Page 9 of Blade’s Protection

He walked back to the clinic with the same measured pace, but I saw him cradling his right hand. Blood dripped steadily from his knuckles, leaving a trail on the sidewalk.

"You're hurt." I met him at the door, nurse instincts overriding everything else.

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding all over my clean floor." I grabbed his wrist, tugging him toward the procedure room. "Come on."

"It's nothing⁠—"

"It's not nothing. You punched through glass. You probably have fragments embedded." I pushed him onto the examination table with more force than necessary. "Stay."

His mouth quirked at the command, but he stayed put while I gathered supplies. The adrenaline from watching him defend the clinic—defend me—made my hands steady and sure.

"This is going to sting," I warned, taking his damaged hand in both of mine.

The first touch of skin to skin sent awareness shooting through me. His hand dwarfed mine, scarred and powerful, capable of violence but gentle when he'd steadied me yesterday. Now that same hand bled because he'd protected me without hesitation.

I worked methodically, cleaning the wounds with saline, using tweezers to extract tiny glass fragments. He never flinched, never pulled away, just watched me work with an intensity that made my skin flush.

"You've done this before," he observed as I checked for more embedded glass.

"Treating injured men who punch things they shouldn't? Once or twice." I kept my tone light, but touching him like this—clinical yet intimate—affected me more than it should. "Though usually it's the Hendricks brothers after another bar fight, not someone defending my honor."

"Wasn't about honor. It was about threat assessment and elimination."

I glanced up at him. "Is that what you call it? Because from where I stood, it looked like pure rage that someone was watching me."

His jaw clenched. "They don't get to hunt you. Don't get to make you afraid."

"I'm not afraid when you're around." The admission slipped out as I applied antiseptic. His sharp intake of breath had nothing to do with the sting.

I focused on wrapping his knuckles, needing the task to steady myself. But being this close meant I noticed everything—the way his breathing changed when my fingers brushed his wrist, the heat radiating from his body, the other scars marking his hands and forearms.

"These aren't from today." I traced a white line across his forearm before I could stop myself.

"Shrapnel. Afghanistan. 2018."

"And this?" My finger found another scar, circular and puckered near his elbow.

"Bullet. Seattle. 2021."

Each scar had a story of violence, survival, pain. I found myself cataloging them like a map of his history written in damaged tissue. "How many times have you been hurt protecting people?"

"Stopped counting."

"That's not reassuring."

"Not supposed to be. This is what I do, who I am." He caught my hand as I reached for another scar, his grip gentle but firm. "I'm not a good man, Tiffany. I'm a weapon pointed at problems until they stop being problems."

"I don't believe that." I turned my hand in his grip until our fingers intertwined. "Weapons don't protect scared nurses they way you do. They don't give up their beds for someone else's comfort. They don't have the kind of control you do."

"Control?" His laugh held no humor. "You think I have control? Every minute you're near me tests it. Do you know what it takes to watch you all day and not touch? To have you in my bed, wearing my shirt, and stay on that fucking couch?"

Heat flooded through me at his words. "Then why do you?"

"Because you deserve better than a forty-year-old soldier with more scars than sense. Because you're twenty-four with your whole life ahead of you. Because I've got blood on my hands that won't wash off, and you save lives with yours."

I stepped between his knees where he sat on the table, forcing him to look at me. This close, I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. "What if I don't want better? What if I want you?"