Page 51 of Ruining His Smirk

Only then did I properly see him. Dark shadows sat beneath his eyes. His jaw was covered in rough stubble, and exhaustion had settled into every line of his face. His damp hair suggested he had showered, but nothing else about him looked rested.He looked as though he had spent the hours since leaving the medical bay forcing himself upright through will alone.

He stiffened beneath my hands. “What?” he demanded. “What are you staring at?”

I said nothing. I was having a hard time getting my thoughts in order.

“Like I said, if you want to complain to the captain, go ahead.” He lifted a hand to my chest, attempting to shove me. “You don’t have to stand there and—”

I caught his hand. Before I could think better of it, I lifted his right hand, the one covered in ink from the work he had been killing himself over, to my mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

“Do shut up for one moment, will you?” I said.

His entire body went still, and I heard him inhale sharply.

“No, dumbass. I’m not here to lodge some complaint.”

Landry looked frozen. I held his hand between us.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the skeleton,” I continued. “Do you understand that? Because of one stubborn, hot, completely insufferable, and inexplicably brave cowboy, I forgot about my own damn skeleton.” A laugh escaped me, soft and disbelieving. “I completely forgot about it. I’m here because I was worried about you.”

His eyes searched my face with something close to shocked disbelief.

“You were worried about me?”

“Yes.” I smiled, though my chest had tightened painfully around the words.

His brow furrowed.

“And I’m not the only one,” I added gently. “Your brother is worried about you too.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you are not.”

He opened his mouth.

“And I also want to know why you jumped after me.”

That stopped him.

“I want to know why you refused to let Keith amend the log so the captain and everyone else would know what you did.”

His expression closed almost immediately. “There’s no need for anybody to know.”

“It was a heroic act.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

The denial came so quickly and with such harshness that I rocked back on my heels. The harshness wasn’t directed at me, though.

I studied him for a moment, and he immediately broke eye contact. “It was heroic to me,” I said slowly. “But I can see now that you genuinely don’t think of it that way. And I’m trying to understand why.”

His jaw worked.

“I’ve watched you work for the past several days. You don’t strike me as a man who has any difficulty receiving compliments. Quite the contrary, actually. I would say you’re a confident man. And, to be honest, I admire that about you.”

His head snapped up.

I smiled at his surprise. Didn’t he know that his confidence was hot?