Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9) - J. R. Ward Page 0,39

. . . no. I . . . no. I have not.”

Although even this short time with her healer was informing. He fascinated her, from the way he moved to how he filled out his white coat and blue dressings, to the scent of him and his voice.

“Are you mated?” she asked, fearing his answer.

He laughed in a hard burst. “Hell, no.”

Her breath left her on a relieved sigh, even as it was strange to think that his status mattered as much as it did. And then there was nothing but silence.

Oh, the passing of time. How regrettable it was. And what should she say to him in these final minutes they had left? “Thank you. For caring for me.”

“My pleasure. I hope you recover well.” He stared at her as if trying to memorize her, and she wanted to tell him to stop trying. “I’m always here for you, okay? If you need me to help you . . . come and find me.” Her healer took out a small, stiff card and wrote something on it. “That’s my cell. Call me.”

He reached forward and slipped the thing into the weak hand that rested o’er her heart. As she gripped what he’d given her, she thought of all the repercussions. And implications.

And complications.

With a grunt, she tried to shift herself around.

The healer was instantly on his feet. “You need repositioning?”

“My hair.”

“Is it pulling?”

“No . . . please unbraid my hair.”

Manny froze and just stared down into his patient’s face. For some reason, the idea of unraveling that thick rope seemed pretty goddamned close to getting her naked, and what do you know, his sex drive was all over it.

Jesus . . . he had a frickin’ hard-on. Right under his surgical scrubs.

See, he thought, this was the unpredictable law of attraction at work, right here, right now: Candace Hanson offered to blow him and he’d been about as interested as he was in wearing a dress. But this . . . female? woman? . . . asked him to unveil her hair and he was all but panting.

Vampire.

In his head, he heard the word spoken in her voice with her accent . . . and the thing that shocked him most was his lack of reaction to the news flash. Yeah, if he considered the implications his motherboard started to spark and fizzle: Fangs are not just for Halloween and horror flicks anymore?

And yet the freaky thing was the unfreaky.

That and this sexual-attraction thing he had going on.

“My hair?” she said.

“Yeah . . .” he whispered. “I’ll take care of it.”

His hands did not tremble ever so slightly. Nope. They did not.

They shook like a motherfucker.

The end of the braid was tied with a length of the softest fabric he’d ever felt. It wasn’t cotton; it wasn’t silk. . . . It was something he’d never seen before, and his keen surgeon’s fingers seemed sloppy and too rough on the stuff as he worked at the winding knot. And then her hair . . . good God, her wavy black hair made that cloth feel like nettles in comparison.

Inch by inch, he separated the tripart weave, the waves both slick and clinging. And because he was a bastard, all he could think about was the shit falling over his bare chest . . . his abs . . . his cock—

“That’s far enough,” she said.

Damn straight it was. Yanking his inner manwhore back to the land of polite conversating, he forced his hands to stop. Even halfway undone, the reveal was astounding. If she was beautiful all tied up, she was utterly resplendent with those waves curling around her waist.

“Braid it in, please,” she said, holding his card out with her lax hand. “That way no one will find it.”

He blinked and thought, Well, duh. There was no way in hell the Goateed Hater would be cool with his sister reaching out and touching her surgeon—

Not touching, he corrected himself.

Well, maybe a little touching. Like he could just do her. Er . . . touch her.

Time to shut it, Manello, even though you’re not talking out loud.

“You are brilliant,” he said. “Altogether smart.”

That got her to smile, and file that under Holy Shit. Those incisors of hers were sharp and white and long . . . and evolutionarily designed for striking at the throat.

An orgasm tingled in the tip of his arousal—

And at that moment a frown passed over her face.

Oh, mannnn. “Ah . . . can you read