"You 'rescued' me from them, but you're no better. Your technique simply has more polish."
"You think … think…" he stammered. "You think I want to share this room so— Come on, lady. Do I look like I'm in any condition to have sex?"
He followed her gaze down the length of his body and realized that he did look as if he could have sex. He was shirtless, bootless, and sprawled in the center of a motel bed. His recent vivid fantasies had created a bulge behind his fly that he hoped she wouldn't notice. Immediately he fell back against the pillows with a great moan, not entirely faked, and replaced the ice pack against his eye. Waving his hand weakly, he said, "Go on. Do whatever you want. I'll be okay."
He watched through slitted eyes as she picked up her purse and headed for the door.
"All my injuries are probably external," he mumbled just as she placed her hand on the doorknob.
She turned. "You think you might have internal injuries?"
"How the hell do I know? I'm no doctor." He placed a tentative hand on his side. "I thought I felt some swelling here, but it's probably nothing. Don't let me hold you up any longer."
Putting aside her handbag, she returned to the bed and gingerly sat down on the edge of the mattress. It was difficult for Lucky to look pained rather than give in to a complacent smile. He expected her to murmur sympathetically. Instead, she said nothing.
When he turned his good eye to her, she was staring down at him skeptically. "If you're conning me—"
"I told you to leave. Go on. Get another room. If I need you, I can call you through the motel operator."
She pulled her full lower lip through her teeth several times, which caused Lucky to groan for an entirely different reason. "Where do you feel the swelling?"
She had missed her calling. She could have been a great vaudevillian straight man. She was feeding him cues to which he had terrific punch lines. Again resisting the impulse to say aloud what he was thinking, he took her hand and guided it to his side.
"Around here somewhere. Feel anything out of the ordinary?"
She probed the taut skin for several moments, working her fingers up and down his side from waist to armpit. "No. I don't think so."
"That's a relief." She withdrew her hand. "I just hope no ribs are broken," he said hastily.
"Which side?"
"Same one."
Her fingers walked up his ribs cautiously, gradually feeling their way, until they reached the hair-matted, curved muscle of his chest. It might have been the feel of his chest or of his distended nipple that caused her to pull her hand back quickly.
"You're probably just stiff and sore," she said.
You can say that again, Dovey. "Good."
"But maybe I'd better not leave you alone," she surprised him by saying.
"Oh gee, that's terrific'
"I wouldn't want your death by internal bleeding on my conscience the rest of my life."
He frowned, saying drolly, "I wouldn't be crazy about that either." Removing the dripping ice pack from his eye, he handed it to her. "I'm drowning from this thing."
She took it away, and a few minutes later brought him a replacement. "Maybe by the time this one soaks through, your eye won't hurt so bad."
"Maybe. Could I please have a glass now? I think I'm entitled to a drink."
She poured each of them one. He tossed his back. It made him cough, but the liquor spread an anesthetizing heat through his midsection that made his discomfort more bearable.
Dovey went into the bathroom to add water to her cup, then dropped in a couple of ice cubes and sipped the drink like a lady. He remembered the glass she'd poured her beer into. Classy broad, he concluded muzzily. Not pretty in the soft, cushy, baby-doll sense, but certainly striking. She would turn heads on any sidewalk in the world.
Through a mist of pain and booze, he watched her remove her jacket and drape it over the back of a chair. Just as he'd thought—high, round breasts.
Oh yes, quite a looker was Dovey. But that wasn't all. She looked like a woman who knew her own mind and wasn't afraid to speak it. Levelheaded.