Page 64 of Ashes

“I like her,” Valentina muttered to Kai before handing me gauze and a bottle of saline. I’d barely heard her come back into the room.

“Hey, your poor husband’s already injured,” Jamail replied teasingly, trying to dissipate the tension in the air.

I smacked him over the head again. “This isn’t funny.” I dropped to my knees in front of him and placed the supplies next to him on the couch. “You’re hurt,” I said quietly, my fury transforming into fear at what I would find under his shirt.

What if I didn’t have the right equipment? What if he was injured beyond what I could see?

He sat up and cradled my cheek with the hand that wasn’t holding his side, rubbing his thumb over my cheek. “Sienna, I’m okay.”

I looked at him, his gaze locking with mine.

“Leave,” he told Kai and Valentina, and they both complied without saying another word.

I moved away from his touch. “Take off your clothes. I need to see the extent of your injury.”

He smiled at me. “We haven’t even gone on a first date and you’re already getting me naked.”

“Stop making jokes and take them off.” I scowled at him.

This time, he complied. He started with carefully shrugging off his jacket, then swiftly unbuttoned his shirt. Instead of doing the same and taking it off, he left it on.

I tried not to dwell on his bare chest and focused my attention on needing to do my job, which was helping him, not shamelessly ogling my husband. “I need you to take everything off so I can examine you.”

“This is just fine.”

Thinking that taking off his jacket took too much out of him, I propped myself on one knee and reached for his shoulders to help him remove his shirt, but before I could make contact, his hand whipped up and grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “No. Leave it on.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Jamal, I?—”

“Sienna, I’m really tired. Just leave it on,please,” he pleaded.

The way he said please stopped me from pushing him further.

“Okay,” I conceded and moved to open the bottle of whiskey Kai had brought me. “Drink this,” I suggested, handing it to Jamal, but he refused.

“I’m fine,” he said, pushing the bottle away.

“It’ll be painful.”

“I’ve suffered worse,” he said simply.

His statement took me aback, but now wasn’t the most appropriate time for questions.

I pre-opened all the gauze before grabbing a few and soaked them with saline. I pushed his shirt further open and brought them to his side. As I cleaned, it revealed that his injury was only a graze GSW, but the laceration was deep enough to still be bleeding.

I felt him staring at me while I worked on his open wound. “What?”

“You’re not going to ask me what happened?”

Once I was done cleaning, I grabbed my suture kit. “No,” I simply said. “You probably wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

My hands were clammy as I moved to grab the needle with the needle driver, the tissue forceps with my other hand. I’d done this a million times, but for some unknown reason, I felt nervous as I brought the needle to his skin.

“Tell me something about yourself.”

“What?” I asked, pausing my movements.

“You seem nervous, so I thought asking you questions would prevent you from butchering me.”