Hot as Hell (Deep Six 0.5)(38)

“I’ll do it.” Bran grabbed the needle and thread from Rick.

The thought of him suturing his own flesh had Maddy blanching. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

He flashed her the kind of focused, determined look you rarely saw. And when you did, it was usually on the face of a man who didn’t back down no matter what. He’s not kiddin’.

“Well, someone needs to f*ckin’ do it and get it the f*ck over with,” Mason said. “On account of we got three girls who need rescuing. Not to mention, Alex is still out there all by herself.”

“You brought Alex with you?” Maddy asked.

Bran had told her about the indomitable young historian, and she was intrigued by the woman. Of course, right now she could do with fewer people being in mortal danger.

“She’s anchored way out behind the fort,” Bran told her, “waiting on our signal to sail closer.” It occurred to Maddy that she hadn’t considered how Bran and Mason had arrived on the island. Like the heroes they were, perhaps she’d assumed they flew in with the help of their superpowers. Then all thoughts zipped right out of her head when she saw Bran squeeze the two halves of his wound together. “Now,” he said, “gimme a second while I—”

“Oh, for the love of…” She motioned for Rick to stand up and trade spots. “You can’t stitch yourself.”

Rick brushed by her, murmuring something to himself that sounded like recrimination.

“Two umbrellas,” she smiled at him, giving his arm another friendly squeeze.

Before she could see if that look was back on his face, she dropped to her knees beside Bran’s chair and snatched the needle and synthetic suturing thread from him. Their fingers brushed, just for an instant, but she jumped like a live current zapped her.

It’d been like this from the beginning. Or at least it’d been like this for her. When she looked up to gauge Bran’s response, his face was a mask of ridiculous calmness. Which annoyed her for two reasons. The first was that it made all those doubts she’d been having swell to mammoth proportions. The second was that she judged the expression to be completely misplaced. You know, considering she was seconds away from going at him with a hooked needle, and that she had suddenly morphed into Lady Shimmy McShakyFingers.

“You ever done this before?” He cocked his head. Now was not the time to notice how his dark, wavy hair curled over the tops of his ears.

“Stitched a guy up?” She nodded and smiled. Then she shook her head. “Nope. But my grandma taught me how to sew on a button. Does that count?”

She’d meant it as a joke, but he just crossed his ridiculously muscled arms over his ridiculously wide chest and presented her with his oozing thigh like he had all the faith in the world in her.

Before she allowed herself to contemplate what she was doing—and who she was doing it to—she pushed the needle through the skin on one side of the wound. She gulped and briefly squeezed her eyes shut when she had to muscle it through. Bran’s tan flesh was thick and tough.

“See,” he said, his deep voice absurdly steady, making a mockery of her trembling fingers. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She squinted up at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. Again.

“You keep sayin’ that and I’ll stop believin’ you. Methinks he doth protest too much and whatnot.” She wiped the back of one hand over her forehead. It came away damp with sweat and a smear of Bran’s blood.

“Anyone ever tell you when you wear that particular expression, your nose and face all scrunched up, you look like a raisin with eyes?”

She blinked at him, mouth open. “Do you really think it’s wise to insult a woman who’s holdin’ a needle this far away”—she held her fingers an inch apart—“from your Grand Master of Ceremonies?”

His white teeth glowed against the dark whiskers on his cheeks and chin when he flashed a smile. Bran seemed to sport a perpetual five-o’clock shadow. And his twinkling dark eyes, swarthy complexion, and shaggy hair made her realize once again how much he resembled a pirate of old. All he needed was a gold hoop earring and parrot.

He lifted a brow. “That’s a good one. Maybe we should invite her over the next time we have our Who Can Come Up with the Best Euphemisms Contest. What’d’ya say, Mason?”

Bran had a way of making contractions out of multiple words at once. Maddy figured it was because he was an East Coaster and they did everything fast, including talking. Not that she didn’t have her own linguistic idiosyncrasies. She did a pretty mean fixin’ to and y’all. Not to mention she usually dropped the g’s off the end of her words, but that was mostly because the g sound wasn’t soft on the ear. And as anyone from Texas would tell you, the rounder and longer and softer words were, the better they sounded.

“And when I said you looked like a raisin with eyes,” Bran continued, turning back to her, “I meant you looked like a really adorable raisin with really beautiful, gray, sea-after-a-storm eyes.”

Maddy gaped at him. Now there was no denying it. He was coming on to her. Right? Right? Despite the direness of their situation, her inner Maddy let loose with an enthusiastic happy dance complete with hip shakes, finger guns, and maybe a few leaping heel clicks.