Page 4 of Daddy's Heart

I note the scars. More than three, less than ten that I can see. One is distinctive. A burn. Deep, too, which darkens the moment as I push away the crackling memory of something I wish I could forget.

But there, among the wreckage of the scars, is a heart. Inked over his left pec with a ragged crack down the middle.

Did a woman inspire that? And why does that thought give me a pang of jealousy?

“Problem?” he asks as he closes the space between us.

He knows exactly what I’m looking at.

“No,” I lie, tugging on a pair of blue latex gloves with a snap, snap. “Where can you lay down?” I glance around the warm, masculine space. “Face down, I need to get to…the wound.”

He nods on a silent snort. “Right.”

He takes three long strides to a brown leather couch.

With his back to me, his arms bend, hands working in front of him, then God, he tugs down his jeans exposing plaid cotton boxers.

LumberboxersI think because he may be the sheriff but every fantasy I’m entertaining has him swinging an ax and showing me all the ways he works with hard wood.

I’m zero chill as he stretches out on his stomach, long, masculine fingers hook into the elastic of the boxers and tug.

“You got enough room to work?” He turns his head, slowly blinking until I nod using all my willpower to keep my tongue inside my mouth. “Well, I’m waiting.”

“Right.” I stretch out my fingers in the latex gloves, grabbing the tape, scissors, gauze and bottle of saline. The bullet wound is on his right glute. Bandage peeling at the edges.

The skin around the wound is warm and solid and a little more toward red than I’d like but not bad just a little neglected.

His ass is like flexed steel, and I battle the urge to just take a handful of it and tuck it in my bag for later.

He tenses as I work some saline around the wound. It’s healing, a clean exit, and I wonder what happened.

“When’s the last time this was cleaned?”

Silence.

“Sheriff?”

“Couple days.”

I pause. “Couple? That doesn’t mean two, does it?”

“Hard to reach. You ever try bandaging your own ass?”

My lips twitch, but I focus on the dressing. “Can’t say I have. If you have to take a bullet, the butt is a pretty safe place really. Considering. How’d it happen? Bad guy get you from behind?”

“Not exactly. Not unless I’m the bad guy shot his own ass.”

“Your own ass? You shot yourself?”

“Long story.”

“Well, maybe you can tell me sometime.” When I smooth down the last piece of tape, I sit back. “Done. Keep it clean and dry. Change the dressing every—”

He pushes up until he’s standing there. Towering. Shirtless. Staring at me with heat in his eyes and absolutely no shame about the fact my eyes are exactly at cock level.

And, when I say this Sheriff is packing heat, I mean nuclear fission temperatures.

I start packing up, hands shaking, stupid wetness soaking into my panties. “Just make sure you change the dressingdaily. Otherwise, when you end up in the ER, don’t expect sympathy.”

---