The Espionage Effect(8)
“Grab a few, if they’re those little bottles,” he said.
I stared at him, attempting to process his words into meaning.
He tilted his face down a fraction, shooting a pointed look from beneath those dark brows. “Mini bar? Alcohol? To cleanse the wounds.”
“Right.” I spun around, relieved to be distracted by a task that removed me from his mind-blanking influence so I could unmuddle my brain.
“Nice shorts,” he added in a dispassionate tone while I rounded the corner.
As I crossed through the darkness toward the sitting area, my face flamed the moment I realized what I wore. Not only had I been standing there in a thin cotton tank top—braless for his unhindered male enjoyment—but thanks to Anna’s efforts to Victoria’s Secret my wardrobe, I had the word PINK emblazoned in collegiate letters across my ass.
I blew out a hard breath and shook my head free of any lingering embarrassment. Whatever. Not like I got an announcement of his pending arrival.
Then I popped open the mini fridge, an entire room and a half away from the alpha male fuzzing my brain, and as the cold air rushed over my face, clearer thoughts began pinging again about the facts of my encounters with him.
First sighting: standing in the crowd when I’d prevented a light-fixture/ladder catastrophe. Second sighting: emerging from the water in front of the exact spot I happened to be sunbathing. Third? He just so happened to stumble into my room? Riiight.
Hell-bent on following the sagacious train of thought, I stormed across the bedroom and back into the beamed reach of the bright bathroom lights. I paused at the outer perimeter, holding him in my sights but keeping my distance.
He’d fully turned toward me in my absence, ass propped against the edge of the counter, hands loosely gripping the tiled edge on either side. His shirtless state continued to unnerve me; that darkly tanned expanse of skin emphasized his sleek muscles. A dusting of dark hair trailed in a faint line from his navel until it disappeared down into black cargo pants. Weathered black combat boots were casually crossed at the ankles.
Furrowing my brow, I cast aside everything about him that distracted me and glared at him. “You do realize, I know the statistical probability of your being here as coincidence is so astronomically high, it’s effectively nil. Three ‘random’ occurrences where we cross paths in one day defies the theory of Occam’s Razor.”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Do you kiss with that extraordinary mouth?”
I blinked hard, entirely thrown. My extraordinary mouth—with all the brainiac comments that spouted out of it—was exactly the reason I hadn’t been kissed much. Guys got turned off when you took them out of their body and into their mind…then confused the hell out of them with your words.
“Boys, you mean.” He quirked a brow up. “Maybe you need to be kissed by a man.”
Holy shit. Had I just spoken my thoughts aloud?
“Relax.” Amusement sparked in those midnight eyes. “I promise you don’t have to kiss me. Yet. Bring those bottles over here.”
Before I could challenge his prediction, or the tone of his command, he lifted two folded white washcloths from the counter and crossed over to the tub. Then he propped a hip on the wide tiled edge and reached up for one of the bottles.
I handed him the first of four tequila brands.
With efficient precision, he unscrewed the cap, leaned over the tub, and poured the clear liquid over his ribs. He hissed in a breath the instant the fluid made contact, but it was the only sound he made as he methodically moved the stream from one side of the two-inch-long gash to the other. When I moved closer and stood in front of the opening of the shower stall, I noticed reddish-brown liquid splattering onto the tiles on the floor of the tub.
“Another.” With the severe angle he leaned at, none of the liquid trailed lower than his waist; it flowed across the open wound, over his last two ribs, then dribbled straight down into the tub with the force of gravity.
With only two bottles left, I preemptively opened the next one. But instead of asking for it, he lined up the second empty bottle a quarter inch from the first, label facing the same direction as its companion in perfect harmony, then grabbed the top washcloth. Rather than dabbing the wound itself, he merely cleaned off the excess alcohol from the skin around the wound. Then he stared at the bullet graze intently for a full minute.
After a barely perceptible nod, he reached his other hand down. A soft ripping sound of separating Velcro permeated the pin-drop silence before he straightened with a slender metal book-sized case in his hand. His finger curled over the top corner, and a crisp click sounded before the lid sprang open.
Trying not to look overtly curious, I set down the remaining alcohol bottles beside his empties. Then in keeping with his OCD nature about the labels, I twisted each to face the same degree of forward before casually glancing back at the case he’d opened.
Nestled within hard gray foam, three fat syringes were displayed, their various barrels filled with pale-pink to deep-maroon fluid, plungers extended. In another slot, several straight needles gleamed, and yet another held a few curved needles with bright-blue suture thread attached into the base of the needles. A pen-like object had a spongy tip protected with a clear cap: tissue adhesive?
He plucked the pale-pink syringe from its far left slot, affixed a needle, and immediately injected a vein in the bend of his opposite arm, depressing the plunger.