She was here to deal with Red.
Nothing else.
A slow, deep sigh escaped me as I tried to school my voice to adopt the cold indifference I was typically so well known for. It was harder right then than it ever had been before.
"Unless you're down there to suck me off, get your ass over there and finish taking care of your patient," I demanded, watching the emotions cross her face at a breakneck pace.
Confusion.
Shock.
Humiliation.
Then, finally, anger.
That was good, I reminded myself as she got to her feet, jaw so tight her teeth must have been aching as she slammed her shoulder against my chest to move me out of the way so she could pass. It was good that she was pissed, that she hated me.
It would keep her from reacting to me in the future.
Which would help me keep a distance.
Because eventually, and it might be sooner than either of us realized, I was going to need to kill her.
Chapter Six
Jo
What the ever-loving hell was that?
Humiliation and rage were a heady concoction coursing through me as I checked out Red's wounds, searching for any early signs of infection that would make me need to open up the stitches again.
I felt shaky and unfocused, like my body was somehow both attached to me, yet not, at the same time.
Which made sense.
Because I'd clearly misplaced my head if I had just let that happen.
I wasn't even sure if I had any right to be upset about it.
I hadn't told him no.
I hadn't fought.
I hadn't explicitly consented either, though.
Then again, when in my entire life, had any man ever asked before he touched me?
Never, that was when.
And when did I ever say Yes, touch me there.
Again, never.
Until, you know, we were already in the throws of things.
It was a gray area, I guess.
One could argue that there was no way for me to consent seeing as my presence in this situation with these people was against my will in the first place.
But there was no denying that I had wanted it. That I had even encouraged it.
God, that tongue of his.
I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about the whole situation, if I should have been angry or disgusted. All I knew was how I actually felt.
Embarrassed, because I felt like he'd somehow used me, even though he hadn't gotten any sort of satisfaction.
But also confused, because he was right. I had been having a sex dream. Which didn't make sense in and of itself. Then waking up and realizing that it wasn't just a subconscious thing, that I was somehow having a physical response to the man who had plucked me off the street, cuffed me, then held me against my will.
I just needed to stay the hell away from him, that was all.
It would be easier now that he'd been a complete prick, so there would be no lingering interest in feeling that tongue and those fingers again.
Then again, pricks had always been a problem for me in the past. I was chronically attracted to assholes. I thought I was in recovery for my obvious problem. Apparently not.
"How is she?" a female voice asked softly what felt like ages later, making me turn to find the woman from the night before—Lenore—standing in the doorway holding a pile of something in her hands.
"It's a little soon to tell," I admitted. "But if she doesn't get infected in the next day or two, I think we can breathe a sigh of relief," I told her, shaking another antibiotic into my hand, then quickly pushing it down the woman's throat.
"She's not screaming."
No, she wasn't. But I had the strangest feeling that while she wasn't doing it outwardly, that she was somehow screaming on the inside. I had no way of backing that belief up, but I couldn't shake it either. There was just something about the way she writhed, the way her eyelids fluttered, the way her lip trembled.
"The pain medicine works wonders," I told her.
"How is your head?" she asked. "From where you hit it," she clarified when I stared at her blankly.
After washing the gunk off in the shower, I honestly hadn't given it another thought. My hand rose automatically, touching what felt like sealed skin.
"Ah, it feels alright. How does it look?" I asked.
"It's healing," she told me. "That poultice has never failed my people. It works wonders. You have a bruise here though," she said, rubbing under her eye.
"I think I have a concussion," I admitted, though I was doing so to try to convince myself that maybe it was a factor in my unusual behavior even if I knew it really had nothing to do with it.
"I don't know what that means," Lenore admitted, shrugging. "But I hope it doesn't hurt."
"No. I mean it did. But sleep helped," I told her. "Well, I only got a little bit of sleep. I was woken up."