“I’m fine. I took a bath last night.”
“A bath, huh?” he asked, seeming to understand without my having to tell him that there was still an issue with the shower thing. When he wasn’t around at least. But I guess he was done telling me how to live my life. Because he was about to be out of it.
For good.
My hand went to my stomach where a knot was forming at the exact moment he looked back at me. “Yeah, we should see if we can take those out too,” he said, shrugging.
“Isn’t it a little soon? The doctor said two weeks.”
“We’ll check it out. Usually, you don’t need the full two weeks. Depends on how quickly you heal. It would just be better if I do it.”
“So there isn’t a record of me getting stitches out of a stab wound to my stomach.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Do you want to check now before I get dressed?”
He looked almost pained as I climbed out of bed, but he gave me a small nod. “Better to get it over with.”
“Do you need some supplies?” I asked when he didn’t move or say anything else.
“Yeah, I’ll be back,” he said, leaving without another word, giving me a minute to hop into the bathroom to brush my teeth and straighten my hair up.
“Nah, just stay in there,” he told me when I went to walk out to meet him. “The light is better,” he added, spreading a small medical kit out onto the counter. “Pull up your shirt.”
Those words normally would have sent a surge of desire through me. But right here in this bathroom with that deadness in his tone, it made me feel cold all over. Goosebumps actually rose up across the skin on my arms as my hand moved down to pull up my shirt.
His hands were warm on my chilled skin, making a shiver course through me when they touched down on the sides of my stitches.
I could have sworn he exhaled a barely audible curse when he felt it, but he kept his head ducked, making it impossible for me to see if I was right or not.
“I think we’re good. I can take these out. If you want me to leave them in, though, I will. You heal fast, duchess.”
The idea of them getting taken out was making me light-headed. I imagined the sensation would be even stronger if it were a stranger who was doing it.
“Let’s get it done.”
His head tilted up then, likely hearing the trepidation in my tone. “Just close your eyes, grab the counter, and take a deep breath. It will be over in just a minute,” he promised, tone just the tiniest bit softer all of a sudden, a sound I had genuinely missed. “This is gonna be cold,” he told me as I followed his instructions. “Just to numb you a bit,” he added as he sprayed something that made my body jolt at the cold. “Breathe,” he reminded me as he seemed to set to work.
I kept my eyes closed.
And while I was mostly cold-numbed, I could feel a slight tugging sensation as he moved down the stitches, snipping, and, presumably, pulling them out.
“Alright, duchess. You’re all done,” he told me as I felt something sticky sliding over my belly. “Just some antibiotic cream,” he told me. “You won’t need to reapply it unless you see some infection or something. But if you keep it clean, you should be fine.”
I took a breath, looking down at the skin that had once been smooth and unmarked. I had managed to avoid stretch marks during puberty thanks to the fact that I didn’t do much stretching in the hip or stomach area. But now there was a deep red, puckered, angry-looking scar.
“It will fade,” he assured me. “I won’t lie to you. You’re gonna be living with a mark there. But it will get lighter over time. Less angry-looking. Trust me. I got a lot of them.”
“Like on your chest,” I guessed.
“Yeah, duchess, like on my chest.”
“Are those from bullets?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Yeah.”
“The tattoos cover them pretty well.”
“Yeah, guess they do. But I wasn’t trying to hide them.”
“I think they would need smelling salts if I tried to get a tattoo,” I confessed, shivering a bit at the idea of all those needles poking at my skin all those times. “Though I understand the desire to cover scars.”
“You could get it lasered if you want down the road. You still might not be able to get it to be completely gone, but you could lighten it more.”
“I think it would be different if a different story were attached to it,” I mused aloud. “Some people have scars with good memories. Or even funny or careless memories. This one is just ugliness from start to finish.”