Chapter Four
Aiden watched as Kat picked up a tray of drinks from the bar and wound her way through the customers, noting her unusually flustered behavior.
Usually she worked her tables with an aloof grace and confidence. But at the moment, she reminded him of that kitten again. Her eyes constantly shifted, and she’d been startled more than once tonight. Her actions were classic paranoia.
The question was, was it due to what happened with Mullineaux? Or the cryptic placemat threat he suspected in fact did belong to her?
As though proving his point, she jumped when someone put a hand on her shoulder and she spilled an entire tray of tap beers. Aiden quickly made his way through the crowd, using his broad shoulders to push people to the side when they didn’t move fast enough for him. When he got there, Kat was in the middle of trying to calm a guy wearing a Skid Row T-shirt with apologies as she bent to pick up the broken pieces of glass. From the look of the guy’s pants, he’d caught the majority of the backsplash, and he was wicked pissed about it.
Aiden stepped in front of Kat and got in Skid Row’s face. “Hey, back off, buddy. It was an accident. She said she was sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to fix my pants, asshole. The dumb bitch should have been looking where she was going.”
Aiden flexed his jaw and clenched his fists at his sides. One, two, three… It was a total cliché, but counting was one of his tricks that kept him from going Hulk, smash! on every idiot who pissed him off. That, and staying stone sober. But instead of calming him, the numbers felt more like a countdown to how much longer before he gave in to his inner monster. He needed to handle this differently before that happened.
Signaling Xander to deal with the dick who was now insisting he and his friends drink free for the rest of the night, Aiden bent down to where Kat was trying to gather the broken glass onto her tray.
“You okay?” he asked by her ear.
Her body jerked and he could almost see the year of life he’d scared out of her leave her body. “Shit!” she said, dropping a large shard to the floor.
He turned her hand over to see a big cut weeping bright red on the heel of her palm. “Come with me.”
“Wait, I have to—”
“No, you don’t,” he said, yanking off his white T-shirt and wrapping it around her hand. The way it was bleeding, she’d leave a trail all the way to the office. Aiden hauled her up with an arm around her waist and ushered her toward the back, despite her protests. Before they got to the hallway leading to the business end of the place, he told one of the bar-backs to go clean the mess before anyone else got hurt. Then he took Kat into Lou’s empty office and closed the door.
“Will you please stop?” she said. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Have a seat.”
He grinned when he heard her huff in frustration while he retrieved the first-aid kit. She decided to sit on the desk instead of Lou’s chair, and he didn’t blame her. Lou was a large man, a profuse sweater, and not overly fond of showering on a daily basis. Opening the plastic case, Aiden took out all the supplies he needed and arranged them on the desk.
“Let me see your hand.”
Reluctantly, she held it up so he could unwrap his shirt. Once it was off, he tossed it in the trash. There’d be no saving it. He’d have to pay Lou for a replacement. Although, considering the only part that made it a uniform shirt was the “Lou’s Riverview” in black letters over his left pec, Aiden could just ink up one of his undershirts with a Sharpie and the old man would never know the damn difference.
He ripped open several alcohol wipes and gently cleaned the blood from her hand, starting on the outside and working his way in. He tried like hell not to notice how her knees brushed against his thighs or how her soft breaths feathered over his hand as he tended her cut.
Or how her long red hair fell like a silky curtain on either side of her face and she smelled like lilacs in the spring.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since she left in such a rush last night. Although, if he were being honest, from the first day he saw her working at Lou’s, he’d thought about her a lot more than he should. She was off-limits to him. Though she had a boyfriend, from what Aiden had observed in the month before the guy got locked up, they were about as much of a couple as Aiden and Xander.
Aiden had a feeling if he wanted to get between them, her boyfriend wouldn’t even put up a fight. Which didn’t make any fucking sense, because if Aiden had a girl like that, he’d kill anyone who tried taking her from him.
Hammer, meet nailhead.
That whole killing thing was the reason he didn’t allow himself to consider her as anything other than a coworker. Aiden only did no-strings-attached, and there was something about this mysterious woman that told him one night—or even several nights—with her would never be enough.
She sucked in a breath through clenched teeth when he carefully swiped a pad over the gash. Glancing up at her, he said, “That’s gonna need stitches.”
Before he even finished the sentence, her head shook back and forth. “No, it won’t. Just wrap it up, and it’ll knit itself back together eventually.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, that would probably work if you didn’t need to move your hand for a few weeks. But if you wanna keep working, you need stitches or you’ll open the wound every time you move your thumb.”
Her eyebrows pulled together, and she drew her full lower lip between her teeth and bit hard.
“You afraid of needles and doctors?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly, staring at the floor, her face paling beneath her peach freckles.
…
“You’ve never been to the doctor?”
The way he said dahctah would have made her smile if she wasn’t so petrified of the idea of seeing the inside of a hospital for the second time in her life. And she wasn’t about to tell him about her first visit.
She shook her head and clamped her teeth on her lower lip as pieces of her past dug their way into the forefront of her mind. It wasn’t that she’d never had any reason to go to the doctor or hospital growing up. But when your parents were the reasons you needed to go, they usually weren’t too keen on taking you and risking a visit from the local authorities.
“Okay, tell you what,” he said, lifting her chin to force her gaze to his like he’d done the night before. “I’ll get this wrapped up, and then I’ll take you to the hospital to get it taken care of properly. I’ll wait for you, take you home, and then call Xander to pick me up. That sound all right?”
Something in her stomach fluttered as his sapphire eyes searched her face for an answer. What was it about Irish that could make her feel things she never thought she’d be capable of? Was it because he was a walking contradiction?
On the outside, he looked like a pierced and tattooed-to-the-gills badass you wouldn’t want to meet in broad daylight, much less a dark alley. But if he saw her coming, he opened the door for her. If he thought she was being hassled by a customer, he stepped in. And every time he looked at her, she knew he’d never let anything hurt her as long as he was close.
“You with me, kitten?” he asked, his voice soft and deep.
Funny. He’d said something similar the night before when she’d started freaking out. Stay right here with me, kitten. At the time she’d thought it was meaningless, but now the little girl that still lived deep inside her cynical shell was sighing with starry eyes. Kat would have to be careful to keep that tiny part of herself in check.
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, okay,” she said in response to his offer.
A shallow grin told her he was satisfied with her answer, and then he got to work opening up the antibiotic ointment and setting out some sterile gauze pads.
While he played amateur doctor, she kept herself distracted by discreetly studying his body. It was amazing, but it wasn’t only due to his four-percent-body-fat physique. The man was a living canvas, covered in vibrantly colored tattoos. When he’d taken his shirt off she’d nearly lost her breath.
She’d only seen his tattoo “sleeves” up to where his work T-shirts stretched over his muscular upper arms, plus the letters between his knuckles that spelled cage on his right hand and rage on his left.
His left arm was a mural of ocean life. A lifelike octopus started at his shoulder with its tentacles swirling and reaching down his bicep. Everything from sea turtles to sea stars, from tropical fish to colorful coral filled in the rest of his arm, all the way around and down, and all surrounded by vivid blue water.
The right arm had an Asian theme with a beautiful geisha over his upper arm and a samurai warrior covering his forearm.
But the one she’d never seen before took up the majority of his chest. Centered over his sternum and spreading to cover part of each pectoral was a lotus flower in vivid greens, purples, and yellows on a background of bright blue Japanese-style waves that stretched across what remained of his chest. Above that, following the shallow arc of his collarbones and written in fancy script was what she assumed was his last name bracketed by Kelly green shamrocks.
Kat had been so lost in studying the designs—not to mention the sexy-as-hell silver barbells he had in both of his nipples, she almost flinched in surprise when he spoke.
“Does it hurt?”
Did it? Hell, yeah. But when compared to her history of injuries, this barely rated a four on the severity scale. “A little.”
He spread the last of the ointment. A dark eyebrow hitched up his forehead as he continued his nursing duties. “If either of my sisters had gotten cut like this, they’d have been screaming bloody murder.”
She shrugged her right shoulder so she wouldn’t interfere with him placing the gauze pads on her left hand. “High pain tolerance, I guess.”
His gaze landed briefly on the three-inch vertical scar that marked her below her collarbones. It was old and most people didn’t notice it. Then again, most people didn’t get as intimately close to her as Irish was now. She wished the uniform shirts weren’t V-necks that practically put the mark on display, but Lou liked the girls flashing their cleavage, and in reality the more flashing, the better the tips.
He grunted, though whether in agreement or disbelief, she wasn’t sure.
Irish held the pads in place with one hand and reached for the roll of gauze with the other. He wrapped it around her palm and wrist, securing the makeshift bandage in place.
“Feel okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Her eyes settled on his chest again as he busied himself with putting all the supplies back in the kit. “O’Brien, huh?”
Blue eyes peered through long, dark lashes for only a heartbeat before lowering to his task again. “Yeah,” he said with obvious hesitance. “You wanna even the score and tell me your real name?”
Her spine stiffened. “What makes you think Sydney isn’t my name?”
“Last night. You didn’t say, ‘I hate my name.’ You said, ‘that name.’ Plus,” he said, pinning her with a knowing look, “you have this thing every time someone uses it.”
“A thing? What thing?”
“I don’t know, like some sort of reaction. Like someone just insulted you or something.”
Great, she thought. So much for using an alias to protect her identity. Good thing she didn’t have any dreams of becoming a famous actress. Apparently she sucked at being someone else.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he offered, “I don’t think anyone believes you’re anyone other than who you claim to be.”
Right. Except him.
Oh, and Sicoli’s thugs, who were now here to kill her.
She shook her head. “No offense, but being a really observant Good Samaritan doesn’t automatically earn you my trust.” Biting her lip, she looked down at her bandaged hand and felt like she’d slapped him in the face after he so diligently tended to her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re right, it doesn’t.”
Kat jerked her head up in surprise, but he didn’t notice because he’d already turned to put the first-aid kit away.
Opening the coat closet, Irish rummaged around in a box until he emerged with one of the uniform T-shirts the coolers wore. “All right, I’m gonna go tell Xander we’re leaving,” he said, pulling the shirt on. “I saw Johnny by the pool tables. I’ll ask him to cover my shift for the rest of the night and then we can sneak out the back.”
Sneak out the back… Shit! Being so close to him shirtless had short-circuited her brain to the point she’d forgotten she was supposed to be sneaking out the back of her apartment tonight to escape Sicoli’s clutches. She didn’t have time for the hospital; she had to stick to her plan. Or a slightly modified version where she left early without Irish.
Kat nodded in feigned acquiescence and glanced from under her lashes at the locker holding her purse.
“Don’t even think about it, kitten.” Her gaze snapped up. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not letting you get outta this. If you get an infection, go septic, and die because of my shitty doctoring skills, the guilt will kill me. And you don’t wanna be responsible for my death now, do you?”
His half smile said he was joking, but his eyes were dead serious. Though he had no reason, it was obvious he felt responsible for her and didn’t trust her not to leave. Lack of trust from the opposite sex was something she was very accustomed to. She tried to ignore the disappointment that he was no different than any other man after all.
Even if his assumption was accurate.
She needed to calculate her options. If she went with him, her plan would be delayed by a few hours and would probably be more difficult, but not necessarily impossible. If she didn’t go with him, then she’d have more time to get as far away as possible before taking shelter at dawn. But, if her hand did get infected, she’d have to go to a hospital for treatment, in which case she might as well leave a trail of breadcrumbs for Sicoli to find her.
Kat hopped off the desk and crossed to where the employee lockers stood to the side of the door. She grabbed her knitted hobo purse and slung the long strap over her opposite shoulder, then tossed him her keys. Catching them in one hand, Irish studied her for a few seconds.
“What?” she asked a little testily. “Now I can’t go anywhere until you get back.”
Closing the few feet between them, he placed the keys against her un-bandaged palm and closed her fingers over them. “I’ll be back in five.”
He trusted her? Kat couldn’t remember anyone other than Nessie ever trusting her before. Staring at the keys in her hand, she felt something tighten in her chest.
“Hey, Irish?”
“Yeah?”
“If you want…” Before she could change her mind, she looked into his deep blue eyes, clutched her hope that this man could be trusted with a death grip, and bit the bullet. “You can call me Kat.”
He canted his head slightly. “As in the adult version of kitten?”
That made her smile. A little. “As in a shortened version of Katherine. With a K.”
Bringing one hand up, he stroked his thumb along her jawline for the briefest of moments. “I’ll be back in five…Kat.” Then he turned and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.