Off Limits(10)

I tried not to let it show that I was pleased with her unexpected compliment, but I couldn't help it.

Abby blinked and shook her head, tearing her eyes from my torso to look up at my face and taking the bottle of antiseptic in her hand. "Okay, hold still," she said, moving close enough that I could almost feel the heat of her presence against the skin of my upper body. "I'll try and be gentle."

Unfortunately for Abby, the button she'd originally taken to be a weak spray turned out to be much stronger than either of us anticipated, and the resultant shot of mist not only got my cut, but also my left eye. "Ow, shit!" I gasped, immediately closing my eye and turning around. I planted my hands on the countertop, my fingers digging into the curve made by the marble of the sink. "Fuck!"

"I . . . I’m sorry!" Abby said, her voice apologetic. I was blind and in pain, but she sounded just as hurt as I was. "God, I'm so sorry!"

"No . . . it's okay," I said, tears running down my face. "You didn't mean to, and I should’ve closed my eye."

"Hold still," she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. I stilled, a blissful calm almost coursing from her touch into my body, as if she were some sort of magical being. "Keep your eyes closed."

I heard the water in the sink turn on, and a minute later, the cool bliss of a wet washcloth pressed against my injured eye. "Here," I heard Abby say as she gently wiped my eye and down my cheek. "I'm so sorry, Dane. You go and save my life, and I try and repay you by blinding you."

"You didn't mean to, and you don't need to repay me," I said. The pain was lessening. I turned away from the sink and reached up, putting my hand over hers to hold the compress against my eye. Her hand didn't move though, and I could feel how close she was to me. "Just let it flush out a bit, and I'll be fine. You just surprised me, that's all."

In the silence that followed, which was now tense not because we wanted to be apart, but instead because of the unspoken desire to be closer, I could hear her breath quicken. In the reddish darkness of my still tightly shut eyes, I almost thought I could hear her heartbeat. "Dane?"

"Yes?"

"What are those tattoos for?" she asked, her free hand coming up to rest on the ink that adorned my chest and arms. "There are quite a few of them."

" I got most of them in the Army," I said, trying to remember in my mind's eye what her fingers were touching. The truth was, some of them were from before the Army, a few were in service, but a lot of the others were from my time at Leavenworth. Every prisoner has their own little way of telling the administration to f*ck off, and for me, it was ink. There had been a Specialist from the 10th Mountain division locked up with me who was quite the amateur artist, even though he didn't always have access to the best supplies. "I think that one is my jump wings. The parachute, right?"

"Yeah," her voice, thick and a bit deeper, said. She was feeling it too, and I was quickly losing any resistance to wanting to pull her closer. She may have been untouchable. She may have been a bit younger than me and most likely the worst mistake since I'd permanently f*cked my life up with a single act in Iraq, but if I was going to be damned, there were a lot of worse ways to go than what I wanted at that moment. "What about the others?"

I took the compress away from my eye, blinking as light returned. The first thing I saw was Abby's beautiful face, and without an instant's hesitation or reconsideration, I knew that I was going to f*ck her. I pulled her closer to me, my hand coming to her waist, our lips coming together, and I happily fell into damnation again.





Chapter 3





Abby





When I first saw Dane in the street light, it was hard to put my finger on what exactly was so fascinating about him. Obviously, I’d been impressed that he’d come to my aid and how he'd beaten up my attackers so easily. Two-on-one fights usually end up with the one getting his ass kicked. But when the light from the streetlamp let me get more of a look under his hood, there was something more about the way he looked that excited me.

Dane was certainly handsome, but it was a dark, brooding handsomeness that I wasn't used to seeing. I'd gotten used to well-groomed, slickly laid back guys who looked like they'd never really worked a hard day's labor in their lives. They were basically weak, pretty boys, and Dane was different. Black eyebrows shaded gray eyes that looked like they could either be expressive and clear or stormy and intimidating. His face was lean, with a steely tension to his features that spoke of great strength, but his mouth was large and sensual, and even with the furrow on his cheek pulling up at one corner, expressive. His short beard made him look just a bit scruffy, but in not a bad way. He looked like the sort of man who was made for a motorcycle.

"I'm not a very good man," Dane said, and in that moment, I saw something even more appealing than his dark handsomeness. I saw introspection, and yes, a bit of a haunted soul.

I'll admit, I'm a lucky girl when it came to the looks department. A lot of it came from Mom, who I wish I had gotten to know better before she died. In looking at the old pictures of her, though, her high school and college graduation photos that Daddy still kept in the family room of the house, I looked a lot like her once you account for the change in hairstyles and fashion. My hair was a shade darker though, probably because of Daddy's influence, although I'd gotten a bit of his height too. While I'm no starter for the basketball team, Mom was so short that she was nearly a gymnast.