He tugged at her chin, pressed something to her lips. A bottle of water. She suddenly realized she was beyond parched. She downed the bottle in one go. He watched her as if he wanted to gulp her down himself, to decipher and assimilate her.
She licked her lips, cleared her throat. "Okay, I need you to expose the wound and hold this flashlight over it for me. Better do it in the back of this monster so you can lie down."
He smiled in that seriousness-melting way of his. "I can give you two out of three of your demands. I can with pleasure take off my clothes. And I can shed light on the mess I made when all of my senses were so focused on you that I missed the pursuer who could have killed me with one haphazard shot. I shudder to think where that would have left you."
"As if I'm in such a great situation now," she mumbled under her breath as she snapped on gloves.
"We're both in one piece, with me only slightly punctured, which in a hostage-extraction op is about the best possible situation. But I have to inform you I had to sacrifice the back end of the chopper to preserve the cockpit while crash-landing. I doubt there's any space back there for even one of your species to stretch out."
She looked up from preparing her surgical tray. "My species? Women you mean? Last I heard we were a gender."
"Felines." His smile widened as he reached for the swathe over his head to start the process of exposing himself … his wound for her. "I know of nothing else capable of exiting a six-foot-high window with as much economy of movement and grace."
"They're called gymnasts. I was one till I hit eighteen. Seems my abilities reactivated under duress."
He finished unfurling the yards of material from his head in movements she could only describe as … erotic. This was a man used to barricading himself in mere cloth before plunging into the desert, pitting his wiles and will against its cruelty and capriciousness.
Suddenly all thoughts evaporated. The last coil fell off, and a mane of gleaming mahogany cascaded in layers of satin luxury to his shoulders.
She swallowed. "You should talk."
"Oh?" One formidable wing of an eyebrow quirked as he shrugged off the outer layer of his night-colored desert raider/ninja/Black Ops hybrid outfit. He seemed to grow bigger in only a skintight, high-collared, long-sleeved top.
She gave him an encompassing gesture. "You should be on stage playing the Lion King yourself. With minimal or no makeup."
And he gifted her with another of those amused rumbles that proved his great feline origins.
Then he tried to yank off his top and groaned, his face twisting in obvious pain. "Seems raising my left arm won't be one of my favorite activities for a while."
"Do you have a change of clothes on board?"
"Yes. And other supplies that I'll access once we're done with this."
"Okay, then." She swept scissors off the tray and proceeded to cut off his top.
He hissed as the coolness of the blade slid against his hot skin, groaned as she reached the parts that had stuck to his wound, then growled as her gloved hands glided over his flesh, separating the adhesions and palpating the edges of his wound.
There should only be pain. But to ears that were hyperaware of his merest inflection, the pleasure was unmistakable, too.
Tremors invaded her hands, traveling all the way from her core. And this from gloved and accidental contact while exploring his wound. What would touching him with no barriers do to her if she were exploring his power and beauty for pleasure instead?
Work, idiot. Stop fantasizing about this hunk of impossible virility and just patch him up. You're probably in ten different types of shock and hallucinating most of this anyway. Moron.
Continuing her raucous inner abuse, she worked in silence.
Suddenly a realization dawned on her. All the time she'd been filling hypodermic needles with local anesthetic, analgesic/anti-inflammatory and broad-spectrum antibiotic, he'd been handing her vials, receiving filled syringes and placing them in the correct sequence on the tray like the best of her long-term assistants. He continued to help her with total efficiency and obvious knowledge of what went where and would be used when as she prepared forceps, scalpels, sutures, cautery, bandages, wipes and antiseptics.
He hadn't been bragging when he'd said he'd take care of his wound. This was a man versed in more than hostage-retrieval ops. He was no stranger to field emergency procedures.
Just who and what was he?
She opened her mouth to ask and one of those fingers she'd bet could bend steel feathered down her cheek again. The gentleness of his touch almost pulverized her precarious control. Tears churned at the back of her eyes. She swallowed them along with any questions.
He asked them of her. "You weren't exaggerating when you said you'd treated bullet wounds before. Just who are you, my heaven's dew?"
Her hands stilled from checking her supplies before she started the procedure.
No one had ever realized the meaning of her name.
"Your parents are to be applauded for choosing such a name to befit your wonder and delicacy."
She shot him an affronted look. "I'm not delicate!"
His smile filled with teasing indulgence. "Oh, but you are, incredibly so."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "How's your jaw?"
Something hot and delighted rumbled deep in his chest, revved in her bones like a bass line made of urges instead of sound. "My jaw will always remember its meeting with your fist. But sheathe your claws. Delicacy doesn't equate with fragility when describing you, but with refinement mixed with delectability wrapped around a core of resourcefulness. That's what you are. An exterior of pure gold, a filling of sheer delight and a center of polished steel."
Her lips twitched. "You sure you didn't hit your head? Or are you always so ready and free with spontaneous poetry?"
"I'm the very opposite. Women call me a miser with words. I never say what I don't mean. What I don't feel. It's no wonder I was chosen for law enforcement and not diplomacy."
"So among the hordes of women who've stampeded through your life, I'm the only one who, in the aftermath of a rescue mission out of a Mission Impossible movie, has moved you so much you've found your inner poet."
"You've summed it up perfectly."
He suddenly turned around and lay back, placing his head and shoulders on her lap.
He grinned up at her as she froze, stared down at him. "This is the only place I'm lying down around here."
She gulped, looked into his upside-down eyes and repressed the urge to smooth her hands over his face, to thread her fingers through that incredible mane fanned over her lap, and most insane of all, to bend down and kiss his forehead before she started poking him with needles and slicing him with scalpels.
Before she succumbed to any of those ridiculous urges, he transferred the tray she'd prepared to the floor, then turned to his side to present her with an optimum view of his injury.
She almost choked when he looked up from his sideways position and purred, "And that's the best way to hand you instruments as you work."
She gave a jerky nod and a throat-clearing cough, hoping to expel any mind-fogging stupidity.
Then proceeded to examine his wound.
Harres looked up at this enigma in a woman's form whom he'd saved. And who was in turn saving him.
He held the flashlight at an optimal angle for her. And while she injected his side with local anesthetic, he examined her.
She was beyond beautiful. Unique. Magical. He hadn't told her the half of it when she'd charged him with being poetic.
She finally made that throat-clearing noise he'd come to realize meant she was fighting for composure. And he bet it had nothing to do with the medical part of their situation.
"Okay. The bullet made a clear track through your muscles. It hit the tip of your scapula, grazing three ribs. No tendons or nerves are severed. There is muscle damage at the bullet's entry point, then as it came out the front it tore a four-inch wound in your skin. But the bleeding is the worst of it, since a few arteries have recoiled out of reach. I'll have to widen the wound and deepen it, to fish them out and cauterize them, and for future drainage. I'll place deep sutures to repair the most traumatized tissues, but will leave the wound open to drain for later closure, once the swelling goes down, so no infection is trapped within."
As she spoke, she continued to implement her plan with flawless execution. He continued to assist her.
Every minute brought more unprecedented sensations. It wasn't just physical reactions to feeling her firm, warm thighs beneath his head, or breathing her hot, intoxicating scent with every breath. He'd never experienced this synergy, not even when working with his brothers or his men. He'd never let another person take charge of anything while he was around, let alone his own physical well-being. He'd never lusted after a woman anywhere near this intensely, let alone while simultaneously respecting the hell out of her capabilities, relying on her efficiency and wanting to pamper her with all he had and protect her with his life.