Page 13 of Fighting for Irish
“I don’t know,” she said softly, staring at the floor, her face paling beneath her peach freckles.
…
“You’ve never been to the doctor?”
The way he said dahctah would have made her smile if she wasn’t so petrified of the idea of seeing the inside of a hospital for the second time in her life. And she wasn’t about to tell him about her first visit.
She shook her head and clamped her teeth on her lower lip as pieces of her past dug their way into the forefront of her mind. It wasn’t that she’d never had any reason to go to the doctor or hospital growing up. But when your parents were the reasons you needed to go, they usually weren’t too keen on taking you and risking a visit from the local authorities.
“Okay, tell you what,” he said, lifting her chin to force her gaze to his like he’d done the night before. “I’ll get this wrapped up, and then I’ll take you to the hospital to get it taken care of properly. I’ll wait for you, take you home, and then call Xander to pick me up. That sound all right?”
Something in her stomach fluttered as his sapphire eyes searched her face for an answer. What was it about Irish that could make her feel things she never thought she’d be capable of? Was it because he was a walking contradiction?
On the outside, he looked like a pierced and tattooed-to-the-gills badass you wouldn’t want to meet in broad daylight, much less a dark alley. But if he saw her coming, he opened the door for her. If he thought she was being hassled by a customer, he stepped in. And every time he looked at her, she knew he’d never let anything hurt her as long as he was close.
“You with me, kitten?” he asked, his voice soft and deep.
Funny. He’d said something similar the night before when she’d started freaking out. Stay right here with me, kitten. At the time she’d thought it was meaningless, but now the little girl that still lived deep inside her cynical shell was sighing with starry eyes. Kat would have to be careful to keep that tiny part of herself in check.
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, okay,” she said in response to his offer.
A shallow grin told her he was satisfied with her answer, and then he got to work opening up the antibiotic ointment and setting out some sterile gauze pads.
While he played amateur doctor, she kept herself distracted by discreetly studying his body. It was amazing, but it wasn’t only due to his four-percent-body-fat physique. The man was a living canvas, covered in vibrantly colored tattoos. When he’d taken his shirt off she’d nearly lost her breath.
She’d only seen his tattoo “sleeves” up to where his work T-shirts stretched over his muscular upper arms, plus the letters between his knuckles that spelled cage on his right hand and rage on his left.
His left arm was a mural of ocean life. A lifelike octopus started at his shoulder with its tentacles swirling and reaching down his bicep. Everything from sea turtles to sea stars, from tropical fish to colorful coral filled in the rest of his arm, all the way around and down, and all surrounded by vivid blue water.
The right arm had an Asian theme with a beautiful geisha over his upper arm and a samurai warrior covering his forearm.
But the one she’d never seen before took up the majority of his chest. Centered over his sternum and spreading to cover part of each pectoral was a lotus flower in vivid greens, purples, and yellows on a background of bright blue Japanese-style waves that stretched across what remained of his chest. Above that, following the shallow arc of his collarbones and written in fancy script was what she assumed was his last name bracketed by Kelly green shamrocks.
Kat had been so lost in studying the designs—not to mention the sexy-as-hell silver barbells he had in both of his nipples, she almost flinched in surprise when he spoke.
“Does it hurt?”
Did it? Hell, yeah. But when compared to her history of injuries, this barely rated a four on the severity scale. “A little.”
He spread the last of the ointment. A dark eyebrow hitched up his forehead as he continued his nursing duties. “If either of my sisters had gotten cut like this, they’d have been screaming bloody murder.”
She shrugged her right shoulder so she wouldn’t interfere with him placing the gauze pads on her left hand. “High pain tolerance, I guess.”
His gaze landed briefly on the three-inch vertical scar that marked her below her collarbones. It was old and most people didn’t notice it. Then again, most people didn’t get as intimately close to her as Irish was now. She wished the uniform shirts weren’t V-necks that practically put the mark on display, but Lou liked the girls flashing their cleavage, and in reality the more flashing, the better the tips.
He grunted, though whether in agreement or disbelief, she wasn’t sure.
Irish held the pads in place with one hand and reached for the roll of gauze with the other. He wrapped it around her palm and wrist, securing the makeshift bandage in place.
“Feel okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Her eyes settled on his chest again as he busied himself with putting all the supplies back in the kit. “O’Brien, huh?”
Blue eyes peered through long, dark lashes for only a heartbeat before lowering to his task again. “Yeah,” he said with obvious hesitance. “You wanna even the score and tell me your real name?”
Her spine stiffened. “What makes you think Sydney isn’t my name?”
“Last night. You didn’t say, ‘I hate my name.’ You said, ‘that name.’ Plus,” he said, pinning her with a knowing look, “you have this thing every time someone uses it.”
