you.” She found a pre-moistened wipe in the first-aid kit and ripped it open with her teeth. “We’d been best friends for years, and then bam. You just left. The country, as it turned out. So, you can absolutely kiss my ass.”
Apparently not finding the shirt he was looking for, he shoved the duffle bag into the front seat and sat back. He put an elbow on the armrest and a fist at his mouth as he looked out the window, the blue of his irises glistening in the New Mexico sun. “I didn’t want you to see any of that.”
She wiped down her stomach and lower extremities then stopped to look at him. He had to change his shirt and possibly the bandages. Industrial cleaners on open wounds could not be good.
“We need to check your injuries.” She slipped a leg into the sweats. “Did carrying me rip anything open?”
He shook his head as she slid the other leg in and then leaned back to lift her hips off the seat and pull the sweats on. They were far too big. The drawstring would help, but it had a knot she couldn’t get untied, so she couldn’t pull it tighter.
“I didn’t want you to see me there. Like that.” The muscle in his jaw jumped as he worked it. “Rune had no right to show you.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not sure Rune had a choice.” And she wasn’t. Her powers of persuasion were pretty persuasive. Drawing the string tighter so the sweats would hopefully not fall, even though she couldn’t tie it, she got onto her knees and started lifting his shirt over his head. He reared back and looked at her as if she were crazy. “We need to check your bandages. Don’t worry. You can still be mad at me.” She tugged the T-shirt over his head, mussing his hair even more. Multiplying his adorable factor tenfold. Damn it.
He looked down and ran a hand over the gauze. “See? It didn’t even soak through.”
She sat back on her heels, now recognizing some of the scars. The heartbreaking images Rune had shown her flashed in her mind as she remembered where each scar originated. A line across his chest was from a scalpel. A small circle in his shoulder was from a bullet wound. A patch of marred skin was from an acid burn, though that one was kind of his fault.
But it was the scars on his wrists that stole her breath. She lifted his right wrist to her mouth and kissed the inside where the scars were. From when he had tried to take his life just to get it all to stop. Rune had healed him. Over and over again. She took the left one and did the same, shattering when she thought about what he had gone through. Then she ran her fingers along some of the other marks as the stinging in her eyes sent a fat drop spilling over her lashes.
He stilled and watched her with a wary gaze. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” he said, and she marveled again at how well he spoke. At how much she’d missed him. At how much she still wanted him desperately, despite everything. That demon could’ve killed her, and Quentin would’ve never known what he’d meant to her. What he still meant.
She leaned forward and brushed her mouth over a razor-thin scar on his shoulder. Then one on his neck. Then up to the cut on his cheek, feathering a soft kiss along his sculpted jaw.
He clutched the armrest with one hand and kept the other clenched at his side as though afraid to move.
Amber tried to remember that she disgusted him. She tried to remember that she hadn’t been worthy of even a salty goodbye. And that he probably didn’t enjoy her ministrations. But her memory seemed to be on the fritz.
She leaned back and looked at him. His handsome face, still so young and yet hardened. His full mouth framed by scruffy, dark-blond growth. His broad shoulders on which the weight of the world sat. He was so stunningly handsome. So painfully beautiful.
“You have to stop me,” she said, running her hand over a wide shoulder and along the hills and valleys of his biceps. Lean and muscular, he was part human, part predator.
Poor guy had almost died less than an hour ago, and she was trying to have her way with him. If he’d wanted her, wouldn’t