Yeah I was so out of my league.

I could do this. I could help.

I slowly unzipped his jeans, the sound turning me on way more than a simple noise should, and whispered, "I need you to lift a bit."

"'K." His voice was barely audible as he pushed against the countertop on each side and lifted his body up so I could slide the jeans off. The minute I slid them past where the shot grazed him, he swore.

"Sorry."

"Not-" he heaved. "-your fault, Mo."

"Boxers." I licked my lips.

His gaze finally met mine.

"Boxers?"

"We need to take them off."

He nodded three times before lifting himself up again. I jerked them off as quickly as possible and turned away.

The last thing I needed to be doing was attacking him with my eyes while he was injured.

"I'm ready." His deep voice ripped me to shreds, made me want to push him against the wall and demand he love me.

Demand he never leave me. Ask him to stay...

"Okay." I turned and looked.

And immediately wished I had never fallen for Tex.

Because no man would ever compare to the broken one in front of me.

My heart beat to fix him. My soul yearned to join him.

"Alright." I saluted. "Just think of me as your grumpy old nurse."

Tex eyed me up and down. "Yeah you look nothing like a grumpy old nurse. In fact, I'd probably purposely walk in the line of fire in order to get patched up by you."

My lungs were paralyzed.

Air didn't come.

Words ceased.

So I nodded as I helped him to his feet and then stepped into the shower with him, leading him to the bench and pointing the shower head towards his body.

"I feel like a child." Tex smiled wide. "Do I look helpless? Be honest, Mo. I can always tell when you're lying.

You avert your eyes and put your hands behind your back like your hiding cookies."

"I do not!" I rubbed my hands and put them behind my back without realizing it. Tex pressed his lips together and nodded his head towards me.

"Really? You don't?"

I unleashed my hands and returned his smile. "It all started with that first stolen cookie when I was six."

"Liar." Tex stretched out his legs and winced. "It started when you were five... with the piece of chocolate I told you to steal."

I gasped. "I forgot about that!"

"The girl's got a weakness for the dark side, don't you, Mo? Your grubby little hands stole Nixon's dark chocolate and then you didn't want to have to give it back, so what did you do?"

I folded my arms across my wet chest. "I ate it."

"Not it."

"I ate them."

"How many? I forget?" He chuckled.

"Ten mini candy bars and then I threw up all over my church shoes."

Still laughing Tex reached for the soap. "One of my top ten Mo moments."

"Ten?" I joked. "You have a top ten list?"

"h.e.l.l yeah I do." Tex soaped up his body but cringed when he hit the sliced skin on his leg, so I bent down and started slowly cleaning the blood away with a wash rag and the soap.

"So..."

My hands moved seamlessly across his leg. "Name a few."

"Hmm..." Tex leaned his head back against the tiled wall. "The day you wore that kick-a.s.s swimsuit."

"The white one?"

"Yeah." Tex's voice lowered. "I wanted you so badly that day but I knew it was too soon, so I waited. Good things come to those who wait they say."

"And did they?" I asked.

"Did they what?"

"Did the good things come?"

Tex was silent for a few seconds then said, "They come and go... like life."

"Another moment?" I moved to his other leg and washed up and down.

"When you smiled."

"What?"

"Each time you smile." Tex shrugged. "It's a new moment, so I always say when you smiled at least that's how I keep track in my brain. Each time you smile is a new moment so I store it and I tell myself that's my favorite one right there."

I smiled.

"See? New moment. Mind blown."

I shook my head and sucked on my bottom lip before moving the soap up his thigh and across his stomach. With a groan he closed his eyes. "Best nurse ever. We should get you a b.u.t.ton."

"A b.u.t.ton?"

"Yeah a b.u.t.ton that says number one nurse or something like that. Put it on all your clothes... good plan, right?"

"Right." I rolled my eyes and continued washing his abs. "So what's number one?"

His eyes flashed open as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

Water droplets cascaded down his square chin landing on his chiseled chest. "The day you married me."

I slid my hand down as the soap dropped to the tiled ground. "But you were so angry."

"At the circ.u.mstances,"

Tex whispered. "And maybe at you, a bit, but it was the happiest moment of my life, knowing you would never be able to run away from me-from us. Knowing that even if you broke my heart, I still had a ring on my hand saying you it was yours to break and that I probably deserved it in the first place."

My hands moved up his stomach to cup his face. "And now, now are you mad still?"

"Mo." Tex groaned as he gripped my wrists. "What do I keep telling you? I could never hate you as much as I love you."

"Still?" My lower lip trembled.

He sighed. "Still."

"And even though you're choosing blood..."

Tex sighed. "Sometimes a person does what he has to do, to protect those he values the most."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

Death makes you see things clearly...

sometimes that's not a good thing.

Tex I WOULD HAVE GIVEN d.a.m.n near anything to be at my full strength, to be able to lift Mo into my arms and whisper promises across her skin. Instead, I was so weak it would be an adventure just trying to get out of the shower. But her skin, it was so pretty, each time the water hit her, it pressed against her flesh and then receded down her face and honestly it was so distracting that I almost had to close my eyes.

"Tex?"

I released her wrists and leaned back so I could cool off. I didn't want her to know that the shower was so hot I was ready to pa.s.s out-then again it was probably because my blood was heated to dangerous levels just breathing the same steam as her. "What?"

"For what it's worth... I'm sorry."

"For what..." I repeated. "...it's worth... I'm kind of flattered you value my life as much as you do, Mo. You're the only one who would go out on a limb for me."

"Nixon would, so would Chase,"

she argued.

"No." I shook my head. "Not anymore, and the sick part is I can't blame them, I mean I have a freaking sister that I've never met and I feel possessive as h.e.l.l right now over that girl... she could be a raging lunatic and I'm still concerned that she's safe. Blood -"

"-wins." Mo cleared her throat.

"Right, I get it. So, should we wash you off?"

"I'm such a dirty boy." I said dryly, my eyebrows shooting up in good humor.

Mo suppressed her laughter with her hand and stood in front of me.

"Right, okay so I'm just going to..." She gulped. "Rinse."

"Wash, rinse, repeat," I said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Talk dirty to me, nurse."

"Keep joking like that, and I'll be sure the nurse slips and hurts the patient, capiche?"

"Physical pain I can tolerate." I chuckled and then realized what I had said, or what I'd meant by that. Beat me, slaughter me, make me bleed, but break my heart?

And you've just destroyed my reason for living.

Take away Mo?

And you've just wrecked my entire existence.

I cleared my throat. "Are we doing this or not?"

"Yeah." Mo licked her lips and positioned the shower head over my body. I closed my eyes as the warm water cleansed me of all the soap and blood-my sins, however, stayed. And wasn't that a b.i.t.c.h?

Never clean.

"Alright." Mo turned off the shower. "I'm going to grab some towels and dry you off so you don't slip."