He had one hand wrapped tightly around the dog’s back leg, which was covered with what she guessed was his t-shirt, the pristine white now garishly splashed with crimson.
“Are you hurt?”
“Me? No. This is all his blood. Come on. I can’t carry him without the bandage coming loose.”
She swallowed, looking again at Ashur and Mars, standing behind him.
“Ashur, Mars, relax,” he snapped. “Carrie’s a friend. Come on, ignore them.”
The dogs remained watchful, but allowed her to approach. She knelt beside Ethan.
“What do you want me to do?”
Shirtless, he seemed even bigger than she remembered.
“Grab his back end, like this. You’re going to have to keep pressure on the wound.”
He slid one arm under the dog’s hind end, demonstrating. Gun yelped, and flailed his big head into Ethan’s cheek with an audible crack.
“Okay, buddy, settle down.” He winced and opened his mouth, working his jaw. “I know it looks scary, sweetheart, but he doesn’t mean it. I’ve got the end with the teeth anyway. You ready?”
“If you say so,” she answered. She wrapped her arms around the dog, handling the injured leg the way he’d indicated. Warm, sticky blood oozed over her hands. She could feel it dampening her jeans, and the front of her white cotton top.
Clothes were the last thing she was worried about now. This wasn’t her dog but he was important to Ethan and that overruled her fear. Carrie sensed controlled panic in every movement the man made. They had to get Gun to help, and quickly.
Ethan had the dog in a kind of headlock, his massive biceps rippling next to the dog’s ears, and he was crooning words of comfort to the beast.
Blood and muscle and glistening fangs, and easy, boy, it’s gonna be okay gentleness.
Her face was inches away from Ethan’s naked body and she could feel the heat coming off him, smell the sweat and iron and dirt on his dark skin, the fragrance of danger and excitement.
Suddenly, to Carrie, the emotion stirred up by his kiss was nothing. She felt as if she’d slipped into a rushing river, and was being sucked down by a mighty undertow that was pulling her swiftly and surely away from everything light and bright and safe, into another world where she was at the mercy of a man who could ignore his own pain for the sake of another’s.
Even the animal that had bitten him.
“Lift with your legs now, he’s a big boy.”
Carrie jostled against Ethan as they stood up, wishing she didn’t feel so lightheaded.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to get her balance. But she was knocked off kilter on several fronts, if the whole rushing-river sensation was any indication.
Ethan appeared not to have noticed the contact.
“We’ll take the truck. There’s a blanket in the back. I’ll hold, you drive. You okay with that?”
“Better that than the other way around,” she said with feeling. “Don’t you want to grab a shirt… or something?”
“No time.”
They reached the truck and Ethan opened the extended-cab door. “Help me get him up into the back.”
Still careful to maintain pressure on the wound, Carrie hoisted the dog’s hindquarters up into Ethan’s waiting arms, with their big, hot, blood-streaked muscles.
“Good.” He sat with one leg cocked, the other stretched out, the dog settled tightly against his lower abdomen. “Put the other dogs inside, then we can go.”
The dogs were hovering against Carrie’s legs, whining and panting up at Ethan, the fur at their shoulders still raised. They weren’t going to listen to her.
“Will they follow me?”
“They will if I tell them to,” he said. “Go.”
“Okay.” She looked at the dogs. “Um, come on, dogs.”
They looked between her and Ethan as if to say, you’re kidding.
“Go!” snapped Ethan. He gestured to Carrie. “Call them. Be assertive. They’ll follow.”
“Come.” She turned around and this time, both dogs fell in behind her. They each threw a backward glance at Ethan, but they followed, and when she opened the door to the house, they went across the threshold without hesitation. Mars disappeared inside, but as Carrie went to close the door, Ashur turned.