Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [221]
“Just par for the course. My partner and I were in the process of apprehending a drug dealer, and I ran across a couple of obstacles. I had to remove them.”
Remove them, Tess thought, instinctively understanding what that actually meant. She set a roll of gauze bandage down on the basin, feeling an inward shudder at Dante’s cold admission. She didn’t like what she was hearing, but he’d sworn he was a good guy, and maybe it was crazy, but she trusted him at his word on that.
“All right,” she said, “let me have a look at your leg.”
“Like I said, I’ll live.” She heard his pants hit the floor with a soft rasp. “I don’t think it’s as bad as you might have thought.”
Tess swiveled her head to regard him over her shoulder, prepared for the sight of a ghastly open wound. But he was right, it wasn’t that bad after all. Beneath the edge of the towel that draped his groin and upper thigh, the laceration was a clean slice but not that deep at all. Not even half an inch down into the flesh of his thigh. The bleeding was tapering off, even as she looked at him.
“Well, that’s…a relief,” she said, puzzled but glad that her concern had been overblown. She shrugged. “Okay. I guess we’ll just clean it up, then, and bandage it, and you should be good as new.”
Turning back to the sink, Tess wet a cloth under the faucet and squeezed a drop of antiseptic onto the thick terry weave. She was working up the lather when she heard Dante get up and come toward her. In half a stride he was at her back, taking out the clip that held her hair in its messy knot and letting the waves tumble down around her.
“That’s better,” he said softly, slowly, something darkly sensual in his voice. “Your beautiful bare neck was driving me to distraction. As it is, all I can think of is how much I want to put my mouth on you.”
Tess’s breath caught in her throat, and for a second she wasn’t sure if she should stay rigidly still and hope he’d simply move away or if she should turn to face whatever insanity was going to pass between them again tonight.
She inched herself around in the small space between the sink and Dante’s towel-clad body. This close, the tattoos on his bare chest were mesmerizing, a flourish of geometric symbols and swirling arcs rendered in a range of hues from deep russet to gold and green to peacock blue.
“Do you like them?” he murmured, watching her gaze follow the strange, interlocking patterns and beautiful colors.
“I’ve never seen anything like them. I think they’re stunning, Dante. Are they tribal-inspired?”
He gave a vague shrug. “More of a family tradition. My father was similarly marked; so was his father before him, and all the other males of our line.”
Wow. If the men of Dante’s family looked anything like him, they must have wreaked holy havoc on the hearts of women everywhere. Recalling just how far down the tattoos went below the hem of the towel at Dante’s hips made Tess’s face flush with heat.
He merely smiled, a knowing curve of his lips.
Tess closed her eyes and worked to steady her breath, then looked to him once more as she brought the warm, wet cloth between them and dabbed at the smudged stains on his cheeks and brow. He had some drying blood on his hands too, so she swabbed it away, holding his upturned palm in her own. His fingers were large and long, dwarfing hers when he curled them around her hand.
“I like feeling you touch me, Tess. I’ve been wanting your hands on me since the first time I saw you.”
She looked up to meet his eyes, her mind flooding with memories of the night before. The whiskey-gold color of his gaze drew her in, telling her that it was going to happen again—the two of them naked, bodies joined. She was getting the definite idea that it was always going to be hot and heavy like this with him. Her core tightened at the thought, a knot of intense hunger that bloomed out from the center of her, loosening her limbs.
“Let me just…see your leg now….”
She reached down to where the edges of the