Page 113 of River Wild

The look on his face jolts me. His eyes look … darkly primitive. Almost sexual. His face looks flushed. His skin is glowing, like he’s just done some physical exertion. And his hair is disheveled, like he’s been repeatedly running his hands through it.

Or maybe someone else has.

I add up all the aspects of his appearance and don’t like the outcome that I come up with.

Has he been with a woman?

My chest pinches painfully.

I swallow down.

“Where have you been?” My quiet voice sounds loud in the silence of his kitchen.

He turns his face back to the sink and turns the faucet off. He reaches for a towel and dries his hands.

Then, he turns to face me.

I immediately spot the blood, and all thoughts of him and another woman vanish.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim, moving toward him. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

He frowns. Then, he glances down at his white T-shirt. At the marks of blood on it.

His eyes lift back to mine, and I don’t like what I see in them.

All those things I just added up, I got wrong. Very wrong.

Add in the blood, and you’ve got a whole different scenario.

A violent scenario.

Sense and experience have me moving back a step.

His frown deepens at that.

“Nothing happened. I’m fine.” He reaches back and pulls the T-shirt over his head. He bundles it up into a ball and throws it in the trash can.

He moves toward me. Instinctively, I step aside, giving him a wide berth.

“Don’t do that,” he says low, stopping before me.

“Do what?” My voice is a whisper.

“Act like you’re afraid of me.”

“Maybe I am right now.”

Dark eyes burn into mine. “You know I’d never hurt you.”

“Do I?”

His lips tighten, forming lines around his mouth. “I thought you did. Clearly, I was wrong.”

“What am I supposed to think? You acted weird at the store. Dropped me home and then disappeared off in your truck without a word. Then, showed back up after midnight, washing what I can only assume was blood off your hands, getting that from the fact that it was all over your shirt.”

“You should think that, in all the time you’ve known me, I’ve never once hurt you.”

“Only my feelings, right, River? Not physically, so that makes it okay.”