Chapter 437
[ 496 words ]
Chapter 437:
She pushed herself to her feet, her exhaustion forgotten. She grabbed her medical pack, pulling out a sterile wipe and a roll of gauze.
“Don’t move,” she commanded. She took his arm, her touch firm and professional, and began to clean the wound.
Sterling froze. He had expected a thank you, or maybe another sarcastic comment. He hadn’t expected this. This direct, no-nonsense act of care.
He looked down at her, at the way she concentrated, her brow furrowed slightly. A strand of her hair, escaped from its tie, brushed against his chin. The sensation was electric. He felt a sudden, unfamiliar urge to pull his arm back, but he couldn’t bring himself to break the connection.
She finished wrapping the bandage, her movements quick and efficient. She looked up at him, her expression serious. “There,” she said. “Now we’re even.”
𝗥o𝗺𝘢𝗻c𝗲 𝗻𝘰𝘃𝗲𝗅𝘴 𝗼𝗇 𝗀a𝗹𝘯𝘰𝘃𝖾ls.cоm
She was trying to put them back in their separate boxes, to define their interaction as a simple transaction. A life for a wound.
Sterling looked at the clean, white bandage on his arm. A slow smile spread across his face, and this time, it reached his eyes.
“Is that what you think?” he said softly. “I don’t think so.”
Caroline didn’t want to analyze what he meant. She stood up, ready to move on, to find the next person who needed help. The work was a shield against the confusing emotions the man in front of her was stirring up.
But before she could take a step, he caught her hand. His touch was surprisingly gentle. The warmth of his skin against hers was foreign, completely different from Jarrod’s steady, grounding grip—the hand that had pulled her from a firefight, that had held hers through her mother’s illness. She felt a sharp, instinctive twist in her chest, a sudden ache of longing for that familiar touch.
She missed him. She missed him so much it was a physical pain. His gaze wasn’t on her face, but on her hands. Her bloody, scraped, dirt-caked hands.
“What about you?” he asked, his brow furrowed, the cynical mask completely gone. “You plan on saving the world with those?”
Until that moment, she hadn’t registered the pain. The adrenaline had blocked it out. But now, with his attention focused on them, a sharp, throbbing agony shot up her arms. She couldn’t stop the small hiss of pain that escaped her lips.
He looked at her, at her involuntary wince, and a strange expression crossed his face. It was a mixture of exasperation and something else, something that looked unnervingly like tenderness.
She tried to pull her hand away. “It’s none of your business.”
He tightened his grip, not painfully, but with an authority that stopped her cold. “It is now,” he said, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. “We’re a team, remember?”
Before she could protest, he guided her to a large, flat piece of rubble and made her sit. He took her medical pack, rummaged through it with a clumsy unfamiliarity, and pulled out antiseptic and bandages.
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