“I should?” Taking more ointment, because I’m not done touching her delicate flesh, I start again.Just making sure.“What do you think I should learn?”
“Maybe you should get a Bruce Lee autobiography or something.” She shrugs. “Chuck Norris. Betty White. Someone.Anyone. Learn how to fight better. You sucked tonight. You lost.”
“Learn how to fight–” For a girl on the verge of tears, was attacked tonight, was almost killedagain,she sure knows how to rip a guy to shreds with her words. She’s a lawyer. I should’ve expected it. “I know how to fight, Blondie. I’m fuckin’ good at it.”
“So why’d you lose?”
“Because he was Russian and thirty feet tall!”
“Russian.” Snickering to hide the wobble in her voice, she concentrates on the coarse hairs on my legs. “He wasn’t thirty feet tall. He was no more than nine. And you were doing really well, then you lost.”
“How much did you watch?”
Shrugging, she sniffles and tries to hold on to her tears, so to give her privacy, I turn away to grab a fresh bandage. “I don’t know how much; a couple minutes. You were on the bottom, then the top. Your fists were going so fast. But then Abel was watching and the big guy was on top, and he–” She chokes on her breath. “I thought you died, Kane. Your head snapped around and I thought you died.”
“Hey.” Leaning forward, I press a gentle kiss above her stitches. I’ve never in my adult life kissed to soothe. Kiss to fuck; sure. Kiss to dominate; yeah. But never to soothe. “I didn’t die, Blondie. It’ll take a lot to get rid of me.”
“They picked you up off the ground.” As soon as I lay the bandage over her skin, she twists and sits up. Surprising me with her deft movements, she faces me and crosses her legs. Patting the towel down to cover her body, she frowns and studies my face.
My brow.
My swollen eye.
My lips.
I get the feeling sheisn’tlooking to kiss me, but to tear my heart apart a little more. “They picked you up, and you were bleeding everywhere. I followed your blood until they threw you outside like trash.” She reaches out with a shaking hand and strokes beneath my swollen lip. “You work there. You’re willing to go to prison for them, but they throw you out like trash?”
“I never said I was willing to go to prison for them, Blondie.” I fight to keep my hand away from hers. I want to bring mine up and cup hers. I want to touch her the way she touches me. But I don’t. No more touching without her permission. “You make a lot of assumptions about my life. About my job. About me. But I assure you, I’ll never go to prison for him.”
“But youwill.” Tears well in her eyes as she turns and reaches for my first-aid kit. “You killed a man for me. You admitted to it. You…” Her breath hitches as she flicks through my case, messing up my organized supplies. “You killed a man tonight.” Her eyes come up to mine. “You did, didn’t you? You killed him?”
I nod.
I speak no words, because a murderer’s still a murderer, even if I think my reasons were valid. Even if that man was scum who deserved to die, the law doesn’t work that fluidly.
People like Alex Turner will say he deserved a fair trial, that the law should take care of it. That there’s no room in his town forguys like mewho’ll make the decisions outside the courtroom.
And I’ll simply sit in front of the judge in silence, because I’ll know I did the right thing. It was his life or Jess’.
I chose.
I chose right.
“You can’t just get away with that, Kane! You can’t kill people. That means prison. It’s my duty to report you for that. My civic duty to do something about it.”
“No, Blondie. I was simply taking care of a pest problem. I didn’t hurt a man that didn’t deserve it. And I willnotgo to prison. You refuse to hear me when I tell you I won’t be locked up. I’ll die first. I promise.”
She snatches up my antibacterial wipes with more attitude than you’d expect from the broken woman in my shower, and tearing one out of the crinkling plastic, she brings it up to my face.
I brace myself for the sting.
She’ll clean me up, but she’ll do it in a bad mood to teach me a lesson for making her cry. Tensing my muscles, closing my eyes, popping my lip to give her access, my eyes snap open again at her quiet giggle.
“What?” I look around the room. “What are you laughing at?”
“You think you’re so badass,” she snickers. “But you’re ready to cry at a woman wielding a baby wipe.”
“It’s gonna hurt! You’re gonna be mean about it. And it ain’t a baby wipe. It’s antibacterial. That shit stings.”