Bane (Sinners of Saint #4)(33)

Whatever. Fuck. Yes. Of course that was it.

“I need to get in there.” I slapped my palms over her desk, and she finally looked up from her screen, her fingers hovering over the mouse, her jaw slack.

“I’m not sure…”

“She doesn’t let anyone touch her,” I said, fast. “And he’s trying to. He doesn’t know, but she’s freaking out.” I was hoping I could communicate it to her with my gaze alone that Jesse could cock-punch Dr. Wiese if she felt too threatened.

Our eyes met and she nodded, swallowing. “I…uh…”

I didn’t bother to hear the rest. I stormed inside. The first thing I noticed was Jesse’s posture when her head whipped to look at who it was. It relaxed at my presence, and that wasn’t a stroke to my ego, but a full-blown hand job. Dr. Wiese was a couple feet away from her, explaining something about Shadow’s teeth that she probably couldn’t decipher because she was too busy having the mother of all internal meltdowns. I walked over to them, placing myself between her and the vet, leaning my entire body against a wall. A human shield.

“And you are…?” Dr. Wiese scratched his meaty cheek.

“Jesse’s bodyguard,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. Dr. Wiese remained professional and got back to examining Shadow. I buried my hands in my pockets, and when Snowflake shot me a look, I answered back with a smirk. The old vet frowned, then said that he wanted to do blood work for Shadow, already washing his hands and putting his blue gloves on.

“Whatever for?” Jesse’s back straightened, her eyes widening. Wiese shook his head, patting an apathetic Shadow, still on the steel table.

“It’s just…here.” He took her hand and directed it to Shadow’s throat. Jesse’s hand jolted violently, but I stepped in, removing Dr. Wiese’s hand, placing mine on hers instead. Her palm was on Shadow’s fur now, and mine was covering hers. My heart pounded so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my throat, and I didn’t even know why. Her skin was hot and silky.

Perfectly gorgeous.

Perfectly damaged.

Perfectly ruined.

Did I mention perfectly forbidden? Because that shit should be at the top of the list. And since when did I care about how people’s skin felt like? Seriously, what the hell was happening to me?

I knew I needed to remove my hand from hers, now that I’d saved her from Dr. Wiese and mostly from herself, but decided to wait for her to give me a cue. The cue that never came. I felt her fingers trembling with excitement and fear under mine. No one talked. No one moved. No one breathed.

The Untouchable had been touched. And she’d survived.

Dr. Wiese swallowed loudly beside us. He was finally picking up on the context clues. “That’s it. Now, move her hand around, so she can feel the lump. It might be nothing, but we don’t want to take any chances. Shadow is not a pup anymore.”

Her hand froze on Shadow’s fur. I began to move it in circles under my palm. It felt…weird. Intimate. More intimate than fucking a girl to a near-death experience, somehow. I began to realize that maybe I wasn’t as immune as I thought I was to illicit pussy. Because all I could think about was directing her hand into the inside of the waistband of her jeans and have her fingering herself with my hand on top of hers.

“Blood work,” she echoed, as we both found the lump Dr. Wiese was talking about. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I squeezed my fingers between hers, lacing them together, tightening my hold on her.

My mouth was nearly pressed to Jesse’s ear. I was behind her, enveloping her, almost.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

Asshole pled the fifth. I wanted to leap on Dr. Wiese and strangle the words out of his throat, but I wanted to keep my hand on Jesse’s more. Shadow began to move around, sniffing and whimpering, asking to be taken down. Jesse’s hand went rigid under my own. She turned around and looked at Dr. Wiese.

“I can’t lose him.”

“He’s in good shape, Jesse. We just need to run some tests.” He tried soothing her, rubbing Shadow’s cheek again. Must have been a nervous tick.

“No, no. I can’t lose him,” she repeated, her eyes filling with unshed tears.

“Jess…”

“He’s my only true friend.”

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured nervously. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

But it was. There was Old Sport, Mrs. Belfort, and then there was me. And I didn’t count because she was nothing but a business transaction to me. Sup-fucking-posedly.

Shadow was aimlessly pacing back and forth on the table, his nails making a click-click-click sound that matched the tick behind Jesse’s left eyelid. Dr. Wiese gave me a look, and I pulled Jesse away from her dog, again, surprised at how she had let me touch her, even though I kept shit as PG as possible, my fingers fluttering over her arm. Dr. Wiese took Shadow’s blood—a few tubes of it, at that—while Jesse looked the other way and cried silently.

“When are we going to get the results?” I shoved my hands into my front pockets.

“It’s pretty busy here this time of the year. We’ll call and send the results by mail, so watch out for them,” Dr. Wiese said as he placed all the tubes in the test tube rack. I gave Jesse a look to confirm she’d heard him, and she nodded faintly.