Honor Bound(21)

She nodded. He passed her the aspirins and when she had laid them on her tongue, he slid his arm beneath her shoulders and supported her while she drank from the bottle he pressed to her lips.

When she was finished, he eased her back down. "The sun blistered your lips." As he informed her of that, he opened a tiny jar of lip salve and gouged into it with the tip of his index finger. He touched it to her lip, smoothing the cool salve over the dried, sunburned skin.

The touch of his finger on her mouth elicited sensations in her middle, sensations she was ashamed of since they strongly resembled curls of arousal. His finger slid from one corner of her lower lip to the other, quickly and businesslike at first, then more slowly. When he traced the shape of her upper lip with his fingertip, she could barely hold still. Her body was restless with an ache that had nothing to do with the injuries she had sustained.

When he withdrew his finger, she tentatively touched her lips with her tongue. The ointment tasted slightly of banana and coconut. "Don't lick it off," Greywolf instructed brusquely, staring down at her mouth. "Let the salve work."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. You almost got me caught."

His cruel tone was so vastly different from his tender ministrations that she flinched. She should have known better than to expect tenderness from a man of stone like him. Her eyes flashed up at him angrily. "Well you should be caught, Mr. Greywolf. If there was no reason before, then because of the way you've mistreated me."

"You've never been mistreated in your life, Miss Andrews," he said scornfully. "You can't even begin to grasp the meaning of the word."

"How would you know? You know nothing about me."

"I know enough. You were reared with all the privileges that go with being rich and white."

"I'm not at fault for the way the Indians have been mistreated." She knew that all his anger and bitterness stemmed from that. "Do you indict every Anglo?"

"Yes," he hissed, his teeth bared.

"And what about yourself?" she shot back. "You're not a full-blood Indian. What about the part of you that's Anglo? Is it rotten to the core?"

He retaliated, grabbing her shoulders in his hard hands and pressing her back into the seat. His razor-sharp eyes were as cold as naked steel. "I am Indian," he whispered, emphasizing his words by shaking her slightly. "Don't ever forget that."

Aislinn knew she never would. Not now. The fierceness of his gaze dispelled any hopes that he was softening toward her. He was dangerous. Fully aware of his brute strength as he leaned over her, she shuddered with trepidation.

In the sleeveless shirt, the muscles of his arms looked as hard as granite. Most of the buttons on the soiled shirt were undone and his exposed chest sawed in and out with each angry breath he took. His corded throat was a perfect pedestal for a face that could have been hewn out of native rock.

The silver earring fastened in his lobe winked at her like a menacing eye in the darkness. The silver cross hanging from his neck mocked her because of the benevolence it symbolized. He exuded a scent that was part sun, part sweat, and all male.

Any woman with an ounce of common sense wouldn't dare to provoke such a potentially dangerous animal. Aislinn was smarter than average. She didn't even blink.

During that tense silence, he kept his muscles coiled as though ready to spring. Now, he visibly relaxed them and loosened his hold on her. "I should bandage your arm before it gets infected." He spoke with a notable lack of emotion, as though their heated argument had never taken place.

"My arm?" Only when she tried to move it did she realize that her left arm was hurting almost as badly as her head. She remembered tearing open the skin as she fell out the window.

"Here," he said, noticing her grimace when she tried to raise it, "let me." He levered her up and settled her into a half-reclining position in the corner of the back seat. His hands moved to the front of her blouse. Reflexively her right hand flew up and clutched the material to her body. He didn't move, but continued to stare back at her levelly, then said, "It has to come off, Aislinn."

She looked down and was shocked to see that her sleeve was soaked with blood. "I … I didn't know," she stammered, suppressing a wave of nausea and dizziness.

"I needed to get away from there in a hurry, so I bundled you into the back seat. I put some distance between us and that place, but now your arm has to be seen to."

Seconds ticked by. Minutes? They stared deeply into each other's eyes. His took a detour down to her mouth, glossy now with the emollient. Hers looked at the grim line of his lips and wondered how they could be both stern and sensual. Then Greywolf shook his head impatiently and muttered, "As I said before, you are my insurance policy."

Once again his hands reached toward the front of her blouse, and this time she didn't forestall him. He unbuttoned it quickly, emotionlessly. Embarrassment rose inside Aislinn like a warm, red tide as her bare breasts were revealed to him button by button. But if he noticed them, his face gave nothing away.

Only when he settled his hands on her shoulders and began to peel the cloth back, did his movements become slow and tender, almost caring. He eased the sleeve off her uninjured arm first, then gradually began lowering the other one. She winced when the cloth tugged on places where the blood had dried.