Chapter Twenty-Four

Laura

"W hat the fuck, Hawk?" Two days had passed since he returned to the clubhouse with a black right eye, a split over his left eye, and a giant slash across his back which he refused to let me treat. More than forty-eight hours had come and gone since that silent ride home and the house had been a mausoleum, silent and utterly cold.

And dammit, I knew it was my fault. I hated that he was hurt, which was probably also my fault, and was willing to let the wound fester rather than let me anywhere near him. So far, I thought as I stared at the angry red slash across his back when I arrived in the kitchen. The plan had been to make him breakfast and clear the air, but, once again, he beat me to the punch.

He turned slowly, and his lips curled into a slightly amused grin. His long hair hung messily around his broad shoulders and his green eyes were oddly void of emotion. His left hand gripped the coffee mug because a few of the knuckles on his right hand were still red and swollen. "Good morning to you too, Laura."

"No." I pointed a finger in his direction. "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?" he asked before he took another sip of coffee.

"Don't pretend like nothing is going on, that you're not angry as hell with me. Just don't." I shook my head, annoyed and angry and turned on because, good god, the man looked delicious in nothing but a pair of loose green pajama pants that matched the color of his eyes.

He normally slept naked, and somewhere in my anger, I wondered if this was his way of distancing himself from me, from us … whatever us was.

"Laura," he said in that irritated tone that men had perfected to make women feel crazy when their emotions were perfectly reasonable.

"No, fuck that. Don't you Laura me!" My eyes were wide and wild, on the verge of tears, but when he turned again to grab the coffee pot for a refill, his red scar stared back at me. "I'm sorry, okay? I apologize for letting someone get in my head about you, and I won't let it happen again. You really didn't deserve that when everything you've done has proven to me exactly who you are."

He froze with his coffee mug perched an inch from his mouth, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Be mad at me, Hawk. Hate me all you want, but I am not going to let you die of a stupid infection because you won't let me disinfect and treat your goddamn wound."

I turned abruptly and marched back to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit I knew he kept there. I'd found it a couple of weeks ago, and it had brought home the fact that his way of life was dangerous. It wasn't like a regular person first aid kid with Band-Aids and antiseptic wipes. His kit had suture material, wound packing, tourniquets, and stuff you'd normally see in the kit of a battlefield medic. I stopped and took a deep breath before I let it rush out quickly and then returned to the kitchen and pointed at the nearest chair. "Sit."

He continued to stare at me like I was some type of angry bunny, cute and mildly ferocious. He weighed his options before he pushed off the counter and took a seat facing me.

"Other way." I motioned for him to spin around and put his back to me.

"Happy?"

A low growl of anger escaped but I pushed it down and went to the sink for a warm bowl of water and a clean towel. "No, Hawk, I am not happy. I would've loved to take care of this before we got to this point, but you're a fucking baby." I patted down his wound until I was happy with how clean it was, and then I started disinfecting it. "This could've gotten infected," I grumbled.

He winced and sat a little taller. "I'm not mad at you, Laura."

"Yeah, well, you have a funny way of showing it." The man had done a damn good impression of a man who couldn't stand me.

He hissed and grunted while I cleaned the wound. It probably should have been sutured at the time, but forty-eight hours later it was healing and thankfully didn't look infected, I put on a few paper butterfly stitches just to make sure it stayed closed. "I'm not mad, but if that's what you think of me, then maybe it's better if we keep things platonic, which is damn hard to do because I want you. So fucking much that my fingertips tingle with the desire to touch you. My mouth waters to taste you and I can't. So the best thing for both of us is if we keep our distance."

His words shocked me. They were so unexpected that they were the last words I expected to fall from his lips. But as the seconds ticked by, I realized that wasn't what I wanted to hear. "If that's what you want," I said, happy he couldn't see me because it gave me time to blink away unwanted tears.

He turned abruptly, so quickly I didn't have time to put space between us, which gave me a front row seat to his angry green glare. "It's not what I want, Laura. I don't want this shit at all, but it's clear that what I want doesn't fucking matter!" He shook his head and ran a hand through his beautiful wavy locks. "I want you to trust me since I haven't given you one damn reason not to. I want you to ask me when you have doubts, not let someone who you refuse to name get in your head."

"You're right," I whispered.

"Did you ever think that maybe this person wants to make you doubt me for his or her own benefit? No." He turned away, giving me his back again. "But you don't trust me, so this is how it has to be. I'll keep you safe and I'll keep my fucking hands to myself."

I opened my mouth to argue with him, to tell him that wasn't what I wanted at all, but he was right. Even if I could convince him that I was sorry as hell, maybe I didn't deserve to have that part of him. "Fine, I'll honor your wishes."

I finished treating his wound in silence, cleaned up, and locked myself in my room for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow was a workday, and it couldn't come soon enough.