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She rests her palm against my cheek. It’s warm and calming. I press against it. Feeling every curve of her palm. I’m addicted to her touch in whatever form she’ll give it. “I’m fine, Max, I promise. Thank you for not being the kind of man who would have let them do whatever they want.”
Squeezing her hand with mine, my other hand reaches up to cup the back of her head and I rest my forehead against hers. “I’ll kill anyone who even looks at you wrong. Those men had a death sentence the moment I saw the look in their eyes. They weren’t leaving here alive.”
She looks in my eyes, and I mean, she really looks at me. I’m caught off guard because I expected her to give me one of those soft smiles of hers in thanks and then run off after William and Griffin, but she does something that surprises me yet again. She lifts onto her toes and kisses me. It’s not a brief, chaste kiss, either. She opens her mouth to me and invades my mouth like she’s invaded my every waking thought. Then, after a small hum, she backs away until her fingers slide from mine and she runs out the door.
My dick is rock hard.
Fascinating.
18
EMILY
Griffin’s roars of pain are enough to wake the dead.
“If you don’t stop with your bitching, we’re going to be overrun again,” I say with a huff. I’m trying to clean out his wound again and he’s not making it easy.
“Here, try this.” William shoves a rag in Griffin’s mouth and it muffles the screams. “Much better.”
“Thank you, William.”
“You’re welcome, Em.” William leans over the back of the couch and grasps one of Griffin’s hands. “Squeeze when it hurts.”
“He’s going to break your hand,” I point out.
“I can handle it.” His face becomes unreadable when I finish cleaning Griffin’s wound and he squeezes his friend’s hand like it’s his only lifeline.
“How did you know we were over there?” I ask.
“Came back and saw Grif limping out the door with Buddy.”
Griffin uses his other hand to pull the rag out of his mouth. “I wasn’t limping. Buddy was going crazy and woke me up. Then I heard voices next door, more voices than I should have, and some I didn’t recognize. Didn’t take long to figure out something was wrong.” He gives another howl of pain and William slaps his hand over Griffin’s mouth.
“We took opposite entrances. Buddy went with him, but he closed the door on him to keep him out,” William continued.
Griffin freed his mouth again. “Didn’t want the dog getting hurt.”
As if in thanks for the sentiment, Buddy nuzzles his nose against Griffin’s forehead, and he calms down a little.
“That dog is a better fighter than you are right now,” I say, pressing a little too hard against his wound with the damp cloth.
He grits his teeth against the pain and pulls his hand from William’s grip. “I’m still perfectly capable.”
Tossing the cloth to the side, I grab the next supplies and thread the needle using the light from the candles we’d lit and placed all around the store. With the sun long gone, I’m grateful we found so many candles to still see by. Otherwise, trying to stitch him up in the dark wouldn’t go nearly as well. “This one is going to hurt.”
“I can handle it.”
“If you scream, I’ll have William knock you out.”
“You’re almost as crazy as Max.”
My core clenches at the mention of Max and the memory of our closeness not that long ago. We were outnumbered by men who wanted to hurt me, but I felt safer than I had in a long time. Possibly safer than I’d ever felt before, even when I was in the middle of my colony. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Griffin grumbles, and William chuckles and stands up to gather the supplies together. There’s a very good chance that Griffin’s screams have drawn rotters toward us, so we would need to be ready to leave at a second’s notice. There’s no telling how far away that herd is right now. If they were close enough to hear the gunshot or Griffin’s screams…
“Still. If you didn’t get yourself into trouble again, then I wouldn’t need to save you. Again.”
“Yeah, well, here I am stitching you up. Again.” I stab him hard with the needle to start the stitches and he winces. Good. “Max had it under control. They would never get near me.”
