Ping.
Gray sighed, sagging back in his chair, eyes closed.
Lori stared at those angry, red patches on his leg and thought of their dash across the Sentavian tarmac. "You were hurt running after me, weren't you?"
His lack of response was answer enough.
He'd been injured and hadn't said a word while she let him take care of her. Guilt prickled again like a mental shrapnel blast. "Could I at least finish up for you? I'm not a doctor, but I think I can handle antiseptic cream and a bandage."
His grin slid into place, a grin that stretched his too-pale face. "Sure. Who am I to turn down a little TLC?"
Lori walked to the sink and pumped antibacterial soap into her hands. Once she'd washed and dried them, along with steadying her stomach, she crossed to Gray.
He winked. "Be gentle with me."
His eyes touched on her mouth, her neck, her braless chest.
The small kitchen shrank as she realized they were inches apart, Gray in his underwear, Lori without underwear. "Can you be serious for once?"
"Nope."
The chalky pallor beneath his tanned face kept her from arguing. Of course Gray always covered his real feelings with a laugh, and right now he had to be hurting like hell.
She squeezed the ointment in long streams over his leg. Gently she skimmed her fingers over the puckered cuts. His head fell to rest against the back of his chair.
Lori smoothed the cream, covering the area he'd shaved. While she'd been indulging in silly daydreams about him in the shower, he'd been shaving his leg around shrapnel wounds. "I'm so sorry for making you run after me."
"You saved a kid. This doesn't matter."
Her fingers detoured past the shaved area to the bruise on his shinbone where she'd kicked him. His leg muscles flexed. Crisp hair rasped under the tender pads of her fingers, kindling a fire within her hot enough to waft steam off her wet hair.
Lori circled the mottled bruise. Had she really kicked him that hard the night before? "I'm especially sorry for this."
"It's nothing."
She covered the bruise with her palm as if to sear it well. "What you did for me last night wasn't noth—"
"Lori." He jerked his leg away. "Stop. It was nothing."
"Okay. Fine." His words stung like antiseptic on her already-raw emotions.
She turned her attention to his leg. His bare leg.
How easy it would be to trail her hand up his calf. The familiarity of other mornings spent in the same kitchen lured her. Her body hungered for him, like an addictive habit.
A very dangerous habit she needed to break.
Lori unrolled a patch of gauze, procrastinating until her breathing regulated again. Gray ripped pieces of tape with his teeth and passed them to her. Lori anchored the bandage, her damp hair fanning forward over his leg. His muscles flexed again.
He reached to tuck her hair behind her ear, slowly, deliberately. His eyes fell to her mouth and lingered, caressed, as powerfully as any kiss. Her breasts, aching and heavy with yearning, tightened beneath the gentle abrasion of her T-shirt.
She backed away. "How's that?"
Gray cleared his throat and swung his leg off the table. Standing, he said, "Couldn't have done it better myself."
He tugged his flight suit off the hanger and stepped into it, shrugging it over his shoulders. She watched him dress, caught in that time warp of familiarity. A quick whip of the zipper and the intimacy fell away.
She skirted past him. "Give me a second and I'll gather up my other clothes."