The sound of the car fading into the night finally registered. The immediate danger was gone. I looked at the chaos of my room, then back at Dante. At the blood soaking his sleeve.
My father's training kicked in, a cold, practical voice cutting through the fog in my head. No doctors. No police. Handle it.
"The bathroom. Now." My voice wasn't a request. It was an order.
He didn't fight me. He just watched me with those dark, unreadable eyes as he moved stiffly into the master bathroom. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet, looking like a fallen god in the small, white room—too big, too dangerous for the space. I was acutely aware of everything: the steam still fogging the mirror, the smell of gunpowder and his sweat, and the fact that my body was covered by nothing but a thin, damp towel.
I knelt and pulled the first-aid kit from the cabinet.
My hands were shaking, the last of the adrenaline leaving my system.
"I need to see it," I said, my voice low. I moved between his spread knees, my own bare knees brushing against the rough denim of his jeans.
His eyes burned holes into mine as I focused on his arm. The sleeve of his shirt was a ruin of dark, sticky fabric.
"This has to come off," I said, more to myself than to him.
"No." The word was a growl. Final.
"Don't be stupid," I shot back, looking up and meeting his gaze. "I can't clean it through the damn shirt."
He just stared, his jaw tight. A muscle ticked. Stubborn bastard.
Fine.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the shredded, bloody edge of his sleeve. His entire arm went rigid at my touch. I looked him dead in the eye, and I ripped it.
The sound of tearing fabric was savage in the silence. I didn't stop until the sleeve was torn away to his shoulder, exposing all of him.
His arm was a masterpiece of sculpted muscle, thick veins running like rivers over his bicep. Tanned skin, slick with sweat. And across the back of his tricep, the angry, bleeding line where a bullet had kissed him. F
I forced myself to work, kneeling between his legs, my movements deliberate. I soaked a cotton pad with antiseptic.
"Hold still," I whispered. "This will sting."
I pressed the pad to his skin. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, his entire body going rigid, but he didn't make another sound. He just sat there, a statue of controlled pain, watching me.
When I finished, I started wrapping a clean white bandage around his arm. The task was done. The crisis was over. I should have stood up. I should have moved away.
But I couldn't.
I stayed there, kneeling, my hands still on his bandaged arm. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the soft drip… drip… drip… of the faucet.
Slowly, I lifted my head.
And the world stopped.
He was already watching me. The cold, professional mask was gone. His eyes weren't empty anymore. They were… lost. Filled with a strange mix of relief and a deep, aching guilt that made no sense. For the first time, I wasn't looking at a bodyguard. I was looking at a man. A man who was hurting.
"You… you saved my life," I whispered, my voice thick.
His voice was a low, rough rasp. "It's my job."
I shook my head, "No. That was more than a job. You would have died."
The silence stretched, thick with unspoken things.
"That was something else." I whispered.
An instinct I didn't know I had took over. My hand lifted, trembling slightly, and I touched his face. My palm rested against the rough stubble of his jaw.
My touch was a spark hitting a line of gasoline.
The guilt in his eyes vanished, burned away by a sudden, black fire. A raw, predatory hunger that took my breath away.
I saw the change. It scared me. I started to pull back, to stand up and create distance.
I wasn't fast enough.
His good hand shot out like a striking snake, his fingers clamping around my waist like a steel band. He pulled. Hard. I cried out as he lifted me from my knees, dragging me backward and onto his lap until I was straddling his thighs.
My towel was the only fragile barrier between us, my bare skin against the rough denim of his jeans. The contact sent a bolt of pure heat through me. My hands landed flat against his chest, and I could feel his heart hammering against my palms, a wild, frantic rhythm that matched my own.
He owned me in that moment. And he knew it.
His injured arm came up, ignoring the pain. His fingers tangled in my wet hair at the nape of my neck, gripping tightly, tilting my head back to expose my throat. I was his to take. A willing captive.
His gaze dropped from my eyes to my lips. The air turned thick, heavy, impossible to breathe.
He leaned in, his face so close I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. His breath, hot and ragged, ghosted across my lips.
"Izzy," he growled, my name a rough, broken sound he had no right to say.
It was the first time he'd ever said it.
And it was the most devastatingly sexy thing I had ever heard.
He was going to kiss me. He was going to devour me.
And I knew, with a terrifying, soul-shattering certainty, that I wasn't just going to let him.
I was going to beg for it.