Page 67 of Nowhere to Hide

“I’ll do my best.” There was no way to actually do this on the bed without some seriously intimate positions. There wasn’t enough room beside the bed to contort myself to change her bandage.

I huffed out an annoyed breath and handed her the kit.

“I can do it.”

“No, I need a better place to put you.” Getting between her thighs on my fucking bed wasn’t optimal to keep what was left of my sanity.

I lifted her off the bed and she yelped, putting her arms around my neck. I settled her against my chest, walking her down the hall before I hefted her over my shoulder for the narrow stairs.

Her thigh brushed my cheek making my whole damn body react.

Christ.

“Who needs dignity,” she said darkly.

I cleared the few stairs and instead of drawing her back down into my arms, I kept marching out through the kitchen and living room to the outer deck. I set her on the large couch.

She winced and scooted back. “You’re such a brute.”

“Get used to it. I’ll be hauling you around for a while until you heal enough to walk.”

“I think I can handle the bandages.”

I knelt in front of her. “Oh, really? Take a look.”

She huffed out a breath and looked down. She turned away from her own wound.

“Yeah, it ain’t pretty. Keep looking out on that horizon, Cilla.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” she whispered.

“Yeah, well, we all do stuff we don’t want to. That’s life.” I settled my hand on her thigh and pulled at the skin a little to see just how sticky that bandage was. Fuck, her skin was smooth.

And the wound was far up on her thigh. Almost to the....

Nope.

Don’t think about that.

I gritted my teeth. “It’s probably going to hurt. I don’t want to yank it and pull skin off.”

She nodded. “Just do what you have to do.”

I dug through the kit and found the ointment that the doctors recommended. Then I slowly picked at the edges of the filmy bandage. It was wider than the white gauze below and reminded me of tattoo bandages, only it was a helluva lot more industrial. It was slow going to peel the film away.

I tried to concentrate on the bandage and not the fragile skin of her inner thigh.

Finally, I got half of it free. “You need a break?”

“Nope. Just go.” Her voice was tense.

“Okay, just another few minutes.”

She hissed as I hit a spot closer to the apex of her thighs. The warmth of her skin was driving me crazy. Once I got it free, I quickly scrambled to my feet.

“I just need to get a cloth to clean you up.”

And try not to think about the pink of her skin.