Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(102)

He hated to point this out to her, wished he could simply put her to bed. Sleep would put a few hours between them and the horror of this evening. “Sweetheart, you washed off Theo’s blood. Now you’ve got Nick’s on you and we need to wash your hair.”

There were matted places in her hair. She couldn’t wake up like this in the morning. She needed to wake up clean, with at least her body back to normal. Nothing else would be, but he could give her this.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror and shuddered. “All right. I’ll do it.”

Good. At least he wouldn’t have to fight her on that point.

She stared at him. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you go back to your room?”

Ah, they had found something to fight about. “Not while we’re on this island. I’m staying with you. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, but I’m not leaving you alone. You make bad decisions.”

Her eyes narrowed and for the first time in hours, he felt like she was looking at him. Naturally, she looked irritated. “Like the decision to come rescue you?”

It was good that she understood. He didn’t want to argue, but he couldn’t move on this point. “Yes. Like that one. You never should have been anywhere near that operation.”

His right leg seized and he damn near went to his knees. For hours he’d managed to ignore the weakness in his body, but the adrenaline was finally wearing off. He caught himself before he hit the floor, his arm on the sink. With shaking muscles, he got down to his knees. Faith knelt down and put her hands on his thigh, rubbing with a light touch.

“Does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “No. I know what real pain is. This is a weakness. My muscles keep firing off.”

“Did they use electricity on you?”

He didn’t want to get into this with her. No matter what, McDonald was still her father. It was bad enough that Ten was going to kill the man. “Take your shower, darlin’. We can talk more in the morning.”

“I need to know what happened so I can treat you.”

“I’m feeling great.” He was feeling like shit, but he wasn’t putting her through anything else tonight.

“None of us is great, Ten. Tell me what happened. Or maybe I could tell you. From the electrical burn on your arm, I would say they used something like a cattle prod. I suppose they could have gotten a violet wand and upped the amperage, but my father isn’t known for his creativity. He likely would have used a cattle prod. Depending on how bad the torture was you’re looking at anything from mild autonomic dysfunction to keraunoparalysis. I need to check the veins in your legs for vascular spasms.”

She really liked to throw the big words around. None of it meant anything. His path was laid out and it didn’t include a bunch of medical care. “I’m all right, Doc. They got me good, but I’m functioning for now. Take your shower so we can get some sleep. As soon as this storm blows over, we’re getting you out of here. I need to get Erin and Nick back to the States before they do something stupid like go after your father for revenge.”

A brow arched over her forehead. He liked to think of it as her judgmental brow. It was the left. Her right brow was far less holier than thou. “That’s stupid? Isn’t that exactly why you’re here? Didn’t you come after my father because of the role he played in your brother’s death? Wasn’t the whole point of romancing me so you could do the same thing Erin and Nick will want to do?”

He was so weary. There wasn’t a lot of fight left in him and he wasn’t going to waste it on fighting with the woman he loved. She might never forgive him, but he wasn’t going to hurt her ever again. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. God, being close to her made him feel better. “Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. That stupidity is what I’m trying to avoid for them.”

“He killed your brother.”

So Theo had shown her the file. He managed to straighten up and ran a hand through his hair. What a f*cking mess. “I never meant for you to see that file.”

“But you had it made.”

“Before I knew you. Before I loved you.”

She was on her feet again, getting into his space. “Don’t use that word with me, Ten. You don’t get to use that word with me.”

He nodded. “All right. But don’t think for a second it’s not inside me. Just because I don’t say it, doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

She turned away from him and seemed to come to some decision. She reached down and pulled her shirt over her head. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it all anyway.” She tossed aside her bra. “Why? Why was it stupid for us to try to save you? Do you know how horrible it was for Theo to hear that? You were awful to him.”

“I was his superior officer and I was trying to teach him. I didn’t know he would die on us, though I believe that was my point.” The loss of Theo was an actual ache in his body. “He should never have attempted to rescue me. He went in blind.”

“We thought we knew what we were doing. And we weren’t blind. I know the area and Hutch did all the stuff on his computer. You know you were planning on getting into that building yourself. I don’t see how what Theo planned was different. You intended to use the same people to get into the building. The only difference was we were getting you back instead of some data.”