Page 6 of Fierce-Jax

She looked up quickly into his light brown eyes. They were assessing her the way she was him. The silence and air in the room for those few seconds could be cut with a knife.

Dillion sliced through first. “Biopsies aren’t only used to detect cancer,” she said. “I’m sorry if that made you nervous. I’m going to run some tests on it to see if it’s a viral or bacterial infection. It’s not dry skin. Is this the only location? No other part of your body is itchy?”

He forced out a laugh. “Is this supposed to be embarrassing?” he asked. She looked into his eyes again. Nerves for sure. She wouldn’t have pegged him that way when she first walked in.

There was shock, she’d seen it.

Bet he thought she was a man.

Thank you, Dad, for wanting to name me after you.

“What?” she asked. “Rashes?”

“That,” he said. This time he added a tiny smile. “Or asking if other parts of my body itch. How am I supposed to know if it’s just dry skin or the start of this? Now I’m going to think it’s everywhere under my skin just waiting to rip out and say gotcha.”

She laughed over the joke. “If you’ve had this on your hand for a few weeks and you didn’t notice it until it itched, it means it broke out fast. I’d say you’d know if it was somewhere else. Where else are you itchy and I’ll check?”

“My back,” he said after a slight pause. “I have been trying to look in a mirror but can’t see anything. I can’t get lotion there either. I’m not that flexible no matter how many times I wish my arms were slap hands.”

She smirked over the annoying toy Gianna always wanted her to buy.

Guess Jax lived alone or he’d ask someone to help him.

At least she’d think he would.

Why did that cross her mind?

“If you don’t mind your shirt getting a little wrinkled, we can lift it up, or you can take it off,” she said.

“Wrinkle free shirts,” he said, smirking. “One less thing to deal with in the morning.”

He pulled his blue shirt with white stripes out of his gray trousers and lifted it as much as he could over his back.

She moved around but not before she noticed he didn’t have much fat on his waist even sitting down. Which meant standing up he wouldn’t have any at all because it wasn’t more than folded-over skin.

His back, there was muscle here for sure.

The guy definitely took care of himself and worked out.

She never noticed stuff like that any more than she did how nice someone smelled.

If they smelled bad, sure, but not if they made her want to close her eyes and inhale until her chest couldn’t take another fraction of oxygen.

“Can you point to where it’s itchy because I’m not seeing anything other than some dry skin?”

His hand came around and tried to touch his shoulder. “Lower and closer to the center.”

She put her hand on his skin, noticed it was warm to the touch even under her glove. “Tell me which direction to go.”

They navigated around until she hit the spot, then looked closer with her handheld microscope again.

“Anything there or is it in my head that I might have bugs ready to crawl out?”

She started to laugh and knew it might not be professional, but she couldn’t help it.

She loved it when patients felt comfortable enough to talk to her and open up.

“Don’t forget they could jump out to say gotcha.” His shoulders moved with his laugh. “The good news is,” she said.“You don’t have bugs. Nor the same rash. You’ve got dry skin. If you don’t mind, I’ll put some lotion on it we have here that you can buy at any retail store.”