Page 100 of Ruthless Creatures

My mouth goes dry. My pulse surges.

Is he telling me I’m The One for him? I mean, obsession and true love are two very different things.

But I’m not brave enough to ask, so I change the subject. “Your shoulder is leaking again.”

He glances at it and frowns. “How good are you with a needle?”

I feel the blood drain from my face, but gird my mental loins. If he needs me to stitch him up, I’ll do it.

I take a breath and straighten my shoulders. “I’m sure I can manage.”

He grins at the grim expression on my face. “I know you can. You can manage anything.”

The pride in his voice makes me glow. I’m probably blinking dreamily at him with little red confetti hearts for eyes.

We get out of the shower and he dries us off, carefully blotting my hair with the towel, then even more carefully combing his fingers from scalp to ends to get the tangles out. Even when I tell him there’s a comb in the drawer, he wants to use his hands.

“You have a thing for my hair, don’t you?”

“I have a thing for all of you. Your ass is a close second to your hair. Or maybe your legs. No—your eyes.”

Pretending to be insulted, I say, “Excuse me, but I’m more than the sum of my body parts. I actually have a personality, too, in case you haven’t noticed. And a brain. A very big brain, as a matter of fact.”

Except when it comes to algebra, but I don’t count that, because it’s ridiculous.

He chuckles, pulling me against his chest. He drops his head to press a tender kiss to my lips. “It can’t be nearly as big as your mouth.”

“Oh, funny. You’re a comedian now.”

He gives me another soft kiss, then says, “I’ll be back soon.”

Cue my next heart attack. My pulse triples in the space of two seconds. “Why? Where are you going?”

“To my house.”

“You’re going back to New York already?”

Amused by my panic at the thought of him leaving so soon, he says, “My house next door. I have fresh clothes there. I can’t exactly put back on the shirt I arrived in, and I left without packing a bag.”

My relief is tempered by confusion. I squint at him. “Did you come here straight from a gunfight?”

“Yes.”

“Was that planned?”

“No.”

I squint harder. “Injured, bleeding, with no luggage, you spontaneously flew cross-country. Here. To see me.”

He takes my face in his hands and gazes down at me, letting me see everything. All the need. All the longing. All the dark desire.

“That’s where people go when they need to feel better: home.”

“But your home is in New York.”

“Home can be a person, too. That’s what you are for me.”

Tears spring into my eyes. I have to take several ragged breaths before I can say anything, and even then, my voice comes out strangled. “If I find out you read that somewhere, I’ll shoot you in the face.”