Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Now, if he could just turn around a little so I could see the rest of him…
That ass, though. And ass dimples. My God. Muscular thighs. Calves. Ty did not skip leg day.
“Try to keep your arm elevated,” he said, stepping under the spray.
“Right.” I stopped staring at his backside and pretended I had my shit together. My boxer briefs came off, and I tested the water in the second stall. No corn snakes lying around.
The water pressure wasn’t great, but the view made up for it. Straight above was nothing but clear skies and millions of stars.
I let out a long breath and tried to relax. Just savor the moment of where I was. No snow, no heavy traffic, no work emails.
Ty let out a whistle, getting my attention, and I saw his hand. And a soap bar.
“Oh. Thanks.” I grabbed it.
“Don’t drop it.”
I laughed, and my stomach tightened. Well, what if I did? Huh?
Maybe another time. My arm really fucking hurt now. The sting was sharper, and the pain burned its way up to my shoulder.
I made quick work of soaping up with one hand before I let the water wash it all away. Soap, sweat, grime, blood. All in all, a fantastic first day in Florida.
“How’s your arm, by the way?” After all, I wasn’t the only one who’d been injured today.
“Much better,” he replied. “The punctures are closin’.”
That was good.
When I was done in the shower, Ty had already wrapped a towel around his hips, which was tragic, and he tossed me the other towel before he grabbed his medic kit.
“The lighting will be better on the boat,” he said. “I have painkillers and booze there too.”
I couldn’t foresee a future in which I declined either of those. Bites and scratches were to be expected, but that didn’t mean I loved the aftermath. Particularly not when you had no clue what kind of bacteria the reptiles dragged around.
Getting stitched up was going to suck hard.
We went back to the boat, and my feet had just about dried when I stepped onto the deck. I followed Ty below, and he switched on the lights and turned on the table fan on the small kitchen counter. Not that it was necessary. The temperature was perfectly comfortable, inside and outside.
“You can sit down on the bed and plant your arm on the counter,” he instructed.
Yes, Sir.
I did as told and folded my legs under me on the mattress, reaching the right height to rest my arm next to the table fan. Maybe that was why he’d turned it on, to force more air onto my wound.
Ty wasted no time. He set his medic bag on the stovetop and spent the first couple of minutes cleaning the abrasions with three different solutions. One of them was to prevent infections, and it included antibiotics.
I winced when he gently brushed a cotton swab directly in the fleshy wound.
“Try to relax.” He gripped my arm and stroked his thumb over my skin in a soothing motion. “The bleeding’s stopped, so that’s good. We’re gonna let this breathe for a minute, and then I’ll close the wound.”
“This is where you offer me booze and drugs,” I said.
He flashed a quick grin and straightened up. In the closest cupboard, he pulled out a bottle of…some sort of pills. I didn’t see a label. And from the tiny freezer compartment in the fridge, he dug out a bottle of gin, of all things. He had a lemon too. Was the fridge all stocked up? I hadn’t looked.
“A gin man?”
“Gin and the kind of whiskey you sure as shit don’t use as a painkiller,” he confirmed. He quickly cut a few lemon wedges with practiced ease. “You have a couple options here.” He brought out glasses and poured two fingers for himself. “You can either take two pills and wait for the pain to fade away. You’ll feel good. A little loopy. Or you let a single pill take the worst of the edge off, and you can have a couple drinks too.” He emptied his glass in one swallow and finished with a satisfied ahhh.
I liked gin.
It was good shit too. Hendrick’s. One of my favorites.
“One of each, please,” I said.
“You got it.” He poured me a drink, a generous one, and I popped one of the pills dry. “Do you want tonic water, or do you drink it like you should?”
I chuckled. “With lemon is fine.”
“Attaboy.”
Oh, just fuck me.
He was so goddamn sexy that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
He seemed to be warming up to me too, so that helped.
After another drink, he applied a layer of lidocaine around the part that needed stitches, and I braced myself by emptying my glass. Whew. I’d feel better soon.
“What kind of painkillers are they?” I asked.