Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Or bought into it, as was now the case.
He glanced at the body of Broadius Rayland again. What hadn’t changed?
“A murdered aristocrat is a big problem,” he muttered aloud.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was like a museum for animal heads.
As Mayhem carried the wounded female into some kind of rustic great hall, he was under the watchful glass eyes of all kinds of taxidermied mammals. Deer, bears, bobcats, coyotes, moose—meese?—and other things with antlers he couldn’t name. Given the scents, which were nil, he gathered the gruesome decorations had been mounted up into the arching elevation years and years ago.
Given what had just happened out in the forest, the wild animal shit was a little too close for comfort.
At least there was a roaring fire in the river stone hearth that ran all the way up to the ceiling, and he laid her out on the tartan sofa closest to the warmth. Then he eased back.
The female was looking up at him with wide, dark blue eyes, and talk about needing medical attention. His heart was doing the cha-cha-cha in his ch-ch-chest, and his head was swimming like someone had swapped his brain out for Jell-O. She was just so beautiful, though. Her face was heart-shaped, her features delicate and perfect, her cheeks flushed from the cold in a way that made her seem healthy even though she was clearly in shock.
Plus he’d always had a thing for brunettes. Her long, dark hair was tied back and damp from the snow that had fallen in it. He imagined it loose and wavy, down her back—
“Where’s your first aid kit?”
“What’s your name?”
They both spoke at the same time, but he was the only one who seemed to have to take a moment to recover from hearing the other. Sure, they had traded a couple of words out in the storm, but it had been hard to catch any nuances over the din.
Here in the quiet, her voice made him feel like she had stroked his naked thigh . . .
Abruptly, what she’d said sank in. And as he considered the truthful answer, he wished he were a Bob. A Tom. Dick or Harry would also work.
Well—not a Dick. That was too close to what he was having a problem controlling even though she was injured, a stranger, and way too good for him—and yes, he was certain that last one was true without knowing anything about her.
And hey, he wouldn’t have hesitated if his given name wasn’t a descriptor that kinda fit.
Really fit perfectly, in truth.
“Call me Hemmy,” he heard himself reply.
The smile that tilted her lips amplified her beauty, sure as you could turn up the volume on an opera. “Like the engine.”
“Yeah, that’s it. How bad are you hurt—and where?”
“My hand’s the big problem.” She held up a bloody glove. “It’s really throbbing.”
“Okay, let’s get off—” He gritted his teeth. “I mean, can you take your—remove—”
“There’s a bathroom back in that hall? Could you go get a towel for me, please? I don’t want to bleed all over the sofa.”
“Absolutely.”
He was back in a jiffy, paying no attention to anything other than his mission. And after he returned, he held the towel under her glove as she took care of the hand job—
Wincing to himself, he edited that thought: As she removed her glove.
They both let out a sigh of relief. The cut between her thumb and forefinger was almost surgical, it was so clean, and though it had bled a lot, the injury was, in the manner of vampires, already starting to close.
“Thank God,” he said under his breath as he put the ruined ski glove on the fireplace’s footing and wrapped her hand in the towel. “But we’ve also got to check your ankle.”
With a nod, she lifted up her leg, cocked it around on the sofa—
No, not cocked. She moved it around on the sofa so she could inspect the ragged rips in the snow pants.
God, this was hard—
“Fuck.”
The female’s head came up with a snap at the curse. “No, no. I think all the Gore-Tex and layers stopped the bite. See?”
Oh, he was seeing things all right. Mostly how fucking ridiculous he was being.
Now was not the time to think about sex.
Pulling himself together, he said with an authority he didn’t have, “Let’s just get the boot off and check what’s going on.”
Hey, at least he hadn’t “tugged” himself together, okay? He could do this.
Shifting down the sofa, he measured the teeth marks on the snow pant leg and tried not to think about what they would look like in her smooth skin. And then when he went to pull up the bottom of the pant leg, she flinched and he froze.
“No, it’s okay.” She redid her ponytail like the wrenched-around tie had been pulling at her hair. “I was just expecting it to be painful.”