coated in his blood, closed. She swallowed and color burst across her face. Then she gave a small moan and licked her lips.
This was why he’d stayed away from her. He shot from amusement to full on arousal so fast his ears rang.
* * * *
Grace’s throat felt like she’d swallowed a sparkler from a fourth of July party. The heat flushed through her, uncoiling and landing in her abdomen. That fast, awareness of the incredibly hard thighs beneath her butt caught her attention. His blood tasted like fire tinged with something sweet. The throbbing in her wrist diminished almost immediately.
His eyes had turned a liquid onyx rimmed with silver. How did anybody coming across him think for a second that he could be human? There was nothing human about Adare. He was something more. Much more.
She moved to scoot off his lap.
“Oh, no.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her in place with almost no effort. “We’re doing this. Put your wrist on your thigh.”
The torture of pain turned to another, entirely different, torture. Desire rippled through her, stopping at every place she didn’t want associated with the arrogant Highlander. “Fine.” She set her damaged wrist on her thigh.
“Good. Now imagine my blood, full of healing cells, going right to that broken bone.”
She closed her eyes to concentrate. As soon as she healed herself, she could get off his lap. So she followed his directions, imagining bossy marching little cells going toward her wrist. The bone snapped back into place, and she jumped, crying out.
“It’s okay.” His rough voice became soothing. “That was the difficult part. Now send more cells, and they’ll take care of the swelling and bruising. Those won’t hurt at all.”
If she didn’t get off him, she was going to turn and attack him full on, her mouth on his, and damn the consequences. He really had no clue how sexy he was, even though he was an ass usually. Why did bad boys do it for her? Because of the coma, her memories of her prior life were hazy and still came in spurts, but she did remember more than a couple of tough guys in her past.
“Grace? You still with me?”
“Yes.” Eek. Her mind had totally wandered. Heat from his body and the fire surrounded her, and the urge to snuggle into the safety of his iron hard chest was almost too much to resist. But he didn’t want anything to do with her, and she had to keep that humiliating fact front and center in her brain. No self-respecting woman wanted a male only because his brother had mated her sister and he’d agreed to do his duty and protect her. Taking a deep breath, she utilized whatever the heck healing cells were and fixed her wrist.
“Nicely done.” The approval in his tone washed over her skin, prickling awareness.
She opened her eyes. “For a weak and fragile mere human.”
He blinked, his eyes back to the full dark of night. “Weak? No. Fragile, yes.”
They really needed to get a couple of things straight. “Listen, Adare. I don’t like being treated as an unwanted responsibility, and you have to stop thinking of me as such.” She really should get off his thighs.
He studied her face, the impact of his gaze nearly physical. “You are my responsibility.”
“I am not,” she burst out.
He rubbed her shoulder, near her nape, probably unconsciously. “Of course, you are. I mated you, bite and brand, when you were in a coma. You didn’t have a choice, and your current circumstances are a result of my actions.”
What? She tilted her head. “You saved my life.”
“Aye, but you might’ve wanted to move on to the next one, and I took that choice away from you. Probably for a long time. So you’re here, in this life, and you can’t be mated to another being, and you can’t ever be physical with another male because of the mating allergy. It’s not an easy life I subjected you to, without your knowledge or agreement.” An emotion, a real one, glittered in his eyes for the briefest of moments before being snuffed out.
There was so much in that one statement, she didn’t know where to start. He felt guilty about saving her life? “You believe in the afterlife?” Might as well start there.
“Of course,” he said, moving to massage her nape and relieve the tension in her neck. “It’s impossible to think that this is all there is, right?”