Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(63)

“Good idea. That’ll help to numb the pain.”

“This isn’t for me. It’s for you.”

“I don’t think it’s smart for me to drink alcohol before attempting surgery.”

“And I don’t think it’s smart for my doctor to attempt surgery on me with such shaky hands.”

We both look at my hands. They’re definitely shaking.

“Fine. Give it to me.”

I set all my supplies on the table. He hands me the glass of whiskey. I down most of it and give him back the glass. “Okay, I’ll sit over here. You should turn—”

“You’ll sit here.”

He pulls me down onto his lap, facing him, my thighs open around his hips.

“This doesn’t seem like the best position.”

Sinking his fingers into my ass, he leans in and nuzzles my neck. “It does to me.”

“I appreciate the attention, but if you keep distracting me like that, you’re liable to wind up with stitches that look like something Frankenstein’s monster would be proud of.”

“I’m not entering any beauty contests soon, baby. Just clean it off and sew it up.”

“You say that like it’s easy.”

“Because it is. I’ll walk you through it. Pour the peroxide over the wound first.”

I lean closer to inspect it, biting my lip when I see the gash up close.

It’s not gruesome. It’s not even particularly long or large. It is, however, seeping blood, which he doesn’t even seem to be aware of.

He says, “See? I told you. It’s hardly a scratch.”

“How many times have you been shot?”

He thinks for a moment. “Six? Ten? I don’t remember. I always get a tattoo to cover the scar.”

I examine his chest, a glorious canvas of ink overlying an even more glorious network of muscle. The man is walking art.

“Like this one.”

I touch a grinning skull on his left pec, above his heart. There’s a small knot of white scar tissue in the middle of one of the skull’s black eyes. It gives the appearance of a beady little eyeball, peering out with evil intent.

Glancing down at it, Kage says, “It’s a good thing you weren’t around for that. You definitely would’ve passed out.”

“But the scar is so small. Not even the size of a dime.”

“That’s the entry wound. The exit wound in my back was the size of this.”

He looks up and holds up his fist. It’s as big as a grapefruit. I swallow, feeling my stomach turn.

“How did you survive?”

“I almost didn’t.” He shrugs. “But I did.”

He’s so nonchalant about it, like dying is no big deal. Or maybe it’s his own life he thinks is no big deal.

Maybe he doesn’t think it’s worth much.

I flatten my palms over his broad chest and look into his eyes. “I’m glad you did,” I say softly. “I don’t think I’d have ever been happy again if I hadn’t met you.”

Though he tries not to show it, I see how much my words affect him. His eyes flash. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

In a rough voice, he says, “You would’ve met someone.”

“I met a lot of men after David. I even dated a few of them. Nobody ever made me feel like you do. No one made me feel alive.”

Some unidentifiable emotion wells up in his eyes, but he looks away so I can’t tell what it is. I want to ask him what’s wrong, but he abruptly changes the subject.

“I’ll thread the needle for you. Pull the edges of the wound together and start at one end. Don’t pull the stitches too tight, or the flesh will die. Don’t go too shallow, or too deep, either. Just make small, evenly spaced stitches. Pretend you’re hemming a dress.”

“A skin dress. How Hannibal Lecter.”

“The skin-dress guy was Buffalo Bill. Lecter was the one who helped Starling catch him.”

“That’s right, I remember now. Are you a movie fan?”

His brows draw together. He seems lost in some bad memory, one I know he won’t divulge.

His voice low, he says, “I don’t sleep much. There’s always a movie on TV late at night.”

I get a glimpse of what his day-to-day life must be like. It isn’t pretty.

When I touch his cheek, he glances back at me, startled, pulled back from wherever he went.

“The next time you can’t sleep, call me, okay? We can watch a movie together.”

He searches my face with a look of longing in his eyes, like there’s nothing on earth that would make him happier than to watch the same film over the phone together when he’s away.

But again, he changes the subject, reaching over to pick up the bottle of peroxide.

“Cleaning first. Then stitching. Let’s get this over with so we can get back to the important stuff.”

He squeezes my butt when he says, “important stuff,” so there’s no misinterpreting his meaning. The man is the Energizer Bunny.

We’re both quiet as I gently clean the wound with a peroxide-soaked corner of the towel. There’s a small scrap of material from his shirt caught in the wound, crusted with blood. When I pull it free, he starts to bleed again, so I press down on the gash until the bleeding stops, then keep cleaning.