Damn, she was beautiful, standing in the glow of the moon cast through her large windows. Like a sweet angel come to earth minus only the halo and wings. Something shifted inside him as he stared down at her, and he suddenly wanted to be the kind of man she needed.
He gathered her up and pulled her tightly against him, realizing that he could have lost her tonight. It shook him how much that thought made his heart skip a beat with fear and something else.
“It was my pleasure, babe,” he whispered hoarsely against her hair. He smoothed her locks back with his thumb, then brushed his mouth against her temple. She reached up and cupped his jaw, her fingers gentle and warm against his skin.
That innocent caress took the breath right out of him, and he turned his face against hers. She froze for just a moment, as everything seemed to spin down to utter calm and stillness, then she sucked in a sharp breath when he lifted her face. Neither of them even gasped as he covered her mouth in a searing kiss.
Her mouth was hot as sin; a low, rough sound escaped his lips. No woman in his past has ever generated this kind of heat, this urgent need to sink into her in every way he could. The warm, lush feel of her was beyond his imagination as he savored the forbidden taste of her. He soaked up the sensations of the silk of her hair against the rough tips of his fingers, the softness of her breast against his chest.
He ran his hands down her arms and his palm came in contact with something wet and sticky. He broke the kiss and flipped on the hall light.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, all the desire draining out of him at the sight of the blood on her blouse.
“And it stings like hell, I don’t mind saying.”
He lifted her chin to get a better look at her eyes. Dark green, weary pools, as if she fought a draining internal battle. He thought she might be on the last remainder of her energy. The protective feeling that descended over him was sudden; he couldn’t deny that he wanted to take care of her.
Gently, he unbuttoned the cuff and peeled the torn, grimy silk away from the skin of her forearm. With as much gentleness as his big hands could muster, he inspected the injury in the bright light of the hall. There was a small cut near her elbow. It didn’t look deep enough to require a hospital or stitches, but it was slowly oozing blood with dirt and shards of glass clinging in the sticky mess.
When he moved her arm to check for any other sign of injury, she clutched at her shoulder with a soft cry.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stroking her dirt-streaked face.
She managed a smile for him to lessen his guilt. “It’s okay. It really doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“Right,” A.J. said softly. “This needs cleaning up and a bandage.”
“I can do it myself,” Sienna bristled.
“Yeah, well, you aren’t going to.”
“I don’t need to be coddled.”
“Maybe not,” A.J. said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. “But I need to coddle you.”
He led her to the bathroom and reached for the button of her shirt.
“I can do it,” she said in an irritated voice.
He let her.
He clenched his jaw as she undid the buttons and struggled out of the shirt, wincing a little. This was just about him helping her to clean her wound, not about how the sight of her stirred him. He wanted to take care of her, help her out. But as the shirt slid down her shoulders, revealing a see-through white, gauzy bra, he could see her nipples were puckered and a succulent pink.
He was hard-pressed not to remember how he had rolled those nipples between his fingers, sucked on them until she’d cried out his name. His breath came a little harder, his jeans got a little tighter as his gaze followed the swell of her breast above the sexy bra.
Then she raised her arm to push at her hair, and the ugly cut on her forearm came into view, the sight of it sending guilt to tighten his chest. Jeez, could he stop thinking about her in a sexual way for five minutes?
“Have a seat,” he ordered gruffly.
He saw how she tried not to react when he applied the antiseptic, but she couldn’t help it as she made a small noise. “Can we talk about the real reason you left my apartment last night?”
She looked up at him, startled by his question. “I told you that I couldn’t sleep, so I went to work.”
“That’s bull and you know it. How long have you been hiding behind your job when the emotional stuff starts getting too much for you to handle?”
“You just don’t like being second fiddle to my job,” she snapped.
“Well, now that you mention it, no, I don’t like it.”