He glanced at the door again. Still no one. He could and had saved a man’s life during the heat of battle. Had tightened a tourniquet with one hand while laying down cover fire to keep the enemy at bay with the other hand.
But this bedside shit? Yeah, not his area of expertise or his comfort zone.
A cup filled with ice chips on the table next to her bed caught his eye.
Was she allowed the ice chips? She must be. Why else would they be there otherwise? And why didn’t they give him instructions on what to do—and not do—when she woke up?
Poor planning on their part had created a bad situation for him to be in.
Fuck it. He was going to make the best decision he could and give her the damn ice chips.
The hospital staff shouldn’t have put ice in the room if she wasn’t allowed to have any. And they also should be here when she woke up.
He was sure she had paid a butt load of money for this room. You wouldn’t know it by the lack of personal attention.
Annoyed and hoping he wasn’t going to cause her harm, he took a couple of stilted steps toward the table, then reached to hand the cup of ice to her.
One look told him she was too out of it and weak to hold the cup herself.
There was a plastic spoon stuck in the ice. For lack of any better ideas, he scooped up some chips and brought them to her mouth.
She parted her plump pink lips and he slipped the spoon inside.
Fuck. Why did spoon-feeding this woman feel so intimate?
This was bad.
He glanced toward the door. Still no help there.
Maybe he should summon help. Get a nurse in here to do this so he could get a hold of himself and his whacky libido.
He glanced around for the call button that must be there somewhere.
“More.” Her single weak word had him feeling guilty.
He was a big boy. He could do this. It was no big deal. He was just helping her eat some ice…while trying to avoid sporting a full-blown hard-on.
One more time he slipped the spoon between her lips…and imagined sliding something else into her hot, wet mouth.
Christ. He was a horrible person.
The tip of her tongue came out as she licked her dry lips and he nearly groaned.
“Fuck.”
Her eyes turned toward him.
Uh-oh. He’d said the word aloud. And now he had to explain why—without letting her know he was turned on by feeding her. “I, uh, don’t know where your doctors are. I don’t even know if you’re allowed to have this ice.”
“I am,” she said, sounding slightly less raspy.
“And how do you know that? You have a medical degree I don’t know about?” he asked, trying to make a joke.
The best he could do was retreat to his comfort zone. And that was with him clearly on one side of the battle line and her on the other, separated by smart-ass comments.
“I read the post-op instructions,” she said, sounding a tad bit stronger.
Of course, she had. As much as he’d wanted his knee-jerk assumption that she was as vapid and brainless as she was beautiful to be valid, he didn’t think she was.
During the twenty-four hours they’d been together, nearly every waking moment she’d had her nose in her notebook furiously writing something.
He’d expected her to be a party girl. That she was the studious type meant he was a jerk for making assumptions.
She frowned. “Where’s Dan?”
“They only allowed one of us in here.”
Her frown deepened and he knew why.
He didn’t make her ask the obvious question. “I told him it should be him. But he said he wanted me in here to guard you.”
She drew in a shallow breath. “He’s an ass.”
Her comment took him by surprise. A laugh escaped him and he ran a hand over his mouth to erase the smile there. “Sorry.”
She shook her head and barely lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
That drew her attention to the masses of bandages and gauze that swaddled her chest beneath the hospital gown.
She tipped her head to stare down. When her gaze came back up, he saw the tears glistening in them.
“Hey. You okay? Are you in pain? I can get somebody.”
He was half turned toward the door when she said, “No. I’m fine.”
“No offense, but you don’t look fine. I mean actually, you look great, considering. But emotionally you look kind of… upset.”
What the hell was wrong with him? Apparently, his bedside manners sucked.
Thank goodness SEALs usually didn’t have to worry too much about holding up their end of a conversation. But it was a good thing he hadn’t chosen to become a doctor.
A teary laugh escaped her. “It’s just… a lot.”
“Yeah. I mean I never knew getting breast implants was so involved. Who knew it was major surgery, right?” Shit. He was babbling.
At that moment, her actual doctor walked through the door. “Luna’s surgery was a little more involved than most, but I think it was a smart choice to have the reconstruction done at the same time as the double mastectomy. How are you feeling, Luna?”
Double mastectomy.
That bombshell blew Kyle’s mind, as well as blowing his obviously incorrect assumptions about her operation completely out of the water.
The female surgeon asked a few questions. Luna answered. Then the doctor was gone.
After she had left, Kyle sat and leaned forward in the chair.
Now that he knew this was not a simple boob job, not her grasping at some insane ideal of perfection, he had an apology to make.
“Luna. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had cancer.”
“I don’t.”
He frowned. “But—”
“It was preemptive surgery.” She drew in a breath and winced before continuing, “Breast cancer killed my mom. Now her sister has it. I got tested. I have the cancer gene mutation. I wasn’t going to wait around for it to hit me too. So, I had the surgery.”
“Wow.” That was all he could come up with to say in response to this woman who had just made probably the hardest decision of her life.
She’d taken control of her future. And that took guts.
It was clear he was going to have to reevaluate all of his opinions about Luna Blue. He supposed the days and nights he’d be camped out by her bedside in the hospital was as good a time as any to do that.
“You think I was stupid, don’t you?” she asked.
“No.” His gaze met hers. “I think you might be the bravest person I know.”
He could tell what he’d said had shocked her. She watched him for a second looking baffled before she said, “Thanks.”
eleven
Muscles bulged and flexed beneath the shirt’s short sleeves as Kyle swiped the screen of the cell phone in his hand.
Luna swallowed hard and forced her focus off him and back to her notebook. The lyrics weren’t coming today. And for that she blamed Kyle Jones, barely ten feet from her, looking like any woman’s dream.
And why was that? Why was he so distractingly attractive?
He wasn’t shirtless or anything.
His khaki cargo pants and black collared shirt were perfectly respectable for a man in his profession—a bodyguard for a home bound woman who had no intention of seeing anyone. That included deliverymen.