Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(15)

The instant his amethyst stare met hers, she couldn’t have told a soul what had just come out of her mouth or whether he replied. Rehvenge, son of Rempoon, sucked the thought right out of her head, sure as if he’d drained the tank of her brain’s generator and left her with nothing to catch a mental spark off of.

And then he smiled.

He was a cobra, this male; he truly was…mesmerizing because he was deadly and because he was beautiful. With that mohawk and his hard, smart face and his big body, he was sex and power and unpredictability all wrapped up in…well, a black pinstriped suit that clearly had been made for him.

“I’m good, thank you,” he said, solving the mystery as to what she’d asked him. “And you?”

As she paused, he smiled a little, no doubt because he was fully aware that none of the nurses liked being in the same enclosed space with him, and evidently he enjoyed this fact. At least, that was how she read his controlled, hooded expression.

“I asked how you were doing?” he drawled.

Ehlena put his chart down on the desk and took her stethoscope out of her pocket. “I’m very well.”

“You sure about that.”

“Absolutely positive.” Turning to him, she said, “I’m just going to take your blood pressure and your heart rate.”

“My temperature, too.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to open my mouth for you now?”

Ehlena’s skin flushed, and she told herself it was not because that deep voice of his made the question seem as sexual as a lazy stroke over a naked breast. “Er…no.”

“Pity.”

“Please take off your jacket.”

“What a great idea. I totally take back the ‘pity.’”

Good plan, she thought, or she was liable to feed the word back to him with the thermometer.

Rehvenge’s shoulders rolled as he did what she’d asked him to, and with a casual flick of the hand, he tossed what was clearly a piece of menswear art onto the sable coat he’d carefully draped over a chair. It was odd: No matter what the season was, he always had one of those furs on.

Things were worth more than the house Ehlena rented.

As his long fingers went to the diamond cuff link on his right wrist, she stopped him.

“Could you please roll up the one on the other side?” She nodded toward the wall beside him. “More space for me on your left.”

He hesitated, then went to work on his opposite sleeve. Taking the black silk up past his elbow and onto his thick biceps, he kept his arm turned into his torso.

Ehlena took the blood pressure equipment from a drawer and ripped it open as she approached him. Touching him was always an experience, and she rubbed her hand on her hip to get ready. Didn’t help. When she came in contact with his wrist, as usual the current that licked up her arm landed in her heart, James Browning the damn thing until the shimmy-shimmies had her sucking back a gasp.

With a prayer that this wouldn’t take long, she moved his arm into position for the cuff and—“Good…Lord.”

The veins running up through the crook of his elbow were decimated from overuse, swollen, black-and-blue, as ragged as if he’d been using nails, not needles on himself.

Her eyes shot to his. “You must be in such pain.”

He rolled his wrist out of her grasp. “Nope. Doesn’t bother me.”

Tough guy. Like she was surprised? “Well, I can understand why you wanted to come in to see Havers.”

Pointedly, she reached out and rotated his arm back around, gently prodding at a red line that was traveling up his biceps, heading in the direction of his heart.

“There are signs of infection.”

“I’ll be fine.”

All she could do was raise her eyebrows. “You ever hear of sepsis?”

“The indie band? Sure, but I wouldn’t think you’d have.”

She shot him a look. “Sepsis as in an infection of the blood?”

“Hmm, you want to lean over the desk a little and draw me a picture?” His eyes drifted down her legs. “I think I’d find that…very educational.”

If any other male had pulled that kind of line, she’d have slapped them down until they saw stars. Unfortunately, when it was that heavenly bass voice doing the talking and that amethyst stare doing the walking, she didn’t really feel leched upon.

She felt caressed by a lover.

Ehlena resisted the urge to V8 her forehead. What the hell was she doing? She had a date tonight. With a nice, reasonable, civilian male who’d been nothing but nice, reasonable, and very civil.

“I don’t have to draw you a picture.” She nodded down at his arm. “You can see for yourself right there. If you don’t treat this, it’s going to go systemic.”

And even though he wore fine clothes like every tailor’s dream mannequin, death’s cold gray cloak would not look good on him.

He held his arm against his tight abs. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Ehlena shook her head and reminded herself that she couldn’t save people from their own stupidity just because she had a white coat hanging from her shoulders and the letters RN at the end of her name. Besides, Havers was going to see that in all its gory glory when the doctor examined him.