but he couldn’t see how badly she’d been damaged beneath it. Was there an exit wound or was the bullet still in her arm? He started mentally reviewing the contents of the first-aid kit downstairs. “They’ve done studies. People can endure more pain if they swear.”
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she said. “Yeah, sorry, it’s not working.”
He reached for the buttons on her shirt and Tasha looked at him with disbelief as she pulled away, injured arm again tucked in close to her body. “What are you doing?”
“I need you out of that shirt.”
“Words I have yearned to hear for years,” she said.
He met her eyes at that, and electricity sparked between them—immediate and palpable. But then she smiled ruefully. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
That bruised, dazed look in her eyes had vanished. She was back to being her usual alert and sharply funny self. Another good sign that this wound wasn’t dire.
“I need to see your arm,” Thomas said evenly.
“Okay,” she said, using her right hand to unfasten the top buttons of her shirt. “If you insist.”
And it was quickly clear that she was not wearing a bra.
As he turned away, she laughed a little at the obvious Oh shit on his face. “Ah,” she said, “you forgot about the selfless sacrifice of my courageous bra, who gave its life so that we could live in a world free from handcuffs.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I forgot about that. But I still need to see your arm.” He got out the knife. “I’ll cut the sleeve. And I’ll sew it back up for you later.” She’d found a bunch of sewing kits in one of the drawers in the pod’s kitchen.
But she was still unbuttoning. “I kinda used up all the thread.”
“You... what? How?”
“I’m making you warmer pants, Grandpa. Look, this is really not that big a deal. You’ve studied anatomy, I assume. I mean, you are a medic, so...”
“Hospital corpsman,” he corrected her automatically.
“Plus it’s not like you haven’t already seen me naked,” she added. “Okay, just hand me my jacket so I can cover my terrifying lady parts, then turn your chaste, puritanical gaze over to the corner for a moment while I get out of most of this thing. I won’t need your help until I get to the left sleeve. Ow, I mean, fuck.”
He pulled her jacket to within her easy reach from where she was sitting on the floor, but like hell she didn’t need his help. Turning away meant he couldn’t help her, so he didn’t turn away. However, he moved so that he was kneeling behind her, where he kept his eyes securely on her back and shoulders as he helped her pull her uninjured arm free from the first sleeve.
She had a splash of freckles on shoulders that were as strong as they were graceful—a swimmer’s shoulders. Her back was muscular, too. Her skin was smooth and uninjured—thank you, Jesus—as he helped pull the shirt off of her.
She may have been small of stature, and her wild riot of red curls added to her fairy-princess-like appearance, but it was all just an illusion. She was far more warrior-goddess than delicate, fragile sprite—radiating a strength that was feminine and powerful.
She made a point of holding her jacket up to her chest with her right hand and then let Thomas do the work to get her blood-soaked sleeve off her injured arm.
As the wound was revealed, his relief bubbled larger.
“It doesn’t look bad,” he told her as he finally peeled away the sleeve. “The bullet took a small bite out of you as it grazed you, so the injury’s slightly longer than a gunshot wound, but it’s shallow. Bleeding’s mostly stopped.” Yeah, there was still unpleasant work ahead, picking stray fibers from her shirt and jacket out of the wound, cleaning it thoroughly to ward off infection, but that wouldn’t be even half as bad as digging a bullet out of her flesh.
“So, wait, I wasn’t shot, I was just nicked?” She tried to look over her shoulder, but her injury was on the backside of her upper arm. She’d need a mirror to see it.
“Nicked is still shot.”
“But a bullet’s not still in my arm.”
“Correct.” He probably should’ve told her that first, but he was having a little trouble breathing—his relief was so intense and profound.
Relief combined with sheer terror at what might’ve been.
Holy Jesus. An inch or two to the right, and the bullet would’ve broken her humerus. It might’ve even taken her arm