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I frown at his order. Jeez. I was only asking if he was okay. “Are you—”
“I’m fine!” he snaps.
I raise my brows, staring at the door. Oh, I know what that word means. He’s far from fine.
I’m about to give up on him though. If he doesn’t want company, then I won’t give him any. But when he hisses, and I can so easily imagine him wincing in pain, I exit my bed. I go toward the door and move the chair over. I left it there all week to block the shared passage, but now, I’m determined to enter his space.
As soon as I step inside, I find him standing next to his bed. He’s wearing light-gray boxers and nothing else. He holds his hand close to his chest, lifting it high, and in his other, he carries a lamp that’s similar in size to the one that sits on my nightstand in my room.
It’s not bright enough to illuminate the entire room, but it does cast shadows of his tall form. Most importantly, it allows me to see the blood dripping off his finger. A lot of blood.
I react, approaching him before I think it through. “What happened?”
“Can’t you listen? I said go back to bed.”
I’ve dealt with many unruly and belligerent children before. Dalton is all man, but my technique has to work on him, too.
I stand taller and look him directly in the eye as I drop into my “teacher” voice. I’m sure it’s an equivalent to a “mom” voice that implies don’t even think about messing with me, punk.
“Dalton, tell me what happened.”
He exhales roughly and glowers at me. “Use your brain. I cut myself.”
Never mind his lack of an explanation. “I see that,” I retort before I pass him and go toward his ensuite bathroom. It’s larger than mine, but I’m pleased it’s stocked the same as mine is. I find a first-aid kit beneath the sink vanity. Then I return to the wounded, growly man.
“Sit. There.” I point at the edge of the bed, relying on my no-nonsense tone to suggest he listen up and listen now. After he lowers himself, I sit next to him and begin to doctor him up. The gash isn’t very long, but it seems deep. Nothing is wedged into his skin, though, so I’m fairly confident I won’t be doing anything wrong by wiping the area clean, disinfecting it with cream, then bandaging it carefully with butterfly closures then liberally with gauze.
“I dropped a glass of water that was on my nightstand,” he says quietly and calmly now. I feel the burn of his attention on me. All the while, he stares at me, watching without a word as I tend to his wound. I’m almost through with dabbing the excess blood and wiping it clean when he continues. “I slipped when I got up to clean it up. Then as I got up from falling, I cut myself.”
I purse my lips, amazed he didn’t manage to cut himself anywhere else with a blind drop like that onto glass shards.
“You should probably get stitches,” I say to break the silence. It’s unnerving me now. Coupled with the intense stare he lays on me, I feel under pressure, under scrutiny.
“Eh.”
I glance up at him, deadpan.
His digit looks ridiculously thick with all the gauze, and it remains pointing between us, a faint barrier. It’s then that I realize how close we’re sitting together. I’m reminded all over again of how flustered I felt near his body heat in the truck on the way to dinner that first night here. Now, he’s practically naked, only in his boxers. I didn’t pay his state of dress any mind while I was focused on helping him, but now that my audition for nursing is complete, the sight of all his bare skin is way too obvious.
And I’m in my rattiest, flimsiest nightie. I shoot to my feet, careful of avoiding his touch as he stands as well.
His hand comes out to steady me when I wobble in my haste to evade him. If he touches me now, if his rough fingers make contact, I’ll burn on the spot. His stare is heavy enough. But his touch?
I swallow. My mouth is dry and I fight the urge to run.
“Careful of the glass,” he says quietly.
I blush, bewildered to be receiving his concern after I so eagerly showed him mine. The need to flee grows by the second, and as I turn, he gently presses his fingers to the back of my arm. My exposed flesh tingles from his touch, and I shiver slightly. It’s too much. The lack of clothes. The privacy we share. The bed right there. And his softer, calmer demeanor. It’s messing with me, making me worry I’ve gone crazy with lust.
“Thank you,” he says sincerely.
I smile, the short and polite one I reserve for acknowledging strangers on the sidewalk when they make eye contact with me. “This doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like you.”
He tips his chin up. In the shadows of the night, it makes him look dangerous and defiant. Why do both of those make him even sexier? What dark magic is this nonsense? He’s annoying. He’s full of himself. He’s—
“I don’t like you either,” he says then smirks.
He’s not my number-one fan, I recall. Remembering that fact sobers me from this weird haze, and it propels me to rush and return to my room without a glance back. I close the door and silently replace the chair to block it from opening. Then I drop to sit in it, befuddled and feeling odd after that interaction.
