One Touch More (18 page)

“Do it.”

Tabitha threaded the needle, her hands steady and sure. “What happened tonight?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Tabitha was already in too deep. Damien didn't want to further complicate the situation by giving her any insight into tonight's cluster fuck. “When's your birthday?”

“That's totally off topic.”

“I ask. You answer. When's your birthday?”

She pursed her lips before focusing her attention on the hole in his leg. The sting of the needle was momentary, and the pull of the thread only a minor annoyance in comparison to the vodka bath he'd just taken.

“May fourteenth.”

“Favorite color?”

Her brow knitted as she continued to stitch, the tip of her tongue darting out with her concentration. “Black.”

“Beer or hard liquor?”

“Depends.” She paused to wipe her hands and dab at his leg with a dry cloth before continuing on. “I'm not a big beer drinker. Blue Moon is okay. And I like hard cider.”

“Most heinous thing you were ever busted for?”

She paused, cut him a look that was neither guilty nor embarrassed. “Reckless driving when I was seventeen. Speeding.” A sheepish grin spread across her face. “I like to drive fast.”

His abs clenched and the pain in his thigh was nothing compared to the heat of desire that began to pool in Damien's gut. He'd love to see her behind the wheel of his Shelby, speeding down the freeway. So fucking hot.

“Pizza or burgers?”

“Burgers.”

“Favorite body part?”

Tabitha ginned. “On the opposite sex?”

“Yeah.”

A wistful sigh escaped her lips, the sound a full body caress that heated Damien's blood. “The back. And for the record, you have an epically sexy back.”

“Why don't you have any tattoos?” She'd been fascinated with his and it made his cock stir to remember the way her fingers felt as she'd traced the raised skin.

“I'm picky. I want to get a caduceus tattoo, but only after I graduate.”

“Where?”

Tabitha shrugged. “I don't know. There are a lot of decent parlors around.”

“No.” Damien laughed. “Where on your body?”

“Oh.” She flashed a brilliant smile. “Hold still. I need to tie this off and then I'll stitch the hole on the back of your thigh. I have no idea where I want it. Would you care to offer up a suggestion?”

“Between your shoulder blades. The small of your back right on your spine. Your hip. The back of your neck—that would be sexy as hell.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.” The blue of Tabitha's eyes darkened, deep ocean waters. “I'd kiss you there. Nip at your neck. Scrape my teeth across the ink.”

Tabitha let out a slow breath. “If you keep talking like that, you're going to break my concentration.”

“Oh, honey,” Damien replied. “I'm just getting started.”

Chapter Nineteen

Damien Evans was a criminal. A drug dealer. And God knew what else. But when he spoke to her that way, the words so full of heat and promise, Tabitha forgot all of those things. She wanted him more than any other man she'd ever met. How could she possibly lust after someone who would ask her to stitch up a gunshot wound,
Sons of Anarchy
style, in her bedroom? And what kind of woman did it make her that she was more than willing to do it?

“I need you to roll onto your stomach, and in the interest of logistics and comfort, I think we'd better get your pants all the way off.”

“You don't have to ask me twice. But in the
interest of fairness
, I think you should do the same.”

How could he be so playful at a time like this? “Slow your roll, buddy. You're in no shape for anything that would involve me taking my pants off.”

“I'd have to be dead to not want to see you with your pants off. A little gunshot wound is nothing.”

Tabitha grinned despite herself and circled the bed to his left side. She eased the intact half of his jeans and underwear down his leg, her eyes drawn to areas that a trained medical professional shouldn't be checking out. At. All. She caught him staring at her, mouth quirked with amusement, and heat rose to her cheeks. “Oookaaaay.” Holy crap. She needed a cold shower. “Do you think you can turn over now? I need to sew up the exit wound.”

“You just want to check out my sexy back.”

The smile he flashed before easing over was just shy of wicked, and Tabitha's stomach shot up into her throat before floating down into her lower abdomen on fluffy white clouds. “You're not going to be quite so cocky when I clean this exit wound.”

“If you give me a distraction . . . like your naked body to look at, I can guarantee you I won't feel a thing.”

A lick of heat danced up Tabitha's spine. “Quiet, you.” She reached over him to grab the bottle of vodka and a clean washcloth. When her chest brushed his back, he let out a low groan that caused a Pavlovian response in her body. Just the deep vibration of sound made her sex clench and her thighs tremble.
Jesus
.

As she gently cleaned the wound, Tabitha tried to focus on the task at hand and not the way the muscles in his ass flexed as she tended to him. God, she wanted to bite those round cheeks, knead them in her palms, run her thumbs up his spine as she let her palms explore the smooth skin of his muscled back. Damien sucked in a sharp breath and it brought Tabitha to attention. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” She heard the smile in his voice. “But your hand on my ass feels amazing.”

Tabitha looked down as though just now noticing she'd cupped the very same cheek she'd been fantasizing about. She pulled away, mortified, and pegged her eyes to the still bleeding wound she was supposed to be sewing up.
Concentrate, you idiot
.

“Consider the pleasant groping an apology for what's next,” she teased. “Get ready.” Without any further notice, she drizzled the vodka over the hole in Damien's thigh. His grunt of pain was muffled by the pillows as his entire body went taut. It was totally pathetic that she found herself rapt to the play of muscles as her gaze caressed each ridge, hill, and valley. And not a little insensitive, either.
Good Lord, Tabitha
.

She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder as Damien panted through the pain. Without even realizing what she was doing, she leaned over him, laid her lips between his shoulder blades, and kissed. He relaxed beneath her, and let out a long, relieved sigh.

“Jesus Christ, Tabitha,” he murmured against the pillow. His voice slurred, grew lazy and thick. “Who needs drugs when I've got you.”

The quiet stillness that followed caused her heart rate to kick into high gear. “Damien?” Silence answered her and she gave him a little shake. “Damien?” She checked his pulse, slow but steady, and his breathing had become even as well. He was bound to pass out, though he'd lasted longer than she'd thought he would. The combination of pain, stress, and blood loss was too much for any body, even a strong, healthy one like his.

Tabitha worked quickly in the quiet, cleaning away the rest of the blood and shaving away the light dusting of hair that surrounded the wound before she re-sterilized the needle and fresh thread. The exit wound was messier than the entrance hole. More ragged and a little bigger. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to leave a pretty scar. Though on Damien, she doubted it would do anything other than make his body more attractive. Men like him wore scars well. And it showed just how ridiculous her infatuation was that she hoped he'd stick around long enough for her to see the healed marks in all their glory.

It took twice as long to stitch him up, but since she didn't have to worry about causing him undue pain, she tried to be more precise with each stitch. She took several breaks to clean fresh blood from the wound, and by the time she tied off the thread, Tabitha was confident that despite her hack job, he'd heal up nicely.

“Tabs? You home?”

Seth's voice called out from the living room, and Tabitha shot up from her hunched position over Damien's body. “Yeah! In my room. Give me a sec!”

There was no way she'd be able to explain the guy naked from the waist down, passed out on her bed and covered in blood, to her brother. Not that she hadn't walked in on much worse in his room a time or ten. From the foot of her bed, she grabbed a light throw blanket and slung it over Damien's waist. She adjusted the pillow under his head to make sure he wouldn't get a kink in his neck and cleaned up the mess she'd made, throwing the soiled washcloths in the hamper before closing her bedroom door quietly behind her.

“Hey, bro, what's up?”

Seth smirked. “
Bro?”

He lounged on the couch, flipping through channels, a beer resting in his palm. His boots were caked with dirt and Tabitha fought the urge to freak out that he'd tracked it across the carpeting. “You know, bro, short for brother. You didn't just get home from work, did you? It's after midnight.”

He slapped at his thigh and a plume of dust rose from his jeans.
Gah! He was getting dirt all over the couch!
“No. I went out with some of the guys, grabbed dinner, played some pool.”

“Seth, you need to be careful. You can't afford to—”

“Fuck my life, Tabs, it was pool. I wasn't out knocking off a bank.”

His tone, along with the added stress of the night, flipped a switch on Tabitha's composure. “Don't get an attitude with me, Seth. It's not like I don't have a reason to be wary of what you're doing and who you're doing it with. I'm the one who's been cleaning up your messes for the past seven years!”

“Hey, no one asked you to do that for me. You're not my mother.” Seth leaned forward, his brows drawn sharply over his blue eyes. “So don't martyr yourself.”

Wow
. Her heart was overflowing with emotion from Seth's gratitude. “Someone had to take care of you! You think I should have just let you go to jail? Let Joey steamroll you?”

Seth gave an indifferent shrug before taking a long pull from the bottle. “Maybe.”

“God, you are such a selfish jerk!”

“And you're a nosy, self-righteous, pain in my ass.”

“So, what? You're actually butt-hurt that I'm trying to keep you out of trouble? Is that what you're saying?”

With a sigh, Seth settled back in the chair and turned his attention back to the TV. “Just drop it, okay, Tabs? I don't want to fight.”

“No. You just want to insult me.”

“Is everything okay out here?”

Tabitha and Seth turned in tandem toward the sound of Damien's voice. He stood in the hallway, the blanket slung around his waist. If his physical form hadn't been so damned imposing, his appearance might have been comical.

Her head whipped back toward Seth and he quirked a brow, a corner of his mouth hitched. “So,
sis
. What have you been up to tonight?”

 

 

The kid with the smart mouth had to be Tabitha's brother. He recognized him from the picture on her phone. If he'd been at even fifty percent, Damien would have shaken the little shit by the scruff of the neck and made him apologize and thank his sister a thousand times for everything she'd done for him.

“Everything's fine.”

“Doesn't sound fine.”

She didn't turn to face him, but instead kept her attention focused on her brother. Damien didn't have any siblings, but he sensed there was an unspoken argument going on that consisted of scowls and narrowed eyes. Seth looked away from his sister first and Damien felt a surge of pride that Tabitha had held her own and managed to put her brother in his place.

“No, it is.” When she faced him, Damien could barely hide his amusement as she directed her stern, chiding glare his way. “But you shouldn't be out of bed. Come on, I'll go with you.”

“You'd better tame that kinky streak, Tabs,” Seth snarked from the couch.

How did Tabitha get through a day without clocking him?

“I'm young and impressionable and don't want to hear or see anything tonight that'll damage my delicate psyche.”

Tabitha grabbed Damien by the arm and steered him back toward her bedroom, but not before she gave her brother the finger. “He's usually not such a pain in the ass,” she said as though she'd read this thoughts. “I'm sorry if we woke you.”

“No worries. I was already sort of awake.”

Truth be told, her hot-tempered shouts had brought Damien to instant awareness from the dark void that had swallowed him whole. He'd come off the bed like a shot, regretting the quick movement when his leg buckled under his weight. Not even a bullet through the leg had kept him from making sure she was okay, though. He would have made his way out to the living room in an army crawl, his fists gripping the carpet, if he'd had to.

Once back in the bedroom, Damien steadied himself near the bed while Tabitha cleaned the bloody towel away and turned down the covers. “I'll get blood on your sheets.” He wasn't used to someone taking care of him. But he'd be damned if he didn't like it.

“Now that you're awake, I can dress the wounds.” Tabitha snagged a box of gauze and a roll of duct tape from the bedside table. “I don't have any surgical tape, so I'm apologizing in advance for the sticky goop that will probably stay on your legs for all eternity.”

Damien laughed. “That's what makes duct tape so great. I've used it in place of a Band-Aid a couple of times. Obviously, I'm not used to fancy medical treatment.”

Her brows pulled down. “Should you be bragging about that fact?”

He smiled. “Probably not.”

“Can you stand? I'll dress the back first and then you can lie on your back in the bed.”

Damien pulled the blanket from around his waist and let it drop to the floor. The sound of Tabitha's breath hitching gave him a smug sense of satisfaction.

“You're sort of my captive, you know.” The seductive quality of her voice sent a tingle through his body that settled low in his sac. “Until I can get you some clothes, anyway. Where are you staying right now? I mean, when you're not working out of the IdaHaven. I could grab a few things for you.”

The last thing he needed was for Tabitha to go to his hotel room across town. If she dug through the drawers she might find his badge and files on everyone involved with Joey Cavello—including her. “I don't want you going over there. The hotel is in a seedy part of town and there are more than a few tweakers hanging around.” Though the story was fabricated, his concern for her wasn't. Okay, so she probably wouldn't see many tweakers at the Hilton the Marshals Service had put him up at, but he couldn't blow his cover. His stomach bottomed out at the deception. Lying to her fucking
sucked
. “I'll give you some cash. If you don't mind, you can pick me up something cheap at Walmart or wherever. I'm easy.”

“Oh, all right.” He didn't miss the twinge of disappointment in her voice. Why? Was she seriously bummed that he was concerned, or that he didn't want her in his hotel room? “I have tomorrow off so I can do that, no problem.”

“What about school?”

The sound of tape being pulled from the roll sliced through the quiet. Tabitha's touch was gentle, her fingers cool as she placed the gauze on his leg and covered it with a piece of tape. “I wrapped up the semester a couple of weeks ago. I have a month off before I start my clinical rotation.” Tabitha paused and another
ziiiip
of the tape followed. She secured the bandage at the bottom and a chill chased over Damien's skin from her touch. “Done. Can you get into bed yourself, or do you need help?”

Her body brushed against his as she stood, a whisper of contact that only made him want more. Damien turned on his left leg so he was facing her and peeled his T-shirt from his body. Tabitha's gaze heated, her eyes widening a fraction as she took in his bare chest.
Yep. Naked. And you're going to be joining me in a few seconds
. “I can manage on my own.”

Damien stretched out on the bed and tucked his arms behind him, propping up his head so he could watch Tabitha work. The satin glide of her fingers soothed his aches and she used the same gentle care as she covered the wound with another square of gauze, securing it with a couple of strips of tape. “How does it feel?” She tested the skin around the edges of the tape, then looked over at him.

“Like I've been shot.” She cringed at his words and he went on. “But not too bad. I could probably use a few ibuprofen if you have them.”