Read Online Lover Avenged by J. R. Ward - Free Book Online

ready. Didn’t help. When she came in contact with his wrist, as usual the current that licked up her arm landed in her heart, James Browning the damn thing until the shimmy-shimmies had her sucking back a gasp.
    With a prayer that this wouldn’t take long, she moved his arm into position for the cuff and-“Good…Lord.”
    The veins running up through the crook of his elbow were decimated from overuse, swollen, black-and-blue, as ragged as if he’d been using nails, not needles on himself.
    Her eyes shot to his. “You must be in such pain.”
    He rolled his wrist out of her grasp. “Nope. Doesn’t bother me.”
    Tough guy. Like she was surprised? “Well, I can understand why you wanted to come in to see Havers.”
    Pointedly, she reached out and rotated his arm back around, gently prodding at a red line that was traveling up his biceps, heading in the direction of his heart.
    “There are signs of infection.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    All she could do was raise her eyebrows. “You ever hear of sepsis?”
    “The indie band? Sure, but I wouldn’t think you’d have.”
    She shot him a look. “Sepsis as in an infection of the blood?”
    “Hmm, you want to lean over the desk a little and draw me a picture?” His eyes drifted down her legs. “I think I’d find that…very educational.”
    If any other male had pulled that kind of line, she’d have slapped them down until they saw stars. Unfortunately, when it was that heavenly bass voice doing the talking and that amethyst stare doing the walking, she didn’t really feel leched upon.
    She felt caressed by a lover.
    Ehlena resisted the urge to V8 her forehead. What the hell was she doing? She had a date tonight. With a nice, reasonable, civilian male who’d been nothing but nice, reasonable, and very civil.
    “I don’t have to draw you a picture.” She nodded down at his arm. “You can see for yourself right there. If you don’t treat this, it’s going to go systemic.”
    And even though he wore fine clothes like every tailor’s dream mannequin, death’s cold gray cloak would not look good on him.
    He held his arm against his tight abs. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
    Ehlena shook her head and reminded herself that she couldn’t save people from their own stupidity just because she had a white coat hanging from her shoulders and the letters RN at the end of her name. Besides, Havers was going to see that in all its gory glory when the doctor examined him.
    “Fine, but let’s take your reading on the other arm. And I’m going to have to ask you to take your shirt off. The doctor’s going to want to see how far up that infection goes.”
    Rehvenge’s mouth lifted in a smile as he reached for his top button. “You keep this up and I’ll be naked.”
    Ehlena looked away fast and wished like hell she found him sleazy. She could sure use an injection of righteous indignation to help fend him off.
    “You know, I’m not shy,” he said in that low voice of his. “You can watch if you like.”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Pity.” In a darker tone, he added, “I wouldn’t mind you watching me.”
    As the sound of silk moving against flesh rose up from the exam table, Ehlena made busywork going through his chart, double-checking things that were absolutely correct.
    It was weird. From what the other nurses had said, he didn’t pull this lothario stuff with them. In fact, he barely talked to her colleagues, and that was part of the reason they were anxious around him. With a male this big, silence read as menacing. Fact of life. And that was before you added the tat/mohawk chaser.
    “I’m ready,” he said.
    Ehlena pivoted around and kept her eyes pinned on the wall next to his head. Her peripheral vision, however, worked just fine, and it was hard not to be grateful. Rehvenge’s chest was magnificent, the skin a warm golden brown, with muscles that were defined even though his body was relaxed. On each of his pecs he had a five-pointed red