“Can I help?”
A laugh rattled his Adam’s apple as he tipped his head back and muttered helplessly, “Yes, please.”
“Want to sit down?” she asked, nodding out to the upstairs living area.
He set the scissors down and braced a hand on the high worktable, calculating his grip, then rose on his good leg to his toes, and slid his butt onto the table. He scooted back and held out the scissors. “This work for you?”
She moved in next to him and angled to look closer at the wound. The sutures were tiny, at least a dozen of them. She reached across the table and slid the lamp over, flicking it on and illuminating his side.
Red around the edges, a little scabbing, but it otherwise looked okay.
“Itchy?” she asked.
“Fuck, yes,” he growled, reaching over and rubbing the tips of his fingers over part of it, as if the very mention of it had set it off again.
She shifted his hand away and glared up at him.
He shrugged sheepishly and angled his body so she could see better.
Leaned forward, elbows on the table, butt sticking out, she got closer. “Hang on,” she said, rising and stepping back.
“What?” he asked, looking suddenly a little desperate as he sat alone on the tall table, bright light shining on his wound, his bare feet dangling.
“I need tweezers.” The first time she’d removed sutures had been in this very room. It had been his hand, after he’d rescued her during a bungled attempt to sneak back into the house after a late-night adventure.
She dashed into the bathroom and grabbed her tweezers from the drawer, scrubbed her hands, and found him lightly scratching the edge of the wound with his fingertips.
After she brushed his hand out of her way, eliciting a teasing laugh, she snuck a look up at him. One side of his mouth was curled up, baiting her.
Trace blushed, quickly rolling her eyes before he thought that she thought that he was flirting. In the bright light from the lamp, she saw a handful of healed scars all over his torso. Stepping close, she traced the line of one that ran down his forearm, lightly with her fingertips, even though she knew it had healed long enough ago it wouldn’t bother him still. “How’d you get this one?”
“Knife,” he muttered.
Shifting, she traced one over his chest. “This one?”
“Glass.”
Fingertips drifting lower, she felt another, older, at the side of his low abdomen. “This one?”
“Bullet burn.”
He lifted his hand and trailed his fingertips along an old scar above her eyebrow. “What about this one?” he whispered.
She looked up and realized he wasn’t looking at the scar, anymore, but his gray gaze drifted to her mouth. He bit the edge of his bottom lip.
Her heart tripped over itself and lodged in her throat.
Oh. He had been flirting.
She wasn’t even wearing her kissable lip gloss.
“I, um, had an eyebrow ring for a while,” she said, hoping sound came out. The eyebrow ring had been a lesson in standing out. Compliments from many. Pretend support from her parents. Surprise by most.
“I bet you looked fucking hot,” he murmured, still watching her lips. “Why did you take it out?”
While he seemed to be mesmerized by her lips, she couldn’t seem to tear herself away from his eyes. “I had to for my student teaching rotations.” Blinking, she moved back to the wound of the hour. “You should find a new line of work,” she said as she steadied her hand and aimed for the first knot.
“Agreed,” he said in a low, short clip.
