Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

C as stood under the hot spray and gritted his teeth as the water washed the dried blood out of the scrapes and gashes he’d picked up today. His hands stung, and his knee had blown up to twice the normal size.

And yet all he really wanted was to make slow passionate love to Delilah Quinn.

It was ridiculous.

He was a grown man. An elite tactical operator. The man who’d broken her heart. To think for a minute she’d be interested in starting something up with him again was nonsense.

But he’d sensed a softening in her attitude to him. In direct opposition to the hardening of his dick—even now as pain rained down on his flesh. The thought of the two of them together was enough to make all his good intentions evaporate.

Except he refused to mess this up.

He grabbed the shampoo off the shelf and hoped Quentin Savage didn’t mind him using his stuff because in his distracted state he’d left his wash kit in the bedroom.

He knew Savage from various ops and liked him and most of the negotiators. He’d hung out with Max Hawthorne, a former British Special Forces guy, a few times. Eban Winters was an old friend of Ryan Sullivan’s from childhood days. And Charlotte Blood was now a regular part of their HRT family since she’d started dating Novak. There were fundamental differences in each unit’s ethos and tactics, but the bottom line was they all wanted to resolve any crisis with as little fuss and injury as possible. If the negotiators could talk someone into giving up their weapons and hostages great. If they couldn’t, HRT was the last resort in the form of a physical assault.

Tip of the spear.

Protecting innocents was what mattered. Servare vitas —“to save lives” was their motto. Sometimes that meant standing down. And sometimes it meant fast-roping onto a building full of armed terrorists who were actively shooting back.

He rinsed the shampoo from his hair and then stared at the pristine white towels on the rack.

Shit.

He’d also forgotten to grab the towel out of his bag. Putting on wet clothes before applying salve and bandages defeated the point of getting cleaned up.

Dammit.

He couldn’t even pat his front down because his palms had opened up again and he didn’t want to stain anything.

He grabbed his dirty T-shirt as a modesty shield and opened the door into the bedroom where his go-bag sat on the bed.

Dripping wet, he breathed out a sigh of relief that the room was empty and then opened the bag wide to search for his dark gray sports towel.

A knock on the door had him whipping that sucker out and wrapping it around his hips like a whiplash as Delilah opened the door an inch.

“You decent?”

He cleared his throat. “Not exactly, but nothing you haven’t seen before.” He kept his hands low over his dick, which had a mind of its own when it came to this woman .

She opened the door wider, and her gaze ran up and down his body. “You couldn’t find a bigger towel?”

Her tone was scathing, but the flush in her cheeks told a different story. Then her eyes lowered. “Damn, Demarco, you need an icepack on that.”

It took him a moment to realize she was referring to his knee. “It’s fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll go see if they have one in the freezer.”

He used her absence to quickly drag on a pair of underwear. She was back before he could do anything else.

“Sit.”

He shook his head. Raised his weeping hands. “I don’t want to get blood on the sheets.”

Lines formed between her fine brown brows. “Turn around.”

He did so reluctantly and heard her sharp inhale.

“Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll get you bandaged up there.”

He felt a little stupid walking into the kitchen in his underwear, but if she could be blasé about the situation then so could he.

She pulled out the stool and waited until he’d sat down. “Here.”

She pressed the cold pack into his hand, so he rested it on his knee.

She dragged another stool closer. “Prop your leg up here for a minute.”

He needed both hands to raise his leg, which told him the injury was possibly worse than he’d initially thought. He hadn’t really noticed the pain until now. He’d been too busy worrying about Delilah and catching Scanlon and being part of the investigation into the bombing. He winced as he pressed the cold pack hard against the swelling.

She went behind him, and he held his breath in anticipation of her touching him. The soft drift of cotton balls floated over his skin as she cleaned him up.

He shivered .

“Are you cold? I can turn up the heating?—”

“I’m not cold.” His voice came out low and rough.

Her touch paused for a second before the cotton ball came back, wet and cold this time and sharply painful as she disinfected the wounds.

He straightened in discomfort.

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

The delicate touch of her finger wiped antibiotic cream over the wounds. “It’s stopped bleeding, but I’ll put some gauze and Band-Aids over them. You should probably sleep on your front, but you’ll need to keep the knee raised so it might not be possible.”

She paused. “I, um, discovered that the second bedroom has been turned into an office. There’s only one bed. So I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He twisted around and their eyes met. “You are not sleeping on the couch. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t sleep on a couch with all these injuries.”

They were minor. “Then I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Not happening.”

He was probably going to hell, so he decided to make it worth his while.

“So we’ll both take the bed. We’re adults. I promise I won’t invade your space.” He laughed, bitterness leaking out. “It’s not as if you’d be interested in anything I have to offer anyway, so what’s the issue?”

The idea of just sleeping beside her made him ache, not sexually, although that was a given when she was around, but the plain old-fashioned need to be close to someone who meant more to him than anyone else in the world.

A sobering thought.

She looked away, clearly unwilling to acknowledge the truth of his words. She pressed a small pad against his back and then carefully taped the edges flat. He could feel her breath on his skin as she placed large band aids on other cuts.

He thought they were done, but then she took his hands in hers and cleaned and tended each one like he was precious to her.

Emotion lodged in his throat.

He didn’t deserve her kindness.

The fact he’d never stopped loving her reared up so large it was like a flashing neon light exploding around his head.

She expertly bandaged each palm. Tied them off.

“Fine. We’ll share the bed. You’re in no condition to do anything anyway.”

His dick decided to manfully protest but thankfully, she’d turned away to clean up the mess.

“Leave that. I’ll clean up while you shower. Then we’ll both get some sleep.” His voice was gruff. He was getting to share a bed with Delilah again, something he’d thought would never happen.

He told himself it didn’t mean anything, but maybe his plan for redemption was working. All it had taken was a massive explosion and a busted knee.

She slipped away without saying anything. Cas concentrated on clearing away the blood-soaked swabs and not thinking about the night ahead. One thing for sure. He was feeling no pain.