She got the message, though, and lowered the wash cloth to the table. Aiden twisted to grab the Brussels sprouts with his left hand, and caught his breath as pain lanced through his abdomen. Ah, damn—he regulated his breathing until the ache eased.
“Ice will help the most,” he said after a minute, not wanting her to think he didn’t appreciate her ministrations.
Carefully shifting back to face her, he eased the make-shift ice pack over his mouth. The cold went to work immediately, and the stinging vanished as numbness crept across his mouth.
“I hear kissing works too,” she announced, out of the blue. “Rumor has it that kissing makes everything better.”
His gaze shot to her face. That rosy flush of uncertainty had invaded her cheeks again, but her brown eyes were steady as they held his—inviting.
He wasn’t an idiot. No way in hell was he turning that offer down.
“I’ve heard the same.” He dropped the ice pack onto the table.
She tried for a sophisticated smile, but he could see the nerves returning to her eyes. Without giving her time for second thoughts, he leaned forward, only to catch his breath as pain crimped his chest and upper abdomen. Freezing, he slipped his left hand around the nape of her neck, and drew her toward him instead. She came easily, settling her lips against his.
The kiss was gentle—too damn gentle; practically non-existent. The lightest brush of lips against lips. Maybe. All he could feel was a light tingling pressure against his numb mouth. His swollen, stiff fingers slid up, tangling in her spiky hair, which was surprising soft against his palm. He pulled her closer, desperate for a taste of her.
“Aow.” She jerked back, pulling her head away from his frozen claw.
“Sorry,” he muttered, lowering his arm. He needed to get some ice on his hand, too. It was pretty much useless in its current condition.
She leaned in again, without his urging this time, and for a split second, he felt something—the softest, sweetest brush of satin against his swollen mouth. And then the hornets of the damned attached themselves to his lip and stung the hell out of him.
“Son of a bitch!” He jerked back so hard he almost toppled his chair, and then seized up for a good ten seconds while his chest and stomach screamed in pain.
Jesus Christ!
When he could move again, he picked the ice pack up and eased it back over his lip.
“Well,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I’ll try not to take that personally.” The wry tone in her voice told him she wasn’t particularly upset.
She turned her attention to his cheek, but the moment the warm, wet cloth settled over the knot on his cheekbone, his whole skull throbbed. Grunting, he jerked his head back and grabbed for the cloth, only to knock it from her hand.
It landed with a wet plop in between their spread knees. Scooting her chair back she bent forward to pick it back up.
His cock twitched, signaling its enthusiasm with a hard, urgent surge of blood as her mouth descended toward his lap. Totally oblivious to the throbbing part of his anatomy that was begging for her attention, she straightened, washcloth in hand, and eyed his chest.
“Well, I can at least wash the blood off your chest. That shouldn’t hurt too much.”
Famous last words, as it turned out, since even the lightest caress of the wet cloth against the skin of his abdomen and chest burned. He kept his mouth shut, but flinched with each brush of the cloth.
With a huff of frustration she sat back. “Is there any place you don’t hurt?”
“Yeah, below my belt.” The words escaped without any input from his brain and just hung there.
Her face went brick red, but by God she held her ground. “You’re in no condition for below the belt games.”
Hell, she might be right about that, regardless of what that little bastard dancing around in his pants wanted him to believe.
“Give me an hour and I’ll be up for any game you choose,” he countered. A half-hour with the ice pack and a half hour in her shower should set him up just fine. Hell, his cock was already up for some action; too bad the rest of his body didn’t have the follow through.
She sat back in her chair, a flirty little grin playing around her lips. “I thought SEALs were indestructible. That a gunshot wound wouldn’t even slow you down. That you could get beat to hell during the day and pass out multiple orgasms to your womenfolk at night.”
He choked at that piece of nonsense. God help him, had she been reading his sister’s romance novels? Talk about an unrealistic view of his profession.
“You’ve been watching too many Die Hard movies.”
“I bet Bruce Willis could kiss me properly with or without a busted lip,” she said, her eyes sparkling.
“There’s a big difference between Bruce Willis and me,” he told her, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“He makes like a million times more money than you?”
Aiden swallowed a smirk. For accuracy’s sake, that statement should have been reversed. But that wasn’t what he’d been getting at. “He’s not the one about to give you multiple orgasms.”
She choked, and then slowly turned in her chair to survey the kitchen, as though she were looking for someone. “He isn’t? Then who is? Because judging by the way you flinch every time I touch you, and jerk back every time you try to kiss me—that sure ain’t going to be you.”
Touché.
He settled back in his chair striving for a smug expression, which was difficult to pull off when half his face was covered by an icepack. “A handful of aspirin and I’m good as new.”
Her snort clearly expressed her opinion of that piece of fiction. But then a thoughtful look crossed her face. “I should call Kait.”
He wanted to believe she was still joking around, but her face looked far too serious for comfort. “Why the hell would you want to do that?” Having Kait underfoot would derail all his plans.
“Because she’d help you a lot more than those icepacks.”
Freezing, he eyed her closely. That sounded like she knew about the gift his sister had inherited from her half of their Arapaho genes. Which was new—she hadn’t been aware of Kait’s talent prior to this last rotation.
Knowing Kait, and her penchant for privacy, she wouldn’t have spilled the beans about her ability to heal by touch unless it had been absolutely necessary. Which meant Demi must have been hurt at some point during the past twenty months. And hurt badly enough for Kait to step in and offer to help—or at least try to help.
Absolutely still, his body suddenly cold, he scanned her. No scars, at least none that he could see. And she seemed to move fine…his gaze settled on her head. She’d sheared her head in the last twenty months—and dyed her hair that striking pink. Had there been a reason behind the drastic new hair style?
“You know about Kait’s…gift?” he asked slowly.
“Yeah.” Her hand absently rose to the nape of her neck and her fingers dug in for a quick massage. “I was in a car accident a year or so ago. Whiplash. It really did a number on me. Kait was a miracle worker.”
He didn’t realize he was grinding his teeth until pain shot through his jaw. She’d been hurt and he hadn’t known it. In pain and he hadn’t been around to take care of her. Why in the hell hadn’t Kait let him know Demi had been hurt? He could have taken an emergency leave. He would have been in-house to help her. Why hadn’t Kait called?
But after a second he shook his head with a scowl. He’d been careful to make sure nobody picked up on his feelings for Demi. Kait wouldn’t have known he’d cared one way or the other.
“When you were in the hospital for all those weeks with that injury to your spine, Kait fixed you, right?” Demi raised her eyebrows. “Which means you’re in the thirty percent she can heal. Why not let her take the swelling and bruising away?” She sent him an intent, meaningful look. “The sooner you can touch me without flinching, the faster you can back up those wild claims you made.”
She m
eant the multiple orgasms he’d promised her. He wanted to grin, but even the slightest stretch of his lips eighty-sixed that impulse.
“Kait’s healing doesn’t happen overnight,” he reminded her.
If Demi had been on the receiving end of his sister’s gift, she knew it took numerous massages for Kait’s talent to prove effective. It had taken weeks before Kait’s healing ability had put him back on his feet after that disaster in Baghdad.
“The ice and aspirin will work just as fast.” He paused to frown, before adding. “Those healings take a lot out of her. She’s exhausted, often for hours afterwards. There’s no sense in putting her through that when scrapes and bruises will heal on their own in a day or so.”
All of which was true, but not the main reason he wanted to avoid Kait’s interference. If his sister arrived, he could kiss goodbye any chance of getting Demi to himself for an extended length of time. It was damn near impossible to forge a sense of intimacy with a third wheel underfoot. For the moment, at least, Demi had shed her inhibitions and seemed willing to take the sizzle between them to its natural conclusion. But with Kait interrupting them, Demi’s previous bout of cold feet could easily come back into play. For this slow seduction of his to work, he needed Demi to himself, with no outside distractions shoving a wedge between them.
Chapter Five
Scowling, Demi dug her shoulders into the back rest of her arm chair and glared at the long, broad, frustratingly masculine frame sprawled across her sofa. She’d lost track of how many nights she’d been plagued with steamy, erotic dreams featuring the man sound asleep on her couch. In none of those dreams had Aiden downed a handful of aspirin, slapped icepacks over his face and passed out after a kiss.
If you could even call that a kiss.
Sure, lips had touched…for all of a second or two, before he’d flinched and jerked away. But there hadn’t been much pleasure attached to that fleeting caress—on either of their sides. She sighed morosely, her gaze lingering on his face, or at least what she could see of it. Had the swelling gone down? It was hard to tell with the frozen Brussels sprout bags covering his face. It was even harder to fall into passion when your partner flinched, hissed, or bolted away every time you touched him.
She stared at her hard bound, signed copy of The King sitting on the coffee table beside the couch and considered picking it up and giving him a swift smack with it.
There were some men who knew how to treat their ladies right—with multiple orgasms all night, every night. They didn’t come home from a hard night on the streets to moan and flinch every time their lovers touched them. Her lips twitched wryly. Of course, they weren’t exactly men, and according to lore, vampires healed extraordinarily fast. Plus—well, they didn’t actually exist, now did they? Except, possibly, in countless fertile imaginations.
Her frown returned as she stared at the book. The warriors of the Black Dagger Brotherhood were extremely possessive of their women. Admittedly, there was something erotically thrilling about that—in fiction.
In real life, though…
Thoughtful, she turned her attention back to the man sprawled out, dead to the world, in front of her. According to him, the split lip and bruised cheek, not to mention all those bruises along his chest and abdomen, had been delivered during a fight.
A fight over her.
Some women might get a kick out of two good-looking, lethal men fighting over them. She wasn’t one of those women. What was titillating in fiction held much less excitement in real life. In fact, the brawl he’d gotten into was disturbing on multiple levels.
For one thing, he’d actually been injured. Granted, the wounds were minor—hardly life threatening—but right now, at this moment, he was in pain…because of her. That didn’t sit well at all. She didn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s pain.
But there was something else that was even more worrisome, something that left a nagging sense of unease.
Why, exactly, had he gotten into that fight? What had propelled him?
Fighting over someone indicated an emotional attachment to the subject of the brawl. After all, nobody would fight over someone they didn’t care about.
Her brow furrowed as she rolled that around in her mind.
Sure, there were certain situations where a man, particularly a man with a protective streak, might get into a fight over a woman without actually having any strong feelings for her—like if he was protecting her from a bully or threat.
But that hadn’t been the reason behind this fight. In fact, by Aiden’s own account, they’d fought specifically because Brett had taken her home. Obviously, Aiden had been under the mistaken impression that his roommate had done a lot more than simply drop her off at her front door. And therein lay the crux of her problem.
Didn’t his reaction over that mistaken assumption, a reaction that had led to a fist fight, indicate some depth of feeling? Why would he get so angry, unless he cared that his roommate had taken her home and spent the night doing a lot more than sleeping with her? Maybe Brett had made some comment about her that Aiden had taken exception to—but even that explanation indicated some level of emotional attachment. Words carried no power, unless feelings were involved.
Besides, she couldn’t imagine Brett saying anything Aiden would find offensive. Granted, their interaction had been fleeting, but he’d come across as far too much of a gentleman to kiss and tell.
And then there was Aiden’s demeanor in the elevator. Certainly anger had been spilling off of him, but there had been something else there, too, something like possessiveness. Which also implied he’d formed an emotional attachment to her. When he’d formed this attachment was another big question. The man hadn’t seemed to notice she’d existed prior to today.
Granted, most of that impression was based on her interaction with him while she’d been married. While she’d been attracted to him, albeit with no intention of acting on that attraction, he hadn’t appeared to be equally attracted to her. Nor had he treated her differently after Donnie’s death, although they hadn’t spent much time together after she’d been widowed. He’d spent most of those three years out on deployment.
She frowned, thinking back. During that black haze of grief and disbelief following the freak accident that had killed her husband, she vaguely remembered Aiden being constantly underfoot. He’d been the one to untangle the insurance policies, and help her through the unbelievable amount of paperwork and decisions following Donnie’s death.
If it hadn’t been for Aiden and Kait’s support, she would have crumbled. She didn’t remember much of those early weeks. Nothing had seemed real. She’d drifted through the days and nights in denial, trapped in a hazy nightmare.
Maybe she wouldn’t have had such a hard time accepting that Donnie was gone, if his death had happened differently—like in a car accident, or a heart attack, or the slow destruction of cancer. Those were possibilities you heard about every day. But to lose someone you loved to a foul ball, at a company-sponsored baseball game? How often did that happen?
One moment Donnie had been sitting there beside her on the steel bleachers, teasing her about the latest vampire romance novel she’d been reading, and the next he was gone. It just hadn’t seemed real, hadn’t seemed possible.
She sighed, glancing around the condo. If only he’d told her right away about the inheritance he’d gotten from his uncle Benito, instead of waiting until he’d bought the condo so he could surprise her with it on their anniversary. If he’d told her immediately, they could have moved into the condo together and she’d have memories of him in here. Memories of him beside her in bed, cooking in the kitchen, or cuddling her on the couch while they watched one of those detective shows he’d enjoyed so much.
But it had been just like Donnie to wait to surprise her. He’d loved doing such unexpected things, and he’d known how much she loved Kait’s condo. So he’d given up his dream of a house so he could buy her the luxury condominium he knew she’d coveted. And he
’d done it in such a way she couldn’t protest—couldn’t insist that they buy a house instead, as was his dream.
That was her Donnie, generous to a fault.
Of course, the fact he’d never shared the condo with her did make it easier in some respects. Since there were no memories of him here, it didn’t feel like a betrayal to invite another man into her home, and quite possibly her bed.
If memories of Donnie had clung to this place, it might not be as enticing watching the long, broad masculine body sprawled across the suede cushions of her couch. He’d been sleeping for—she glanced at the decorative oval clock tucked in the corner of the bookcase—thirty minutes.
How much longer was he going to sleep? While the taxi she’d summoned earlier was probably long gone, she could call for another one and run over to San Diego to pick her car up. He might not even awaken before she returned. There was no sense in just sitting here and staring at him while he slept.
Decision made, she pushed herself to her feet.
“Where you headed?” Aiden mumbled, before she’d even taken that first step away from the chair.
He hadn’t bothered to lift the makeshift icepack from his mouth, but the question was clearly audible anyway.
“I thought I’d take care of some chores while you slept.”
“I’m not asleep,” he said, reaching up to rescue the icepack that was slipping off his mouth.
She shrugged. “Then while you rest.”
He opened the eye that wasn’t covered by the vegetable pack he’d slapped across his cheek and pinned her with an intense black gaze. “I told you I’d take you to pick up your car.”
“Yes, you did.” Demi cocked her head and stared at him with determination. “However, you obviously need the rest and more time with the ice.”
He plucked the white plastic bags off his face, and gingerly sat up before swinging his legs over the side of the couch. “These need to go back in the freezer anyway. The vegetables are melting.” He grunted softly as he stood up. “Look, just point me to the shower, give me ten minutes to soak, and I’ll run you over to get your car.”
Bound By Seduction (A Red-Hot SEALs Novella Book 2) Page 6
