Page 23 of Kept in the Dark

Why is it so difficult to think?

Probably the bullet wound.

I need to get us somewhere safe. But I cannot bring her to the house, or I would put Wesley, James and Eleanor at risk. I do not know this woman. I do not know what kind of threat she might pose or how erratically she might act ifshefeels threatened…

“Hey, Lev?”

“What?” I snap, irrationally angry at the wrong name on her lips again.

“It smells very strongly of blood in here. I thought maybe it was from what I got on me, but… Are you bleeding?”

Oh.“Da.”

“Do you know where? Or what caused it?”

“I was shot.”

She inhales sharply, though not emphatically enough to be a gasp, and begins looking around at the passing scenery. “We need to stop. Is there a gas station or something up ahead?”

“We are not stopping for a graze; it is not bleeding very much.”

“Even a graze can trigger shock,” she admonishes. “You shouldn’t be driving.”

I refuse to respond to that ridiculous statement with anything more than a scoff.

As if I do not know my body well enough to know that I am in control of my faculties. I have been shot many times. I know the signs of shock well, and I am not exhibiting any. On the occasions when a bullet has hit me somewhere closer to something vital, it has triggered a kind of small panic, but I am usually able to ride it out.

“Please, Lev. If you pass out from blood loss, you might crash the car and kill us both.” After a few more seconds of silence, she makes a frustrated noise. “At least answer my screening questions?”

“Fine.”

It is an odd thing to watch such a shift in a person, but I feel as if I am witnessing a transformation. Gone is the frightened, worried creature, and in her place is someone very much in control, competent, and who knows exactly how to handle a medical emergency.

A golden woman in a golden dress with a low voice so calming that it could put me to sleep.

“How’s your heart rate? Is your breathing normal? Any feelings of weakness or fatigue? Pain anywhere other than the area of the wound, like the chest or abdominal region? Dizziness?”

As I answer her questions in turn, she clicks on the light over our heads and examines my lips and fingernails for any discoloration. She watches my chest rise and fall with a clinical focus, then places her freezing cold fingertips on my wrist.

When I remove my hand from the steering wheel, she pulls back with a small scowl. “Let me check—”

I crank the heat, then place my hand face up across the center console, wordlessly submitting to her demands and making it easier for her to take my pulse. “Just get it over with,” I grumble.

Her cool fingers find my pulse again, and she grips my much larger hand, holding it still with both of hers, one cradled around the back of it. I resist the urge to flex against her hold, just to see what she would do. Her touch is firm, but she uses light pressure. She treats me so… gently.

When we make eye contact this time, I freeze.

I had nearly forgotten, since so much of our time together has been in dim or nonexistent lighting where it is difficult to discern the color of things. Now, even with pupils large from lingering adrenaline, her eyes shine. They are the color I believe Americans would callhazel—almost a light tan, much like the rest of her coloring.

She is truly golden, like honey.

Her dress flashes as her chest rises and falls, and I follow the motion hungrily. She swallows, and my eyes are drawn to the up and down movement of her throat. The line from her ear down to her shoulder is long and elegant and completely bare of jewelry. I can see a vein thrumming against her skin—what would her fluttering pulse feel like under my palm, or my lips?

The car swerves, and I jerk my hand away to right us on the road.

This is… unsettling. I am unsettled.

And aroused. I have never wanted to have a woman as badly as I want this one, right now. Perhaps it is the adrenaline still coursing through my veins from the fight and the injury—an ancient instinct to fuck or kill. Whatever the reason, this is terrible fucking timing. I need what blood I have left in my head, not my cock.