“Yeah,” Red said drawing out the word. “You two aren’t just fucking are you? Okay, well. Onyx, you don’t need the turn your head and cough check. I’m pretty sure your balls have dropped so can you…” His hand waved a bit.
Onyx snagged a pillow to cover his dick. “Topaz,” he pleaded and she walked to her closet and returned with his leg. “How did I miss you taking that?”
“I was naked,” she said as she sat next to him on the bed.
“Okay.” Red let out a sigh, his gloved hand examined Onyx’s leg, then removed a vial from his bag and drew up a needle’s worth. “I’m going to go with Cipro, because I’d rather not give you an Epi. If I’d have known you two wanted to play hostage, I would have done this instead of giving you pills.”
“Had to get her to realize I wasn’t a fuck up somehow.” Onyx swallowed back his unease. Becoming light headed at the sight of the needle he breathed out slowly and soon, had a soft hand wrapped around his.
“Give me a cheek,” Red ordered, alcohol swab in hand.
Onyx turned toward Topaz.
“You asking for permission to show Red your ass?” she questioned.
“Hey, Topaz, I’m thinking dinner’s gonna be put away soon, might want to snag the two of you a plate,” Red said.
Hurt filled her blue eyes as she protested, “But—”
“He knows what I’m going to have to do,” Red cut her off. “Let’s keep some parts of life hidden.”
“You’re lucky I love spaghetti,” she said leaving the room, but stopping at the door to glance back at him.
Warming Onyx’s heart at the care, she showed to him.
“Left ass cheek please,” Red said.
“Seriously? Can’t I get it in my arm or tap a vein?”
Red wasn’t really a man to be questioned. With a sigh, Onyx rolled to the right and he was starting to wonder if Roadkill was available when Red plunged the antibiotic with no mercy.
“Your head is just gonna have a scar,” he said. “Nothing I can do it’s been too long since the injury to do much with that. Anything else I can help with beyond that ulceration?”
Onyx rubbed his wrists, but there were no cuts, just bruising. “Maybe a rib or two, more bruised I think.”
“Since you’ve been able to continue with normal activities.” Red raised an eyebrow then glanced to the chair in the bathroom. “We can get your chair moved over here.”
“Why would we do that? I’ll just go home, once you slice me open and get that shit out of me.”
“Yeah, not gonna happen.” Red began examining Onyx’s thigh. “I’m going to drain the infection, but you’re either taking a room here or if Topaz can stand you I’m putting her on nurse duty.”
“Does she have an outfit to match?” Onyx asked as Red injected lidocaine around the ulceration. His skin had formed a film over what he could only assume was pus.
Red paused, his head tilted to the side. “If she doesn’t I believe Tempest does. I know I’ve been physically assaulted by my wife for suggesting she borrow it when we were at the bar before.”
“Ballsy.”
“Hey, she’s the one who took up nursing as a profession.” Red waited then poked around the area with his finger. Judging by the lack of a hot poker of pain shooting through his thigh, Onyx assumed the man had numbed him properly. Ripping open a few four by fours, he held them under Onyx’s stump then shifted, trying to adjust so he could slice open the wound. “You know this is easier with Roadkill or someone else holding this for me.”
“Someone hold your dick when you piss?” Onyx countered. “What about when you were in a fox hole, somewhere hot and sandy?”
“You really want me to do what I would do there on you?” Red asked, scalpel perilously close to his leg.
“Fine, call Topaz up here.”
“Tope,” he hollered.
The door opened immediately.
“Let me guess, they were all out of spaghetti?” Onyx asked the woman he couldn’t really be mad at for camping outside the door.
“No clue,” she replied and took a stack of gauze from Red as she sat next to him and used her other hand to stroke his thigh under the pillow.
“Does your Ol’ Lady do what you tell her?” Onyx asked.
“Don’t ask shit like that when I’m holding a blade,” he said angling it away as he laughed. “Jesus man, would you want a woman like that?”
“You just called me your Ol’ Lady in front of Red,” she said softly as her hand stilled.
“Doctor patient confidentiality,” Red said then sliced through the film of his ulcer, draining the fluid.
A smell of rancid meat and metals wafted up and Onyx tried to breathe through his mouth instead of his nose. Topaz didn’t faulter a moment. In a way, he knew she’d seen worse.
“Well, that answers my final question,” Red said as he cleaned out the wound, removing any dead tissue, then adding another antibiotic to the skin, this time before covering the wound. “He can stay with you then?”
“Of course.” Topaz beamed, then glanced toward her closet. “But we’re gonna need a few things from Hollywood’s. Then again, keeping you naked does make you stay in my room.”
“You want me stir crazy? I’ll end up in one of your school girl outfits getting shit tucked in my skirt as the men downstairs ask if it’s true about Scottish men and their kilts.”
“I have one that isn’t plaid,” she offered with a quirked brow. “But really we need clothes, a shower chair, and some soap that doesn’t smell of strawberries.”
“I’m kinda liking the strawberries,” Onyx said as the pillow rose a bit and the two shared a knowing look.
“Yeah, way too much fucking info on that.” Red packed up his bag. “It’s just for a few days. Your new sleeve is in the clinic. I’ll have Hollywood get your shit together and bring it out here. You good with one of us riding your bike
