or things were going to happen my chaperone wouldn’t like.
“I’m not telling you about how flexible I am.” Oh, for the love of the gods, Kaliya, don’t pick this moment of all moments to go into the gutter. You suffered a head wound, not a lobotomy.
“I’m sure we can find some other time to talk about how flexible you are.” He stepped up closer and took the ointment out of my hand. “Sit down, please.”
“What’s with men and wanting to do this? I don’t need someone to take care of me, Raphael. You can go.”
“I don’t want to go,” he whispered. “I want to make sure one of my only friends is taken care of and can get a good…day’s sleep. You were thrown into a wall. Two if we include the explosion at the prison. I’m sure your shoulders and back hurt like a motherfucker.”
I pulled my shirt off to show him exactly what damage I had taken, wobbling as I did. He was right, I wasn’t suddenly more flexible; much less flexible, actually. I had seen the initial damage in the mirror at the condo, but I knew it was worse now. By the sharp intake of his breath, I knew it was much worse.
“How are you standing?”
“I was trained to,” I answered, keeping on my feet. “Because that’s all I’ve got right now. My own fucking wits and the training I went through before I got this job.”
“You’ve got me,” he reminded me, grabbing my elbow with feather-light fingers. I sat on the bed and let him rub in the ointment. “Have you never had a partner?”
“Cassius sort of was for a long time. Well, I was more like his deadly sidekick.”
“You’re still friends with him, so I don’t know why you sound a little bitter.”
“He walked out on me right after I fell asleep the last time we had sex. And I’m not bitter. He’s just the only thing I’ve had close to a partner, and that’s how it turned out. I’m happy for him now. He seems a lot happier with Sorcha, and that’s good for him.”
“You know a lot about him, more than you let on. When he showed up and I met him, it seemed like you two were begrudging friends, but I’m honestly a little jealous of him right now.”
“Why?” I snorted, trying to ignore the feel of his super-hot hands rubbing my shoulders, working in the ointment, and giving me a massage at the same time.
“Because I can see how much you genuinely care about him. I just hope he knows how lucky he is to have someone like you in his corner.”
I blinked. The combination of everything over the last night and day hit me as I formed my response to the man beside me.
“He’s not the lucky one,” I whispered. “I am. I’m a train wreck, and everyone knows it. Everyone knows I cause trouble wherever I go, people get hurt, and they die. Like Carter.”
He leaned over to stare at me, eye to eye. Whatever he was thinking was behind an emotionless mask. I didn’t want the emotionless mask. If he wanted to have this conversation right now, I wanted to know how he felt.
“He’s lucky to have someone like you,” Raphael repeated.
He went back to rubbing in the ointment. I reached into the jar and worked on my belly and ribs, so he wouldn’t have to, careful not to mess with the stitches Leith had just done. He did my lower back, then stood up.
“I’ll leave you here since you can reach the rest,” he said, putting the jar down on the bedside table.
“Raphael,” I called out as he reached the door. When he looked back, I met his gaze once again. “I’m lucky to have you, too.”
Somewhere since the prison breakout happened, everything had changed between us. The near dying stuff was hard to do alone, and I had done it alone for so long, and this guy, who had so much on his plate, was here helping me when he could have hidden.
“Get some rest before you admit to having more emotions than your cold-blooded nature can handle,” he teased, then left the room.
I laughed weakly and finished treating myself, then fell back onto the bed, glad I could finally get some sleep.
I wasn’t sure how long I slept. When I sat up, the pain was there, but it wasn’t debilitating. It took all of twenty seconds for the nasty headache to make itself known,