Page 373 of One More Kiss

“Now you know why I always call you Delaney. I don’t like being like everyone else in your life.”

Pant. Melt. Sigh.

“Hold out your hand for me. I’m going to check it before I numb it. The numbing might sting.”

He starts examining my hand, asking me to move it this way and that. Once he’s satisfied, he goes for the needle. My eyes close and I reflexively tense as he sticks a freaking needle into my palm. I hiss out a breath. Because hell if it doesn’t sting something fierce. But his touch is so gentle, and I can feel his eyes on me.

I pant and then his mouth, it’s right by my ear where he whispers, “I like your dress.”

My eyes snap open. Straight into his.

“Did you know it shows this delicious amount of cleavage?”

I didn’t think about it. Women in the shop tend not to care about my boobage or my odd array of dresses and clothes. I might have a bit too much 1950s pinup in me mixed with a hint of rockabilly. “Not really.”

“It’s a new kind of torture. Especially since you’re my patient, in addition to being my brother’s ex.”

“I like being your patient though. It’s sexy.”

He chuckles. “Is this your way of getting me to play doctor some more with you?”

“A girl can dream. And fantasize.”

“Jesus, Delaney. You’re making me hard as a rock, which is not great when I’m trying to fix your hand.”

“Fine. Safer topics. How is Liam? I shouldn’t care and I likely should ask you to give him a shot to the nuts in my honor, but I no longer care enough to.”

His gaze immediately falls back to my hand, and he goes about cleaning my wound and examining my hand further. Manipulating it this way and that. “He’s fine,” he tells me finally. “Went to the movies with me and Knox on Saturday.”

Saturday. The day after our naughty tryst.

“Great.”

“He’s not seeing anyone. If that’s what you were wondering.”

“It’s not,” I tell him.

“After you broke up with him, he told me he loved you. That he was a mess and stupid and childish and insecure. That’s why he cheated.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “Oh, you mean instead of talking to me like a grown-ass man, he cheated because he went and caught real feelings for me? Wow. That’s deep.”

“I’m just saying—”

“You can save your breath. I don’t care about the reasoning behind a guy sticking his dick into another woman. And hearing he loved me and that’s why he did it is even worse than thinking he was simply indifferent. It’s pathetic and lame and inexcusable.”

A smirk. “Agreed.”

“I deserve better.”

Eyes on mine. “Yes. You do.”

And that yes. Holy hell, Batman, it’s intense. And hot. And full of heat.

He starts to stitch up my now numb hand and I look away, unable to watch. But when he’s done, he bandages me all up and tells me to find him again in ten days so he can remove the stitches. I can’t do that. Not after this encounter, so I nod instead, already resigned to finding an urgent care.

“Let me walk you out.”

“Sure.”

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