In Close Quarters

He was going to do the one thing he had sworn he would not do. He was going to bleed on that damned white carpet.

Chapter 4

Karin snatched back every vile curse she’d leveled at TJ during the past eight hours as she waited on him yet again—this time for an answer. When he didn’t speak, she ripped the hem of his T-shirt from his black jeans, determined to get the answer herself. Unfortunately his hands closed over hers, stopping the shirt halfway up his chest.

“Cari?o, I am fine. A minor knife wound, nothing more. I was on my way to the hospital, but first stopped to—”

“Knife?” She swallowed the surge of fear that followed, or thought she had, until his free hand came up to cup her cheek.

“A graze, I swear.”

She jerked her chin from his palm and tugged his shirt the rest of the way up. Graze, her ass. That gauze swathed around his chest was damn near soaked with blood—inches from his heart. “Inside.”

“But—”

“Now.” This time she didn’t leave room for argument as she wrapped her fingers around his good arm and hauled him into the apartment. She slammed the door behind them and threw the chain home. “Don’t bother stopping at the couch, either. Head back to my bedroom—past the kitchen on your right. Take off your shirt and lie down while I grab my bag.”

She didn’t wait for another argument, but sprinted across the apartment, instead. Along with her bedroom, her study was the only other room that had escaped her mother’s redecorating wrath. That meant she might actually be able to find her doctor’s bag without tearing the room upside down. A rifled desk, rummaged closet and storage chest later, she wasn’t so certain.

Calm down, dammit.

She was a doctor, for goodness’ sake.

Surely she could find one simple suture kit and use it to stitch up one Latin lothario, without that same lothario realizing she’d spent half the night sitting up in bed worrying about him. She hit the closet again and made another pass through the clutter. Where was it?

There.

Five seconds later, her black bag firmly in hand, she was back in the living room. Unfortunately so was TJ. The man hadn’t moved a blasted inch toward her bedroom, and he was still holding that damned helmet.

Oh, Lord, he wasn’t going to faint, was he?

She wasn’t taking any chances.

Karin grabbed the helmet and dumped it on the breakfast bar, easing out a sigh as she studied his face. His pupils looked good—not fixed and dilated. Other than exhaustion, he seemed okay. “Aren’t you supposed to be lying in my bed?”

Nope, those pupils were definitely not fixed. If anything, they were flaring. “Cari?o, I—”

“—said move. And I meant it.” She planted her hands in the muscles of his back and nudged him through the open bedroom door. This time he complied without argument. What the hell—she pressed her luck and tacked on another order. “Strip.”

Leaving him to the task, she quickly skirted the rumpled bed and dumped her bag on the nightstand before clicking the reading lamp to high. That done, she started in on the covers, glancing up as she peeled the floral sheets down to the brass spindles that made up the footboard—and groaned.

TJ was still standing just inside the doorway, still staring into the room, or rather at the room. He was also showing signs of shock now, or rather surprise.

Okay, so she was a slob.

Sheesh. It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting company. At least not in here. Besides, if the man was looking for a sterile environment, he should have headed for the emergency room. Come to think of it, why hadn’t he?

Unless the cut was so severe, he hadn’t had the time.

She rounded the bed. “Tomаs, will you please hurry? You’ll need a transfusion at this rate.”

He came out of his stupor, suppressing a grimace as she helped him shrug off his leather jacket. She tossed the jacket over the stack of clothes on the chair that had made it off the ship but not quite into her closet, then helped him ease off the still-mostly-white T-shirt. And promptly wished she could say the same for the gauze.

She nudged TJ down into a sitting position on the bed and sucked in her breath as she bent to unwind the saturated strips. Whoever had wrapped him had done a damned good job, leading her to believe the person knew something about medicine. But as soon as she was down to bare seeping flesh, she cursed the person a thousand times, because he never should have let TJ leave without stitches.

“What happened?”

“I told you, I was cut.”

That much she could tell by the four-inch slice riding his left pectoral. This was no graze. It was, however, superficial. The muscle beneath his skin was firmly intact. All he would need were stitches and those she could do here. She sent up another round of thanks and pressed a wad of the clean gauze over the laceration. “Who cut you?”

“You want his real name or his street name?”

“Are you telling me you got this during a drug bust?”

Several strands of dark hair slipped past his shoulders as he nodded, shadowing the side of his face. She ignored the urge to brush them back, squelching the spurt of disappointment when he did it himself. “I tried to tell you at the door. The agent I filled in for had a major heroin buy lined up for tonight. Joaqu?n was our point of contact. Unfortunately he fell ill. My friend tried a new seafood restaurant on the Embarcadero last night and received food poisoning for his patronage. We were fortunate, though, for while Joaqu?n came by referral through one of his informers, he had not yet met the dealer face-to-face. And since we resemble each other well enough…” He shrugged.

The silence that followed told her that was all the explanation she was going to get. She wasn’t even annoyed. Because he hadn’t stood her up. But he could have called.

His thumb scorched the curve of her jaw as he tipped her face down slightly and captured her gaze. “My message telling you this, you did not receive it?”

“No.”

“From your reception, I thought not.” His frown deepened. “But surely you did not believe I forgot?”

She glanced past that probing gaze—and the hurt lurking within. Unfortunately she had a feeling the heat searing the tips of her ears had given her away, anyway.

“You did.” A sigh. One honed so deeply by disappointment it cut straight through her. “Cari?o.”

She ignored the gentle rebuke, focusing on the wad of gauze until she was mesmerized by the heady contrast of her own light skin pressing into his dark.

Don’t let him get to you. Stay cool.

But her body betrayed her. First her fingers trembled, then her entire hand. She stared at it in shock. That hadn’t happened since med school, and then only out of nerves. To make matters worse, she was suddenly, acutely, aware of his musk. Subtle and seductive. Her panic must have masked it when he’d arrived, but it was definitely there now. His scent drifted dangerously close and then it was swirling into her lungs, up to her head, edging out every other thought in her brain.

Good Lord, why TJ?

Eight hundred men on her last ship, and not one of them had ever affected her like this man could.

Focus. Check the bleeding. See if it’s slowed.

Then stitch this damned dusky chest back together and kick its owner out of your apartment. Out of your life.

She started to.

She did manage to lift the gauze, was relieved to see the bleeding had slowed to a trickle, was even about to round the bed again and grab her bag, when he stopped her. Before she realized what had happened, TJ had trapped both her hands in his, her bare thighs between his denim-clad ones, and he held her. Just held her. Well, he couldn’t make her look.

She wouldn’t let him. If she did, she’d be lost.