Page 60 of The Hunter

A lover?

A monster was more likely.

“I think you’re correct, Welton, I think I should like that shirt.”

It took some doing for the two of them to dress him and keep the shirt clean, but once he was buttoned into the garment, the right sleeve rolled up past his elbow, he resumed the tedious chore of stitching the flesh closed.

“I will be nearby if you or Miss LeCour have need of me,” Welton informed him, more inflection or meaning in his voice than Argent had ever before noted.

Brows drawn together in concentration, Argent nodded and was left alone.

Christ, but it was difficult to do anything requiring so much dexterity with the most insistent cockstand he’d ever had telling him the wound could wait.

The woman could not.

However, fucking a woman like Millie LeCour with a seeping gash in his arm seemed barbaric, even for him.

He somehow wanted to be certain that blood never once touched her perfect, porcelain skin. He had no qualms about bathing in it, but it should never touch a woman like her.

A mother. One who worried about things like shoes in the sheets and the comfort of a sleeping child. When he thought of the way she’d swept Jakub’s hair from his closed eyes with all the tenderness and love a woman could possess, a flutter of something soft and foreign pressed against his breastbone. Like a hummingbird was trapped there, looking for a way out.

And it was that little flutter beneath his ribs that made him catch his breath.

The washroom door creaked a little as it opened and Argent gritted his teeth. “Welton, hand me the vodka from the cupboard over there. I think this wound has been open too long. I don’t want it to turn septic.”

The cupboard door opened and closed while Argent cursed the unsteadiness of his hand as he made one of the stitches wider than it needed to be.

“It wasyourblood on the carpet in my dressing room, wasn’t it?”

Argent could count on one hand the number of times he’d been truly startled. Every time had resulted in pain, and this time was no exception, as he pulled too hard on the string stuck in his skin at the sound of Millie LeCour’s voice.

She held the bottle of vodka like sacrificial wine against her antiquated bead and velvet costume, and approached him like one would a wounded bear. “You’ve been hurt this whole time.”

Argent didn’t know how to respond, as the statement had sounded more like an accusation. Also, her hair had fallen from its net into a wreath of messy curls spilling over her breasts like an onyx waterfall. How the devil was he supposed to put words together when she looked like that?

He wanted her.God, how he wanted her.

A frown pulled at the corners of her red, red lips and she slipped by him to set the bottle on the window seat next to the clean bandages, which she pushed to the side.

Argent had paused to observe her, his arm only half stitched, wondering just what she planned to do next.

She sat. Looking up at him, she gestured to the space next to her. “You’re making a mess of your arm. Let me finish.”

He glanced at his handiwork in the mirror. Her observation was correct, the few stitches he’d been able to accomplish might as well have been done by a blind and simple child. He’d always doctored his own wounds. It was safer for a man like him not to show others his weaknesses.

“I’m nearly finished,” he hedged.

“You’ve only started,” she argued. “Now sit down, I know what I’m doing.”

It had been a lifetime, it seemed, since someone had dared argue with him, let alone issue an order. He stood for a moment, deciding what to do, and then, only because no alternative instantly presented itself, he stepped over to the window seat and lowered himself next to her. “How do you know what you’re doing?” he queried.

Millie turned to the bottle and retrieved one of the bandages, an air of efficiency that he hadn’t yet noted about her settled on her features. “I’ve two elder brothers and a younger one. Someone always needed stitching in my home.”

“Where are they now?” he asked. More startled than she was, he expected, by his curiosity about her.

A frown touched her eyes that made him sorry he’d asked.

“Two of them immigrated to America, and my eldest brother and I… we’re not close.”