You are not staring at his small, pointy, brown nipples, Reese!
“I can sew,” I blurt. “I mean, shirts and stuff but . . . my cousin insisted I learn first aid and more when I came to help for the summer.”
His one eye once again runs over me and he waits a beat. It’s such a long beat, in my mind I have a chance of leaving the building before he opens the door farther. “Come in.”
He’s reluctant about letting me into his space, and I’m suddenly just as reluctant when I step inside. If I thought by coming to his room, I’d have a clue as to who he is, I was on another level of fantasy. The place is as bare as a clean hotel room gets—except this room is littered with fighting gear. A duffel bag by a chair in the corner. Water bottles and electrolyte drinks. Plus a first-aid kit open and full of material that seems to have been shuffled around as something was extracted.
Seeing the bed he sleeps on makes my chest feel so weird. Like somebody punched me there. There’s a pair of black boxing gloves on the nightstand next to a similar pair of older gloves. Those second gloves look old; they’re worn and torn around the wrists, taped haphazardly with a silver tape. They’re the kind of gloves one doesn’t keep around for fighting purposes. They look older than Maverick is.
In the center of the Spartan room, a middle-aged man stands holding a shiny little needle with a slim blue thread running through it.
The man has a belly, has clearly been running his hands through his white hair in frustration, and his eyes are bloodshot and confused as he scrutinizes me as if he’s not sure if I’m really in the room or maybe in his head.
“Hi, Oz,” I say.
He squints. “And you are?”
“You don’t know me, but everyone knows you.”
He huffs. “Is that right? As the has-been, right? I’m making a comeback, just you wait and see.” He drinks from his silver flask. Maverick smirks at me and goes to pluck the needle from Oz’s grip.
When he walks up to me with the needle, I suddenly don’t know what possessed me to come to his aid. I’ve sewn pillows, not warm, living flesh.
“Do your worst,” he says, raising his good eyebrow, challenging me.
“Has it been sterilized. . . ?” I ask, trying to focus on the needle he just handed to me.
Not on the fact that Maverick is too close.
Not on the fact that Maverick is watching me with more interest than he’s ever watched me with.
Pulling out the nightstand drawer, he grabs a lighter, turns it on, flickers it over the needle, sterilizing it with the flame, then he walks to a bag of ice and sticks it inside to cool it immediately.
“I’m impressed.”
Our fingers brush as he passes the needle again, and then he sits down on the chair by the window. I try to keep my pulse steady as I clean the wound. “No hospital for you, huh,” I whisper.
“Don’t want to go there to heal and I don’t want to go there to die.” His voice is low but adamant, and so close his breath fans over my face—and it feels so warm.
I stop smiling when I see him looking at me and feel that strange flip in my tummy.
Be strong, Reese.
If he can take the gash, you can do some needlework.
You might even take his stare.
I stand between his parted legs. He’s in shorts and . . .
Oh.
God.
His thighs are massive and bulging like rocks. He’s sitting down, his hair gleams under the yellow room lights, his knees scraped. His legs are hair-dusted and tan. His chest is soaked with sweat. I’m standing, and his face is eye level with my neck. Every inch closer, I get nervous. My hand shakes a little.
I know it’s going to hurt, but there’s no concern in his gaze. Almost as if he’s immune to pain.
“Lower your gaze,” I say.
He drops his gaze. And it doesn’t help. I can’t concentrate because whatever it is he’s staring at now, my lips are tingling. Tingling.
Is he looking at my lips?
I can feel his eyes on me—in me—like he has X-ray vision. I set my fingers on Maverick’s forehead. He doesn’t react to the touch at all, but touching him is making me feel funny. But this is not a funny moment, so you should just get down to business, girl!
Inhaling and holding my breath, I pierce his skin with the tip of the needle, wincing inside. He doesn’t move. He watches me in silence as I ease the needle out. And then pierce his skin again.
“You’ll have a scar,” I whisper ruefully.
He reaches out and curls his wounded hand around my waist as if to steady me, and I can’t stop my body’s instant quiver in reaction. Body, behave!
My hand has stopped stitching as I assess whatever it is that’s unsettling me to the core.