Page 55 of You for Her (The Edge of Retaliation 2)
“That’s about it, yeah.”
“What were you thinkin’?” Ethan snaps. “Going in alone and starting something that you could have done silently.”
“Wasn’t askin’ for your opinion, Ethan. I can figure this shit out on my own.”
“Except you’re not on your own, you’re with all of us and we could have been in danger tonight. Use your fucking head!”
“That’s enough,” I say, my voice tired and a little frightened. “We don’t need to be fighting right now, we need to work out what to do next.”
“You don’t need to worry about what I’m goin’ to do next, just worry about your business, and I’ll worry about mine,” Tanner grumbles.
“Oh, you know what Tanner? I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do. How about that?” I say, glaring at him. “You’re not going to get yourself into this kind of mess alone, like it or not. We’re all in this together now, and we’ll finish it together.”
Tanner looks slightly shocked at my outburst, but he doesn’t argue any further which I’m going to take as a win for me.
“How far are we driving today?” I ask him, about half an hour later.
“Not too far, I’m in pain,” he murmurs, his voice a touch sleepy, a touch pained.
“I can drive,” I offer.
“We’ll stop soon.”
Stubborn damned men.
They’ll be the death of me.
“I’M DOING IT,” I SAY, sitting on the edge of Tanner’s bed with a first-aid kit in one hand and some washcloths in the other.
We’re all exhausted.
We drove until lunchtime and then stopped and found a motel for the night. Tomorrow we will make it to Chase, though Tatum is concerned as we haven’t heard from him in the last twelve hours. He’s worried that whoever Tanner stirred up is going to go after Chase in an attempt to find him. I hope that’s not the case, but there is a high chance it is. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.
“I can clean myself up,” Tanner mutters, kicking off his boots and lying back on the bed, exhaling loudly.
“I’m sure you can, but you’re about to go to sleep and I’m not going to let you die of some infection because you’re too stubborn to let anyone help. You can lay there and rest if it makes you happy, but I’m doing it.”
“Just admit it,” he murmurs, pulling off his shirt and tossing it on the ground, keeping his eyes closed the whole time, “You wouldn’t care if I got an infection and died.”
I stare at his chest as he lies on the bed, rising and falling, the huge muscles bulging even during his resting state. He’s gorgeous, so much so it makes my tummy do a silly little flutter. I let my eyes run over the bruises slowly forming on his ribs. He won’t admit it, but he has to be in a good deal of pain. They did a good job with him.
“I would care,” I say, climbing into the bed beside him and opening the first-aid kit. “I like you, even if sometimes I don’t understand why.”
His eyes open and meet mine, for a moment, the air gets trapped in my lungs. His look is so intense I want to throw myself at him, come what may. But I can’t do that. So, I look away and he closes his eyes again, but not before saying, “I like you, too.”
Dammit.
I get to work using an alcohol wipe to try and clean some of the dried blood off his face. He looks terrible, and I know he’s too exhausted to shower, but that would really help me right about now.
“You should shower, some of this blood might come off.”
“I can’t be fucked,” he murmurs, his voice deep, sleepy.
“Okay,” I say, taking my washcloths and going into the bathroom, soaking them with warm water.
I bring them back and position myself on the bed again, then I start using them to clean the blood off. They’re far more effective and it doesn’t take long to clean away the grime and blood stuck to Tanner’s skin. Then, I’m able to assess how much damage he has actually received. It’s not too bad, there are quite a few little cuts, but mostly it’s bruises, there is going to be a lot of them when he wakes up in the morning.
There is a cut above his eyebrow that’s deep, so I use some sticky bandages to try and pull it together so it doesn’t bleed all night. As I’m running my fingers over them, trying to get them to stick to his skin, he opens his eyes and looks up at me. “What was it like in there?”
“In where?” I ask, concentrating on trying to get this right so the wound stays closed.
“Prison.”
I pause, my fingers against his skin. My eyes move down to his, and I can see he’s serious, he wants to know. I hesitate for a few minutes, contemplating if I should share this part of my story, but deciding why the hell shouldn’t I? It’s part of who I am, after all.
