Page 102 of Dirty Hit
“Drama queen,” he says, handing me the pills. “Take these.”
I eye them. “What are they?”
“Ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant,” he says. “Not laced with anything homicidal, I promise. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t do it with over-the-counter meds.”
“Comforting,” I say dryly, but I take them, washing them down with half the glass of water. The coolness helps; my mouth was so dry I didn’t realise until now. He watches to make sure I swallow, then sets the glass back down and holds up the little tube.
“And this,” he says. “Topical. Numbs everything a bit. I grabbed it at the same time I bought the lube and the extra towels, before you ask. I was planning ahead.”
“Of course you did,” I say, torn between embarrassment and grudging gratitude. “You make serial killing look impulsive, but everything else is planned out to the last detail.”
He grins. “Flattery will get you nowhere.” Then his expression softens again. “I can walk you through how to use it, orI can help, but I’m not pushing that while you’re already overwhelmed. Your call.”
The idea of his hands anywhere near the part of me that currently feels like it lost a fight with a freight train makes my face go hot, but the idea of having to contort myself and actually apply that stuff on my own makes me want to crawl under the bed and never come out.
“You can… show me,” I say quietly. “I’ll do it. Just not right this second.”
“Good call,” he says, and sets the tube on the nightstand. “We’ll handle that after you pee and after the pills kick in a bit.”
He gets back on the bed, curling against me, one arm going around my shoulders this time instead of my waist, pulling me into his side. His hand rubs slow circles between my shoulder blades. “You’re okay, Brendon.”
“I feel like you parked a truck in me,” I grumble, but the contact helps, grounding everything and slowing my racing thoughts. “A very large, very smug, Russian truck.”
He laughs, a low, warm sound that rumbles through his chest into my cheek. “You were the one begging that truck not to pull out. I distinctly remember ‘Don’t stop, Daddy,’ and ‘more’—and at one point, some very creative blasphemy.”
I groan, mortified all over again. “You’re making this worse.”
“I’m reminding you that last night was mutual as fuck,” he says calmly. “Your brain’s going to try to rewrite it today, because you’re sore and you were raised to believe any pleasure outside a narrow script is sin. I’m not letting that happen. You wanted it, you asked for it, you loved it. You’re paying for it today, yeah, but that doesn’t erase the fact that it was good, and you were safe.”
My eyes sting again, but this time it’s not just from pain or embarrassment. I lean into him more, letting his warmth soak through the lingering chill.
“What if I’m not safe from me?” I mutter. “From my own head?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he says, simple as that. “I’ve got you.”
“You promise?” I ask, because apparently I’m that guy now—the one who needs reassurance in plain words, no matter how pathetic it sounds.
He huffs a soft breath against my hair, then pulls his arm back long enough to hold out his hand between us, pinky crooked. His eyes meet mine, steady and a little amused, but there is nothing mocking in them.
“Yeah,” he says. “Pinky promise.”
I stare at his hand, and even with the ache in my body and all the embarrassment, it makes warmth bloom in my chest. I hook my pinky around his, the motion small but stupidly significant.
“You’re ridiculous,” I murmur, echoing what I said that first time, but there’s no bite in it.
“Still binding,” he says. “Too late to back out now, Little Sin.”
We lie like that, our fingers linked, his thumb tracing absent circles over my knuckles while the pain pills start to dull the worst of the throbbing. My breathing evens out; the panic that spiked when I first tried to sit up settles into a manageable discomfort. Eventually, he squeezes my hand once and lets go.
“Okay,” he says. “Game plan. I’m going to run you a bath—”
“Bath?” I echo.
He raises an eyebrow. “You’re not getting back into this bed until I’ve soaked some of that ache out of you. Warm water, Epsom salts, and muscle soak—you’ll thank me later.”
“You’re weirdly prepared for this,” I mutter, feeling jealous. Which isn’t fair, because of course he’s fucked others before me.
He must see the look on my face, because his mouth slows around the next word and his eyes narrow, catching on whatever expression I’m failing to smother. His gaze flicks from my eyesto my clenched jaw and back again, and I watch the exact second the penny drops.
