Elicit (17 page)

“Take it all.” Phoenix pushed away from the table. “You own me anyway.”

The three of them walked out of the room towards the living room, leaving me alone with the always sexual Chase and Mil, so basically I would have rather been back in that dark room getting punched in the face and shot at.

“Back!” Mo hobbled as fast as her bum leg would take her into the room. With a thud she sat the kit on the table and frowned.

“What?” I asked wincing as the pain was starting to travel up my leg.

“Not here.” She sighed. “We need to go to your room I need you to lie down.”

Chase chuckled. “If I had a dollar—”

“What?” Mil gave him an I–will-kill-you expression. “Really, I’m dying to know.”

“Then…” Chase looked at me helplessly. “I’d only have a dollar?”

“Good answer.”

“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Come on.” Mil stood. “We’ll help you guys take Tex to his room.”

“I’m fine.” I grumbled standing again only to fall back in my chair.

“Aw, he’s like a baby giraffe.” Chase clapped. “All wobbly like.”

“Can I at least be a baby tiger?” I pleaded. “My pride and all that.”

“Baby tigers are so cute.” Mil grinned.

“Just kidding. I want to be a baby tarantula.”

“Too late.” Mil sighed happily. “Baby tiger it is.”

Mo hid a smile behind her hand before grabbing the kit. Chase moved to the side of the chair and helped me to my feet. “Try not to like my touch too much, man. Remember I’m married.”

“I’ll try to keep my penis at bay.” I said dryly.

“That’s really all I ask.” Chase grunted as he helped me walk down the hall. “Well that and keeping it in your pants.”

“I can’t even walk, I won’t rape you, dude.”

“One can never be too cautious,” Chase sang.

Once we were in my room, Chase dropped me onto the bed. It squeaked under my weight.

“How the hell do you have sex on a bed that makes so much—” Chase’s voice drowned out as he looked from me to Mo and back to me. “Right, so, I’m just going to go help Mil clean her guns…”

Mil rolled her eyes. “Because that’s what we do in our room at night. Clean guns.”

“Thanks, guys.” Mo said softly as the door closed behind them. When she turned and faced me it was with hurt in her eyes and no smile on her face.

A part of me wanted to reach out.

Instead I closed my eyes and whispered, “Well, let’s get it over with.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Giving yourself to someone else is only stupid if they don’t take what you offer.

Mo

N
OT THE MOST ENCOURAGING
words to come out of his mouth but it was a start. I propped open the kit and pulled out the supplies I’d need: Antiseptic, pain killers, tweezers, gauze, wipes.

“Mo, this isn’t a hospital you don’t need to bandage me up or anything. Really I just want—”

My head jerked up. “What? What do you want?”

His nostrils flared as he looked away and mumbled, “A shower.”

My body suddenly went hot and cold all over like it couldn’t decide if I liked the idea of helping him in the shower or if I was terrified of what could happen, what that could mean. Then again he could barely walk so it wasn’t like he was going to try to seduce me.

“Okay.” I nodded. “I can do that.”

“Mo—”

“Tex,” I snapped. “Let me help okay? It’s my fault anyway.”

“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t for a second blame yourself for my bad blood, do you understand me?”

I turned my back to him and stormed off to the bathroom, flipping on the shower so steam started to billow around my feet. After grabbing a towel and making sure there were no objects in Tex’s way. I marched back out of the bathroom and held out my hand. “Let’s go.”

“Forceful.” Tex’s crooked grin caused my heart to falter. “You would have made a horrible nurse.”

“Or the best,” I said. “It’s all in how you look at it.”

“Right.” He gripped my hand and slowly stood. I wrapped his arm around my body helping him carry his own ridiculously muscled weight, and we staggered to the bathroom.

“How are we going to do this?” Tex was out of breath already and sitting on the toilet lid, leaning his head on his hands.

“Um…” I held up my hand and closed the door. “Just one second.” I turned around and swore under my breath as I slowly peeled my clothes from my body.

“Mo,” Tex croaked. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m helping!”

“No.” Tex hissed like he was in pain. “You’re really not.”

Ignoring him, I left my bra on and pulled down my jeans. Bra and underwear were safe, right? Without speaking I started pulling his clothes from his body. First his shirt, or what was left of it since it was so stained with blood. What was once white looked red and horrifying.

He winced when I pulled it over his head.

Damn the man. It would be impossible to get used to the way Tex’s muscles freaking hugged his midsection like they were too swollen to do anything else but stick out and be sexy.

Clenching my teeth I moved my hands to his jeans and slowly undid the button. Tex looked away quickly. Right, no eye contact. Like a prostitute. Or did they make eye contact and just not kiss?

Yeah I was so out of my league.

I could do this. I could help.

I slowly unzipped his jeans, the sound turning me on way more than a simple noise should, and whispered, “I need you to lift a bit.”

“‘K.” His voice was barely audible as he pushed against the countertop on each side and lifted his body up so I could slide the jeans off. The minute I slid them past where the shot grazed him, he swore.

“Sorry.”

“Not—” he heaved. “—your fault, Mo.”

“Boxers.” I licked my lips.

His gaze finally met mine. “Boxers?”

“We need to take them off.”

He nodded three times before lifting himself up again. I jerked them off as quickly as possible and turned away. The last thing I needed to be doing was attacking him with my eyes while he was injured.

“I’m ready.” His deep voice ripped me to shreds, made me want to push him against the wall and demand he love me. Demand he never leave me. Ask him to stay…

“Okay.” I turned and looked.

And immediately wished I had never fallen for Tex.

Because no man would ever compare to the broken one in front of me.

My heart beat to fix him. My soul yearned to join him.

“Alright.” I saluted. “Just think of me as your grumpy old nurse.”

Tex eyed me up and down. “Yeah you look nothing like a grumpy old nurse. In fact, I’d probably purposely walk in the line of fire in order to get patched up by you.”

My lungs were paralyzed.

Air didn’t come.

Words ceased.

So I nodded as I helped him to his feet and then stepped into the shower with him, leading him to the bench and pointing the shower head towards his body.

“I feel like a child.” Tex smiled wide. “Do I look helpless? Be honest, Mo. I can always tell when you’re lying. You avert your eyes and put your hands behind your back like your hiding cookies.”

“I do not!” I rubbed my hands and put them behind my back without realizing it. Tex pressed his lips together and nodded his head towards me.

“Really? You don’t?”

I unleashed my hands and returned his smile. “It all started with that first stolen cookie when I was six.”

“Liar.” Tex stretched out his legs and winced. “It started when you were five… with the piece of chocolate I told you to steal.”

I gasped. “I forgot about that!”

“The girl’s got a weakness for the dark side, don’t you, Mo? Your grubby little hands stole Nixon’s dark chocolate and then you didn’t want to have to give it back, so what did you do?”

I folded my arms across my wet chest. “I ate it.”

“Not it.”

“I ate them.”

“How many? I forget?” He chuckled.

“Ten mini candy bars and then I threw up all over my church shoes.”

Still laughing Tex reached for the soap. “One of my top ten Mo moments.”

“Ten?” I joked. “You have a top ten list?”

“Hell yeah I do.” Tex soaped up his body but cringed when he hit the sliced skin on his leg, so I bent down and started slowly cleaning the blood away with a wash rag and the soap.

“So…” My hands moved seamlessly across his leg. “Name a few.”

“Hmm…” Tex leaned his head back against the tiled wall. “The day you wore that kick-ass swimsuit.”

“The white one?”

“Yeah.” Tex’s voice lowered. “I wanted you so badly that day but I knew it was too soon, so I waited. Good things come to those who wait they say.”

“And did they?” I asked.

“Did they what?”

“Did the good things come?”

Tex was silent for a few seconds then said, “They come and go… like life.”

“Another moment?” I moved to his other leg and washed up and down.

“When you smiled.”

“What?”

“Each time you smile.” Tex shrugged. “It’s a new moment, so I always say when you smiled at least that’s how I keep track in my brain. Each time you smile is a new moment so I store it and I tell myself that’s my favorite one right there.”

I smiled.

“See? New moment. Mind blown.”

I shook my head and sucked on my bottom lip before moving the soap up his thigh and across his stomach. With a groan he closed his eyes. “Best nurse ever. We should get you a button.”

“A button?”

“Yeah a button that says number one nurse or something like that. Put it on all your clothes… good plan, right?”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes and continued washing his abs. “So what’s number one?”

His eyes flashed open as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Water droplets cascaded down his square chin landing on his chiseled chest. “The day you married me.”

I slid my hand down as the soap dropped to the tiled ground. “But you were so angry.”

“At the circumstances,” Tex whispered. “And maybe at you, a bit, but it was the happiest moment of my life, knowing you would never be able to run away from me—from us. Knowing that even if you broke my heart, I still had a ring on my hand saying you it was yours to break and that I probably deserved it in the first place.”

My hands moved up his stomach to cup his face. “And now, now are you mad still?”

“Mo.” Tex groaned as he gripped my wrists. “What do I keep telling you? I could never hate you as much as I love you.”

“Still?” My lower lip trembled.

He sighed. “Still.”

“And even though you’re choosing blood…”

Tex sighed. “Sometimes a person does what he has to do, to protect those he values the most.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Death makes you see things clearly… sometimes that’s not a good thing.

Tex

I
WOULD HAVE GIVEN
damn near anything to be at my full strength, to be able to lift Mo into my arms and whisper promises across her skin. Instead, I was so weak it would be an adventure just trying to get out of the shower. But her skin, it was so pretty, each time the water hit her, it pressed against her flesh and then receded down her face and honestly it was so distracting that I almost had to close my eyes.

“Tex?”

I released her wrists and leaned back so I could cool off. I didn’t want her to know that the shower was so hot I was ready to pass out—then again it was probably because my blood was heated to dangerous levels just breathing the same steam as her. “What?”

“For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.”

“For what…” I repeated. “…it’s worth… I’m kind of flattered you value my life as much as you do, Mo. You’re the only one who would go out on a limb for me.”

“Nixon would, so would Chase,” she argued.

“No.” I shook my head. “Not anymore, and the sick part is I can’t blame them, I mean I have a freaking sister that I’ve never met and I feel possessive as hell right now over that girl… she could be a raging lunatic and I’m still concerned that she’s safe. Blood—”

“—wins.” Mo cleared her throat. “Right, I get it. So, should we wash you off?”

“I’m such a dirty boy.” I said dryly, my eyebrows shooting up in good humor.

Mo suppressed her laughter with her hand and stood in front of me. “Right, okay so I’m just going to…” She gulped. “Rinse.”

“Wash, rinse, repeat,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Talk dirty to me, nurse.”

“Keep joking like that, and I’ll be sure the nurse slips and hurts the patient,
capiche
?”

“Physical pain I can tolerate.” I chuckled and then realized what I had said, or what I’d meant by that. Beat me, slaughter me, make me bleed, but break my heart?

And you’ve just destroyed my reason for living.

Take away Mo?

And you’ve just wrecked my entire existence.

I cleared my throat. “Are we doing this or not?”

“Yeah.” Mo licked her lips and positioned the shower head over my body. I closed my eyes as the warm water cleansed me of all the soap and blood—my sins, however, stayed. And wasn’t that a bitch?

Never clean.

“Alright.” Mo turned off the shower. “I’m going to grab some towels and dry you off so you don’t slip.”

“Wow.” I folded my arms across my chest to keep warm. “I get toweled off too?”

“Try not to get too excited.” Mo winked. “I towel rough.”

“I can do rough.”

“Not this kind of rough.”

“Just don’t injure what doesn’t like being injured… gentle, you know the meaning of that word don’t you?”

“I was always horrible with school, you should know that.” Mo called from beyond the door. She returned with two white fluffy towels and tossed one at my face. “You dry the upper half, I dry the lower half.”

“Score.”

“Keep talking.”

“Sorry.” I grumbled rubbing my face and hair with the towel and moving down my arms and chest. I stopped briefly to look up since Mo hadn’t started but her eyes were trained directly on me. “Uh, this isn’t a theatre Mo, if you didn’t pay you can’t stay, sweetheart.”

A blush stained her cheeks before she started vigorously rubbing my legs taking several leg hairs with her, damn it!

“Okay.” I pushed her hands away. “That’s enough nurse for the day.”