Text (Take It Off #4)(18)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“You cold?” he asked.

“Not as cold as before.”

His fingers flexed into my hair and he reached up, using the wipe to gently dab at my lower lip. “What happened here?” he asked gently.

I swallowed. “I’m not sure.” It could have been from me biting it. It could have been from being hit. Who knew?

He grunted and pulled it away, and I caught a glimpse of the dark stain against the white. He folded it over and then returned, swiping carefully over more of my skin. “I’m not going to be able to do anything about that eye right now.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” he said, that steel creeping back into his tone. His shoulders stiffened slightly and I tensed. In that moment, he seemed like a cornered, aggressive animal. Like he was seconds away from completely losing it.

He took a deep breath and expelled it, the action seeming to calm him down. “It makes me angry he did this to you.”

“Are you friends with him?” I couldn’t keep the question in any longer.

He tossed the wipe into his lap with the other used one. “No,” he replied.

“Then how come you texted him?”

“I play poker once a week with a group of guys. Lex is one of them. He was late to the game and I texted to see if he was coming.”

“His name is Lex?”

Nathan nodded.

Putting a name to the hideous man who tortured me didn’t make him seem any more human. In fact, it made him seem like more of a monster.

“I had no idea he was a total whack job.”

“Well, he is that,” I agreed.

Nathan flashed a grin in the darkness. I longed to see him in the light. I wanted to know the angles and planes of his face. I wanted to take in his features and truly see the man who had literally saved my life.

Nathan seemed oblivious to my thoughts as I watched him tidy up the first aid kit. Before he put it on the floor, he glanced at me. “Where else are you hurt?”

“I won’t be requiring any more Band-Aids,” I quipped.

He turned to look at me fully. His hand closed over mine and he gently took the flashlight from my grasp and clicked it off. “What about your ribs?”

“I don’t think you have anything in that kit for them.”

“Let me see them.”

“Wh-what?” My mouth ran dry. He wanted to look under my shirt?

“I want to see them.”

“That’s not really necessary—”

He studied me and then thrust his hand out in the space between us. “Hey, I’m Nathan Reed. It’s nice to meet you.”

I wanted to laugh. We were a little beyond a formal introduction. But it was fun (hey, you try being kidnapped and beaten and see what you consider fun), so I slid my hand into his. “I’m Honor.”

He held my hand a little longer than he needed to, his thumb brushing over the inside of my wrist. I caught myself right before I started purring like a cat.

That would have been hella embarrassing.

“I’m a staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. My favorite color is green, and I like football.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, thoroughly charmed by him.

“Formally introducing myself so you’ll let me under your shirt.”

I laughed. “I usually don’t let men I just met under my shirt.”

“I’m irresistible.”

I smiled. “And so modest.”

“Now you know all about me. Your turn.”

I lifted my eyebrow. I knew all about him? I highly doubted that. In fact, Nathan Reed seemed like a guy with many layers. But I played along.

“I’m Honor Calhoun. I’m a writer. My favorite color is blue, and I also like football.”

“You like hot wings, Honor?” he asked like it was the most important thing he needed to know.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Nice,” he drawled. He had quite the southern accent going. Every time he talked, I felt a little giddy and I hung on every word he said. I was waiting for him to drop his first “y’all.”

“All right,” he said, gesturing to my shirt. “Lift it up. Let’s see it.”

“You suck at foreplay.”

He caught my wrist in his oversized palm and towed me a little closer. His face came close to mine, so close that I was able to see that he had blue eyes and a scar across one of his cheeks. “That, sweetheart, was not foreplay. When we get to that, you’ll damn well know it.”

Well, alrighty then.

Shamelessly, I wondered when we might get to the foreplay.

He released my wrist and tugged at the hem of my shirt and jacket. He wasn’t going to relent, that much was clear. I sighed and slapped away his hand. Then I opened up the jacket. Before I could get the zipper down, he was sliding up my jacket and shirt, bunching it up beneath my breasts, and then the tiny light clicked back on.

When the beam met with my torso, breath hissed out between his teeth. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

I glanced down long enough to see purple and black splotches all over my creamy skin. The area was puffy and grotesque looking, and I turned away. I didn’t want to see it. Feeling it was bad enough.

“He kicked me.”

A low growl ripped from his throat.

I glanced at him, expecting to see rage taking over his face, but instead he wore a frown. Ever so lightly, he brushed the tips of his fingers over the area and I winced. Even his soft caress hurt.

And then he did something I didn’t see coming.

The flashlight fell from his fingertips and rolled into the crack of the seat, plunging the backseat back into darkness. Nathan’s newly free hand wrapped around my lower back, his palm spanning my waist as he ducked his head and pressed his lips to the injured area.

He trailed barely there kisses across the extremely tender flesh.

Who the hell needed a Band-Aid when he was around?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking up. “I’m not the one who did this and I can’t take away the pain, but if I could…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but the unspoken dangled there between us and made me forget every ache that coursed through my body.

In that moment, I fell just a little bit in love with him.

16

Nathan

Her injuries pissed me off.

And what pissed me off more was the fact that she didn’t whine or complain about them. No, I didn’t want to hear some whiny female sniveling all over the place, but fuck. She earned it. I can’t even imagine the crap she’d been through in the last fifteen hours.