Rick pressed a soft kiss to the tender spot behind her ear. “Let’s get out of here.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Where to?” Before he could answer, she raised her hand and gasped at the blood-covered fingertips. “I think you need stitches.” She glanced down at his arm and he followed her gaze. The Band-Aids were soaked through, and a few small rivulets of blood ran down his arm.
“Hmm. I think I got a little carried away.” He wrapped his non-bleeding arm around her waist and tried to pull her back to him.
She looked at him with a heated gaze that made him forget everything else. But she placed a hand on his chest. “I really think you should have that taken care of.”
“What? Don’t think you’re tough enough to carry me down if I pass out?”
She snorted. “Carry you? Hell, I’d leave your stubborn ass up here to bleed to death.”
Rick burst out laughing. “All right, then. If you insist.” He looked down at his arm again. The blood really was flowing pretty good. “Do you have any more of those Band-Aids?”
Gina frowned. “No, but I have something else that might work.”
…
Gina pulled the maxi pad out of her backpack and handed it to Rick. He looked at it like she was handing him a tarantula.
“Really?”
She shrugged. “It’s made to absorb blood. It’s big enough to cover the whole cut. And it’s superabsorbent, so you hopefully won’t bleed through it. It’s perfect.”
Rick opened his mouth to argue but shut it just as quickly. She smiled and unwrapped the pad.
“You don’t have to enjoy this so much, you know,” he said.
“I don’t have to.” She smirked up at him. “But where would the fun be in that? Now hold this down for a second.”
He clapped a hand over it while she opened two more pads. “How many do you have in there?”
“Only the three, so I hope this holds. I could use the duct tape but that would be a bitch to take off.” She laid one pad over each end of the first, sticky side down. “There,” she said, pleased with herself.
He looked at his arm with the uncomfortable aversion of a male being brought face-to-face with something inherently female. She waited for him to say something crass, sexist, or just plain stupid. Instead, he shook his head and chuckled.
“Well, it’ll work. Let’s get going.”
Two hours later, Gina sat with Rick, who was all stitched up and impatiently waiting for discharge papers. The fact that he was a cop injured in the line of duty had gotten him seen as quickly as possible, but it had still been a long night. Though, strangely, she wasn’t all that eager to go home. She was tired, but the night had been…interesting. To say the least.
Rick was a pain in her ass. But he’d turned out to be surprisingly good company. He made her laugh. He was hot as hell, and she could spend days just staring at him. And that kiss…thinking about it made her want to close the privacy curtains in their cubicle and go at it again. But he’d also protected her from the rat cartel. And had taken a knife for her. Twenty stitches in his arm. That would leave a scar for the rest of his life.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice quiet.
She shook her head. “Nothing much.” She reached a finger out. Gently touched his newly bandaged arm. “Sorry about the scar.”
He shrugged. “It’s not the first one. Not even the most impressive one.”
“Really?”
He gave her a sexy little grin that made her stomach flip and lifted his shirt to reveal abs that should be illegal. Running along his side, its tail disappearing into the waistband of his jeans, was a thick scar.
She reached out, stopping short of touching him. “How the hell did that happen?”
“When I was a rookie. Chasing a shoplifter down an alley. Tried being a badass like on all the cop shows and jumped a chain-link fence. I made it over but kind of got hung up on a jagged piece of fence at the top.”
Gina stared at the scar with fresh interest. “Um, ouch?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. But the one that really hurt was this one.”
He reached down and pulled his pant leg up, revealing a thin six-inch white scar on his very white ankle.
“Those are some white legs you got going on there, Officer.”
Rick flashed a little more skin. “Yeah, you can blame that on my parents. This Irish skin of mine wouldn’t tan if I dived into the sun.”
She laughed and touched his scar. “Another chase gone wrong?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Unfortunately?”
He cleared his throat with an almost sheepish grimace. “Yeah. Injured in a chase is at least cool. I did this showing off on my sister’s pogo stick. Thought I could get some altitude if I jumped off our ping-pong table.”