Brow furrowing, he glanced down like someone who had stepped in dog doo and only just realized it. His gaze shifted to her, skimming her face and bloody arms. “Oh.” He winced. “Sorry about that.” Crossing to stand in front of her, he reached into a back pocket and drew out a startlingly white handkerchief.
Cupping her chin in one warm, wet hand, he began to wipe the blood from her face.
“Are you serious?” she exclaimed. He thought she was upset about his getting blood on her? What the hell?
Swatting his hands away, she gripped one of his wrists, turned, and headed resolutely past the reading room.
“Dana?”
Upon reaching the door to the stairwell, she hurried up the steps to her apartment and drew him after her through the first doorway on the left.
What she had always considered a roomy bathroom felt almost cramped with Aidan in it. Releasing him, she opened the largest cabinet and took down the basket that held her first aid supplies.
“Dana?” he asked again, his voice both hesitant and concerned.
Slamming the door shut, she snagged Aidan’s wrist again and pulled him across the hallway to her bedroom.
“Dana—”
“Sit down,” she ordered, nodding toward her bed.
He cast it an uncertain look. “I can’t. I’ll stain the covers.”
She stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?” He sported deep wounds that bled profusely and he was concerned about staining her bedding?
“Perhaps if I cleaned up a wee bit—”
“Sit your ass down,” she ordered, pointing at the queen-sized bed.
Eyebrows flying up, he sat so swiftly she almost laughed.
The firm mattress bounced as the old wooden bed frame creaked beneath his weight.
Setting the basket on the bed beside him, Dana moved to stand before him and began to help him out of his coat.
Every movement must be incredibly painful for him. His shoulders moved back, stretching the skin of his chest and parting the edges of that ghastly wound. The heavy fabric abraded the cuts on his arms as she carefully drew the coat down and, once it was free of his hands, let it fall to the covers behind him.
“Dana,” he murmured.
“Please don’t say anything,” she implored softly. She needed quiet. Needed to focus on just tending his wounds so her mind could have a chance to catch up and process everything.
He nodded, watching her warily.
“Now your shirt,” she said and bent to grab the hem of his T-shirt.
Without a word, he raised his arms so she could tug the sodden black material over his head and drop it atop his coat.
The hard, muscled chest she had snuggled against and run her hands over and fantasized about so much bore a deeper gash than she had anticipated. The cuts on his arms were pretty scary, too. Surely such wounds required more than butterfly closures and bandages. He needed stitches.
She raised her eyes and met his. “Any chance I can talk you into letting me take you to the emergency room?”
He shook his head.
She had thought as much.
Spinning around, she left the room and ducked into the bathroom again. It only took her a moment to grab a couple of towels and wet them. Then she returned to the bedroom. Tossing one towel onto the bed, she knelt in front of Aidan. “I could lie and say we were in a car accident.” If he was worried about the hospital calling the police…
“I can’t go to the hospital,” he told her softly.
As gently as possible, she drew one of the wet towels across his chest, removing the blood so she could better view the damage. The wound she revealed was nauseatingly deep, but—much to her surprise—seemed to have stopped bleeding.
Dana frowned as she dabbed the edges with the towel. “Because you’re wanted by the police?” He had been adamant earlier that she not call 911.
He covered her hand with his to halt her ministrations. “Because I heal quickly.”
She steadfastly kept her eyes focused on his chest. “Aidan, these wounds are serious. I’m not going to just sit here and watch you die.”
“I’m not going to die,” he promised. Taking the towel from her, he grasped her hand and drew her up. “Sit with me for a moment and you’ll see.”
Dana stared at him. Inconceivable though it might be, he seemed okay. Except… “Your eyes are glowing,” she whispered, mesmerized by the amber light.
The corners of his lips turned up in a sad smile. “I won’t die. But the wounds do hurt.” Still holding her hand, he urged her to sit beside him on the bed. “And right now my emotions are too tumultuous for me to make my eyes stop glowing.”
She frowned as she perched on the edge of the bed. “Strong emotion makes them glow?” He had already told her that, hadn’t he, when they were outside?
“Yes. That and pain.”
Reclaiming the towel, she gently drew it down his arm, starting at his shoulder.
“Dana—”
“Just let me do this, okay?”
He clamped his lips shut.
“I have a lot of restless energy right now,” she explained, “so it’s either this or pacing, because I need to do something while my mind tries to catch up with things.”
A moment passed.
“As you will,” he acceded.
The silence that descended then was painful.
One of the things she had liked about Aidan from the beginning was that there had never been any awkward or uncomfortable silences when they were together. She didn’t think she had ever experienced that with a man before. Especially when she was initially getting to know one. With other men, there had always been those instances in which she wasn’t sure what to say or if she should say anything at all. Moments when the silence seemed to stretch a little too long.
But with Aidan, she had felt so comfortable around him from the beginning that their time together had always felt refreshingly natural, as though they had known each other since childhood and were merely reacquainting themselves with one another after several years of being apart.
This silence, however, was heavy with words unspoken, thick with concern and other emotions she didn’t want to examine too closely.
Fear, perhaps, that everything would be different now.
Fear that they had lost what they had only just found.
She cleaned both of his arms, the white towels turning pink and red from the blood. Setting them aside, she glanced at her first aid basket, then finally met his eyes.
They still bore the faint remnants of that surreal glow.
She supposed it should scare the hell out of her because it clearly indicated he was something more than human. Yet the amber light peeking out from his dark brown irises fascinated her.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“I know they aren’t bleeding anymore, but I feel like I should at least put a Band-Aid on them. Or maybe fifty.”
He shook his head. “They’re already healing.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?” Dana lowered her gaze to his chest. Her heart jumped as shock rippled through her.
The edges of the wide-open gash that had spanned his chest, cutting deeply into his pectoral muscles, had drawn together while she’d tended his arms.
Her pulse picked up. “That’s not possible,” she whispered, barely able to produce a sound.
“Keep watching,” he instructed softly.
Was that sadness she heard in his voice? Resignation? Something else?