Page 21 of Chaos & Carnage

Fuck, she was going to kill me. I hadn’t expected her to react to me so hard. I hadn’t expected my cock to be pushing against my bike leathers so tightly that any little movement against her, or from her, was going to make me come in my fucking boxers. Every tissue and fibre in my body was on fire, every nerve ending was tingling, and my heart was racing like I’d just popped a handful of pills.

“Yes?” I answered, more gasp than words.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re what’s wrong, Al. These lips,” I ran the pad of my thumb over the delicate skin now flushed with deep pink. “This hair.” I pushed the strands of rich brown laced with gold that fell across her face. “These freckles.” I felt across the gold-red flecks that dusted her cheeks. “These dimples.” Lightly, I grabbed at her cheeks, holding her so she couldn’t look away from me, those angelic, light-blue eyes darker with a rush of blood to her face. “You,” I breathed, tasting her scent on my tongue. “Everything about you is what’s wrong.”

Alice frowned. Those dark, perfectly shaped eyebrows, knitting together, a storm brewing in the tranquil blue of her eyes, like we were out at sea, alone.

“You’re Demon’s dog’s vet. And I should be here asking how Kinobi is. Instead, I’m doing my best to keep my hands off you.”

“This is trying to keep your hands off me?” She smiled.

Sort of. A half-smile. Pulling at the side of her face, one of her dimples deepening. My cock bounced off the thick leather of my pants, reminding me how much I wanted to rip her clothes off and fuck her against the reception desk. I would. Just not yet. No, not yet. I needed to wait. To savour every little thing about her. To commit everything to memory so that I could trace every last little freckle over her face without even opening my eyes.

“I don’t want you thinking I’m trying to take advantage.”

“And what if I did?” The nervous lick of her lips betraying the words she tried to hide behind.

Fuck, I loved that even more. Her uncertainty. Her nervousness. Everything she did, every action, every word, was all raw her. And maybe that was what was drawing me to her. She was just Alice. Not a woman trying to be something else. And tonight, I saw her at her most vulnerable. A few nights ago, I saw her in a crisis. Strong, commanding, confident. She intrigued me at every turn.

I didn’t move away. I stayed on my knees, watching her, watching her reaction. And she didn’t keep me waiting. The little burst of artificial confidence disappeared from her eyes.

Alice smiled weakly, but it was the tiredness in her eyes I noticed the most, still stunning no matter how exhausted she looked. I reached out for her again. Slowly this time, giving her the opportunity to move away from me if she wanted to. But she didn’t flinch. The lightest blue eyes watching me, never once retreating. Tipping her chin up with my finger, I kept my gaze on her face, studying the freckles, and the way her long, dark eyelashes seemed to brush over the top of her cheeks.

“You work too hard, Alice.” I didn’t know why that mattered to me. “You need to take a break.”

She said nothing. Not right then. Just a fleeting smile, which said far more than words ever could.

“I need to feed the kittens.” The sadness had returned, the distraction of us no longer pulling her away from the life she had just lost.

And I could feel it all, like it radiated off her and tangled me up within it.

“Let me help. We’ll be able to get it done quicker if the two of us do it?”

Alice nodded, a funny mix of emotion on her face. Pain, tiredness, relief.

I pushed to my feet, holding out my hand as she sat on the edge of the waiting room seat. For a moment she just looked at it and I wondered whether she was going to leave me hanging. But then she slid her hand into mine, her skin warm and gentle, slender fingers resting against me, not gripping, showing me she really didn’t need me, but she was too polite to say so. My good girl. My stomach stirred, deep and resonant and I resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, just for a moment, just to regain control.

Alice led the way through the back of the office, passing the consulting rooms, to the last room before the operating theatre. The lights were already on, turned low, gently illuminating the room of cages. Kinobi raised her head straight away, her spongy black nose pushing against the wire cage, leaving indents on the soggy flesh.

“Hi baby girl,” I hummed, stepping around Alice and approaching the black and tan dog in one of the biggest cages in the ward. “Hi, Kinobi.”

“She’s really improving now,” Alice muttered from behind me as I crouched on the floor to get closer to Demon’s dog. “Few more days and I think we can think about getting her home.”

“Demon will be made up to hear that. Maybe they’ll get out together.”

“He still in hospital?”

“Yeah. Not for much longer. The stronger he gets, the more difficult he becomes. As soon as he’s strong enough to take a piss by himself, he’ll leg-it.”

“He really shouldn’t. He needs to do as the doctors tell him.”

“Demon doesn’t do anything someone tells him. Not even Ciara.”

“Ciara?”

“His ol’ lady. The love of his life. More than even Kinobi, here. I know, I know. I didn’t really say that, girl,” I added quickly when the dog pulled her nose from the bars of the cage.