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Then she froze, and her eyes widened.

“You’re hurt. Why didn’t you tell me you’d been hurt?”

Frowning, he looked down at himself, wondering what the draanth she was talking about. His shirt was dark enough that he hadn’t noticed the blood at first, only the sticky warmth beneath his ribs.

Ah, yeah. The draanthic with the knife.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” He tried to shrug it off. “It’s just a little nick.”

“Absolutely not.” She was on her feet already, motioning at him. “We need to get that sorted. Joe’s lot are known to use poisons.”

He opened his mouth to argue with her, but then closed it because she was already at his side, her hands on his arm as she urged him toward the doorway. A gentle touch sent shivers all across his skin.

“I’m fine,” he tried, but she shook her head.

“You’re an idiot—that’s what you are.” She snapped at him and finally managed to push him through the door into the corridor.

6

Guilt rolled through Blythe as she hurried Rann down the corridor, one hand clamped over the wound at his ribs and the other gripping his arm just above the elbow.

It was all her fault. She’d dragged him into that bloody service passage. Well…not physically. But she’d been the one to order him to accompany her to fetch spare parts for the damn ship. How was she to know that Joe had tracked them down? Then Joe’s thugs had found them, and Rann had stepped in front of her without so much as a by your leave.

She hadn’t needed his help. Well, she probably hadn’t needed his help. She could have taken all of the thugs on her own, but it would have been a lot harder, and she’d have ended up hurt. Possibly badly hurt. So yeah, she owed him one, and now he was injured—and it was all her fault.

The mesh of the corridor floor rattled under their feet as she pushed him toward Medbay.

“You need to put pressure on this here and stop the bleeding,” she snapped, grabbing his wrist and trying to shove his hand over the dark patch across his shirt. Which was when she realized that his side was absolutely solid with muscle beneath her palm. The kind of solid with muscle that said he wasn’t just fit… It felt more like there was a bloody bulkhead under his skin.

“Beautiful, I’m fine,” he chuckled.

But he didn’t stop her touching him, just watched her as she put her hands all over his side.

And that was a problem. He should have complained, started shouting something about sexual harassment, even just pulled away and told her to mind her own business… it was just a scratch. If he had, she could have gone back to being pissed off at him for making her care whether or not he bled out in the damn corridor.

Instead, he just stood there, letting her fuss over him.

“You don’t understand. This is serious,” she said.

He stopped suddenly. She’d managed to take another step before realizing that he wasn’t next to her anymore. Turning around with a sigh, she grabbed at his arm and then tried to shove at his chest with both hands.

“Come on. Medbay’s this way.”

He didn’t move. Not an inch.

He just looked down at her, amusement in his eyes, as she pushed harder.

Nothing. She hissed under her breath. It was like trying to move a parked shuttle. A big, pain in the ass and irritatingly handsome parked shuttle with stupid blue-and-green eyes and a shirt covered in blood.

He looked down at her, the corner of his lips quirking up. The breath caught in the back of her throat as she realized how bloody big he was. He had to hunch over because of the low ceiling of the cockpit, and even here in the corridor, he had to turn one shoulder slightly to avoid catching the conduit housings that ran down the walls.

If he stood face-on, he’d fill the corridor.

“Honestly, beautiful. I barely got tagged,” he said, his voice a low, deep murmur as he leaned down to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

She froze as his fingers brushed her skin, warm and rough. His gaze was intent and focused, watching her.

Which was when her brain stopped being of any use whatsoever.