I Saved the Man He Shot, So the Mob Boss Kept Me novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Tourniquet

I had his wrists behind him around the iron post of the wine rack before he understood what I was doing.

The walk-in was a stone room under the taverna, cool and dim, lined with steel shelves of bottles.

A single bulb hung over the door.

I had pulled a stretch tourniquet from my coat pocket, where one had lived since nursing school.

I looped it twice around his wrists.

"Lena," Nikos said, in the dark.

"Hold still."

"You know I can break this with one pull."

"I know," I said. "Don't."

He went quiet.

I tied the knot quick and neat, as I do at work.

I checked that two of my fingers fit under the band.

I stepped back and looked at him.

Six foot four of Nikos Galanis stood with his back against a rack of retsina.

His arms were pulled behind him, and his chest rose and fell.

He was looking at me and not at anything else in the room.

"I'm yours, then," he said, in a low voice.

"For tonight."

"For as long as you want."

I put my hands flat on his chest and felt his heart slam against my palm.

"Say that again later," I said, "when I've done something about it."

I kissed him.

It was slow and open-mouthed, and I took my time, with my hands working at the buttons of his shirt.

He tried to follow my mouth, and I pulled back.

"You're not in charge," I said.

"I'm aware."

"Tonight you hold still."

"Yes, nurse," he said, and there was a note in his voice that went straight through me.

I laughed against his throat.

I opened his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders as far as his bound arms allowed.

He was beautiful in the bulb light, broad and dark and scarred, with the gold cross lying in the hollow of his chest.

I kissed the cross, then the scar along his ribs, then down the middle of his stomach.

His muscles flinched under my lips.

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