Page 43 of Herding Cat

“It’s not nothing! Damn it, Garrett! This looks horrible. You need to see a doctor.”

He gave a growl. “It’s a bruise.”

“It’s a hematoma.”

“Which is technically a bruise.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“I’m not stubborn.”

“You are. You should go to the doctor and you know it.”

He grabbed her cheeks and pulled her close for a kiss. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Leave me?” Why did that send a shard through her chest?

“I want to be there to protect you, Cat.”

She smacked him and he winced again. “Stop calling me Cat.”

“Never.”

“Would you go to the hospital if I went with you?”

He peered at her through one eye. “Maybe. But I thought we were going to the market.”

“We are. After the hospital.”

“But—”

“I insist. I cannot possibly make love to an injured man.”

“I’m not injured!”

She laughed at the panic in his tone. “I couldn’t bear it if I damaged your fragile body with my wild passion.”

“I am not fragile!” A yowl. Then he stilled. His brow arched. “Do you have wild passion?”

“For you, I do.”

“Mmm. That sounds good.” He yanked her back and kissed her.

After a while, she protested. “Stop that. You’re wounded.”

“Not that wounded.”

“Besides—”

There was no time for her to lay out her other reasons why they should not tempt the fates and make love again here and now. She was interrupted by a tap on the door.

Despite his wounded, injured, fragile person, Garrett leaped to his feet before she could and bolted to the door, pulling out his weapon and peeping through the hole.

He relaxed and then, without hesitation, pulled open the door, but he should have hesitated. At least long enough to button back up.

Luke and Tate entered, both making a thorough scan of his exposed undershirt and offering twin smirks.

“I was checking his wound,” she said, though she needn’t have said anything. And she certainly wasn’t feeling like a teenager caught by an overprotective father making out with her rebel boyfriend. Much.