Page 31 of Kept in the Dark

I’m a nurse; he’s a patient.

But even if he’d come into the hospital off the street and we’d never met before, I don’t know that I would have been able to keep from staring at the pale expanse of skin on display. Maybe it wouldn’t have been professional of me, but I would have looked. And appreciated the view.

I sit facing him. Then, I snap on a pair of disposable gloves from the kit and gently remove the pad he had pressed to his side.

It’s like a bucket of cold water being thrown all over my interested perusal of his body.

I can’t believe he was sitting up and moving around normally.

He’s got a gash about four inches long just below his hipbone, and it’s inflamed, oozing, and looks deeper than the butterfly bandages in his first aid kit can handle.

“You really should consider going to a hospital,” I murmur, getting a full view of the damage.

“Out of the question,” he snaps, predictably.

I look around with a grimace at the space. “This environment isn’t clean, and this kit doesn’t have a face mask. You’re going to get an infection. You need stitches, something to control the pain, antibiotics—”

“It is not so deep. The bullet did not penetrate far into the subcutaneous tissue.”

I’m a little surprised at his use of a word I wasn’t sure regular people knew, then I remember he isn’t a regular person. He must have learned it the hard way. “Even so—”

“There is a threaded needle here. The kit has disinfectant and antibiotics”—right, because it’s the best-stocked first aid kit in the whole fucking world—“and you said you can do stitches,da?”

“What about pain meds? It’s going tohurt,and if you flinch—”

His face is stony. “I will not flinch.”

“Okay, butImight, sewing someone without so much as a local anesthetic.”

“Enough, Nicole. Do it or give me the needle. I did not ask for your help.”

I bite my lip, looking down at the redness of his skin again. Deep down, I knew some of those scars were the result of self-inflicted stitches.

Oh well. It’s his staph infection; all I can do is my best.

“Fine.”

I fish around in the kit to find the sterile packages. After cleaning the area with saline, I see the wound is still bleeding sluggishly, so I apply pressure with a gauze pad.

As I press, I try to avoid his gaze, since this is the closest we’ve been—while conscious, anyway. And the way I’m facing him, sitting with my knees splayed and effectively straddling him, is remarkably intimate. My silky dress, now dirty with God knows what and wrinkled beyond what even a dry cleaning could fix, pools in the triangular space between my thighs and reveals the total naked length of my left leg.

Well, whatever. If he gets a flash of nude shapewear, I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of his day. The Spanx are wildly uncomfortable, tight, and I sorely wish I could take them off, along with the boob tape that’s been stuck on for so long that it has probably fused to my skin. But there are more pressing matters, and being around him without underwear… well, I might as well be stark naked.

My face feels hot under his intense stare, but I try to ignore it as I check the cleaned wound area. “It’s not as deep as I thought. You’ll have another scar for your collection, and it needs, like, 15 stitches, but you were lucky.”

“I was caught off guard,” he corrects stiffly, lifting a brow at me.

I narrow my eyes, but choose not to ask a question I don’t want the answer to. I hope he’s not blamingmefor this mess. “Lean back for me, so I can have a better angle.”

He does, and I gather my supplies and readjust myself over him, pretending not to notice as his muscles stretch and lengthen, giving hima new, different kind of definition. He digs one elbow into the mattress and props his head on a fist so he can see what I’m doing, a posture that’s almost casual.

I watch him like a hawk as I apply antiseptic spray and then iodine, but true to his word, he’s totally immobile, barely reacting to what I know stings like the devil—just a slight bob of his Adam’s apple. While that dries, I unwrap the needle and place my hands gently on his skin, probing the area lightly. He doesn’t jump or react in any way, and I allow myself to hope that he really will not flinch when I start sewing him back together.

“This is really going to hurt,” I warn again, when everything is in place and I’ve got the curved needle between my gloved fingers.

“Just do it. I am ready.”

For once, I really do believe that.