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I look down at her ankles. “Why are you still wearing those?”
Her gaze drops to the ropes. “They’re too tight. I was flustered and couldn’t get the knots out. I’ll cut them off later, it doesn’t matter.”
I shake my head. “Sit down.”
Her eyes widen as I walk closer to her. She looks around as if searching for another spot, but I give her a little shove and she drops back on my mattress. She scowls at me, and I smirk up at her as I kneel on the ground and grab one of her legs. “Remember, I’m wounded, so you can’t fight me about things.”
“Oh, yeah. Mr. ‘I’m not gonna go to the hospital and let a professional treat me’ wants to milk it now.”
“I’m nothing if not opportunistic,” I warn her.
She’s uneasy as my hands deftly trail down her leg, but she tries to echo my words back to me. “Most people wouldn’t admit a thing like that.”
My lips quirk as I prop her foot on my thigh. “I’m not embarrassed about it.”
Her words dry up and her tongue darts out to wet her lips as I work my fingers beneath the rope. It’s so tight, her soft skin is indented.
Anger swells up at the idea of those slimy assholes putting their hands on her and tying her down the way they did.
I want to ask why the hell she followed that dork to his basement, why she was there to see him to begin with.
But I know it’s not really my business.
She isn’t mine.
We aren’t friends.
We aren’t anything.
Just two strangers whose locations intersected at a terribly inconvenient moment in time.
I free the first ankle, then switch legs and free that one, too.
“Thank you,” she says softly, tugging her ankle free from my lingering grasp.
I glance up at her and nod, then I stand. She does, too. Too quickly. We’re so close, if I just grabbed her waist and leaned in a little bit…
She murmurs a hasty apology and darts away before I can even complete the thought.
Probably the right call, but I can’t help the pinch of disappointment it triggers.
Switching into nurse mode more for her own well-being than mine, Brynn tells me, “All right, lie on your stomach, and I’ll cut the hoodie off if that’s okay.”
I nod, glancing at the assortment of first aid supplies she put on my nightstand as I climb on the bed.
“I’ll go wash my hands,” she says, and then she disappears into my bathroom.
She sure is a nervous little thing.
I get comfortable on the bed and wait for her.
When she comes back in, she gets the stuff set up where she plans to work, then she climbs on my bed and crawls closer. I can feel how uneasy she is as she grabs the scissors.
“You ever cut a man’s clothes off before?”
She chokes on a surprise burst of laughter. “No, I can’t say that I have.”
“Doesn’t seem like your style. You’re more the one getting your clothes cut off, huh?”
