult than he’d expected. That probably would’ve been made easier if he actually stayed out of the pharmacy, but despite his best intentions, he kept finding reasons to pop in and see her. Attraction aside, he genuinely liked Riley. Always had. And it was a pleasure to be at a point where their age gap no longer mattered.
Or it would be if he could get other kinds of pleasure out of his mind.
Liam carried the wood over to the new wall he was building and tested the fit. No dice. He was going to have to rip it for the tie-in to be neat. After a few more measurements, he took the stud over to the table saw, lined things up for the cut and turned on the saw.
Why the hell had she worn that dress?
All he’d been able to think about since their dinner was peeling her out of it and finding out what other surprises lay underneath. Which was so obviously not in the cards. He needed the image wiped from his brain. Instead, he found himself wondering if she was hiding something sexy under that lab coat she worked in every day.
The saw whined and snarled, and the two-by-four jerked beneath Liam’s hand. The next thing he knew, he was seeing stars. The saw cut off.
“Son of a bitch!”
What the hell had happened? He picked up the two-by-four—now on the ground—and saw the knot on the bottom side. The knot he should’ve noticed before he ever tried to rip the damne
d thing. Goddamn it. He needed his head on the job, not on the woman he couldn’t have.
Blood was dripping onto the floor from his thumb. Despite the mess, it didn’t look to be too bad. Because it was the only thing handy, he grabbed a sweat rag and wrapped it around his hand. There was no mirror to check the damage to his head—he hadn’t put a new one up in the bathroom yet. He could still see out of both eyes, so that was probably fine, too, but he wasn’t going to get any more work done until he dealt with this. Irritated, he headed downstairs and into the pharmacy.
Riley was on the phone when he walked in. At the sight of him, her jaw dropped open. What the hell did you do? she mouthed. Into the phone she said, “Sure thing. Yeah, thanks. I have to go.”
She hung up and pointed at him. “You, sit. I’ll deal with you in a minute.
Ignoring her order, Liam strode toward the first aid aisle, while she dealt with the irritated woman at the counter. Riley spoke to her in a quiet voice, then the shredder whined.
The customer shrieked. “That was mine!”
Abandoning his search for Band-aids, Liam headed toward the front, ready to intervene if necessary. He didn’t catch Riley’s reply.
“What am I supposed to do without my prescription?”
“Sorry, Ms. Tomlinson. That’s a matter for you to take up with Dr. Campbell. You’re welcome to try the new Walgreens, when it opens.”
“You can be sure that I will.” On a huff, the woman turned and stalked out.
Before the door had fully shut, Riley hurried around the counter. “What did you do?”
Embarrassed, Liam scowled at her. “Stop looking at me like I’ve whacked off a finger. I just need some gauze and tape.”
“What you need is to sit down and let me look at it. Damn it, you’re bleeding all over my floor.” Riley herded him back behind the counter and into the office. “Sit.”
Heaving a long suffering sigh, Liam sat on the desk. “The saw blade caught a knot on the bottom side of the wood. Yanked it right out of my hands.” Because I was thinking about getting you naked instead of focusing on what I was doing.
With a moue of disapproval, she unwrapped his impromptu field dressing and examined the wounds “And apparently took a chunk of your thumb and several layers of skin with it. Not to mention gave yourself a nasty goose egg on your head.”
Said goose egg was throbbing in time with his thumb.
Riley shut the office door and retrieved the first aid kit from the cabinet behind it. They were, he realized, alone.
“Where is everybody?”
“Ruby had a dentist appointment, and Jessie went to pick up lunch.”
Quick and efficient, she wadded up the bloody rag beneath his hand to catch drips and doused the thumb with peroxide. He took a moment to be thankful she hadn’t chosen the rubbing alcohol.