A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (6 page)

Jamie eyed him for a little while longer
before shrugging and sitting back down. “Okay, but you'd better be
grateful.”

"For what?" Ethan asked.

Jamie’s arms were crossed and one of his
ankles was over his knee. He turned away from Ethan, frowning at
the browning floral wallpaper.

He was always a little extra sexy when he
was irritated. “Jamie, for what?” Ethan asked again.

Jamie stared at him with wide eyes just
then. "Seriously? How about for dragging your ass out of there, and
then bringing you here so I could stitch you up. I've never given
stitches to anyone before in my life. It was so gross. I'm never
going to look at you the same way again."

Ethan had already figured he'd been stitched
up. He'd felt them pull as he laughed.

Ethan had planned on stitching himself with
the first aid kit in his truck. Jamie must've found it and taken
matters into his own hands. While he was grateful for the medical
care, hearing that Jamie had never stitched another person before
made Ethan want to get a look at exactly what the man had done to
him.

He lifted the blanket again and reached down
to the bandages on his chest and stomach. They were tight, but he
still managed to lift them enough to get a look at the stitch
work.

"It's not bad," he said, genuinely impressed
before looking up at the man, who still wasn't looking back at him.
"Thought you never did it before?"

Jamie shrugged. "I didn't, but I've taken
some first aid classes, and watched enough videos online, in case I
ever needed to tend to myself."

Ethan’s heart muscle actually felt like an
invisible hand had squeezed it when he heard that. Jamie said it so
casually. Of course he had expected to be injured at some point in
his life, and be unable to go to a hospital for treatment.

Ethan didn't know what to say to that, so he
turned his attention back to his wounds. Better to focus on the
physical pain, than to think of Jamie and feel his heart do more of
that painful squeezing.

He checked as much as he was able to without
stretching the bandages too much or taking them off altogether.

The stitches were neat and clean. Ethan
still winced at the mess Allison had made of his flesh. Even
without seeing it all, he could feel it. The way Allison had cut
him open was going to leave him with crooked scars, and he could
even make out a few stretch marks where she had tried to rip him
open, but didn't have the chance before Jamie intervened.

Jamie came back for him, and every time
Ethan thought about that, his throat closed.

Had the tears in his skin not been so bad,
he might've been able to heal without scarring thanks to how good
Jamie's stitch work was. That was another good quality in Jamie’s
corner.

Ethan didn't consider himself a vain type of
guy. He took care of himself and everything, but physical
appearances weren't his thing. Hell, he already had a couple of
scars from a few of the bad tussles he'd gotten into with
paranormals.

This was different. He would be scarred all
over, and none of them would be endearing or hard to notice. These
would be ugly as fuck, and visible from a hundred feet away. They
would remind him forever of that horrible experience, and how Jamie
had risked his life and freedom to come back for him.

Positive side. He was going to look on the
positive side. "It's really good. You did a really good job. Maybe
the scarring won't actually be so bad."

There. He'd done it. Positive was his middle
name.

"It looks like shit," Jamie said. He sounded
irritated. It wasn't as if he was the one who'd taken the abuse and
was going to be scarred. "Fuck, I bet any scars you have are going
to be worse now."

"They would look great if the...cuts weren't
so bad," Ethan said. He was just going to call them cuts. That word
didn't make a shiver run up his spine and vomit catch in his
throat.

Jamie didn't say anything at all for a few
minutes. Was he really that upset about it? Glee swelled up inside
of Ethan that Jamie cared enough to be upset on his behalf, even
though it was completely stupid.

"I was reading up on first aid," Jamie said
suddenly, and Ethan looked at him. The man squirmed in his seat, as
if he was so embarrassed. "I never took any official courses for it
or anything, but in theory I can do CPR, and now I have some
experience with stitches."

"Yeah, you already told me that," Ethan
said. If Jamie was trying to make Ethan feel continuously guilty
for trying to catch him and turn him in, then it was working.
Definitely working.

Jamie shook his head. His eyes flicked from
Ethan, to the brownish flower wallpaper, and back again. "It
doesn't matter. It's not the same as a real doctor. I should've
taken you to a hospital when you passed out, but I didn't. I
brought you to a motel room that doesn't even look all that clean,
and I gave you stitches in here. You should be hugely pissed off at
me. I should've..."

Jamie trailed off, like he didn't know what
else to say. The way he bit down on his lower lip and shook his
head, scowling at nothing, said enough.

The worst part about it all was that exact
look on his face. It was the kind of look someone had when they
weren't thinking nice thoughts about themselves.

"I told you not to bring me to the
hospital," Ethan said. "That was my choice."

"It doesn't matter. I still should've
brought you!" Jamie snapped. "What the hell kind of asshole am I,
that I don't bring my boyfriend to the damned hospital?"

Jamie instantly clamped his mouth shut when
he spoke those words, and his face turned a bright red.

And holy shit, Ethan couldn't blame him.
Jamie had never referred to him as a boyfriend before. They hadn't
been together long, less than a week with a couple nights of mind
blasting sex thrown in. Besides, they had fun together outside of
the bedroom too.

Still, Jamie thought of Ethan as his
boyfriend? Well, fuck, now Ethan felt like an even bigger dick for
trying to bring Jamie in.

"Why save me at all?" Ethan asked, eager to
talk about something else.

Jamie glanced at him, and his lips thinned,
as if he was trying to strengthen his resolve after an embarrassing
reveal.

Too bad for him. Ethan pressed on.
"Seriously, I want to know. Why bother? We barely know each other,
and I was chasing you down with the intent of turning you in. You
couldn't have liked me that much."

Ethan’s throat felt like it was closing
again once the words were out of his mouth.

Jamie glared at him. "No one deserves to be
tortured like that. That chick was crazy."

Ethan had to agree. "I guess she escaped
from one of the labs. There are probably already hunters and
collectors out there tracking her down."

He suddenly thought of all the extra
footprints in the area he and Jamie had left behind. Not to mention
he'd called it in that he was chasing down a paranormal.

Jamie's license plate number would be taken
for sure. Even though it would likely be assumed that Ethan had
captured and had boxed him for shipment, when he didn't get back to
Head Office, or put in a call to the collectors to pick Jamie up,
they would start looking for him. They might already be looking
just to make sure Ethan was all right. Head Office did check in
with hunters when paths crossed like that, after all.

He couldn't let them find Jamie.

"What did you do with my truck?" he
asked.

"It's parked outside. Why?"

"That's not a safe place for it," Ethan
said. "When it gets out that I'm missing, other hunters will start
looking for it. They could scan the license plate and know it
belongs to me. They'll wonder why I'm out of the city and parked in
a motel lot."

"Okay, I'll go and park it in the back,"
Jamie said. "I'm pretty sure I saw a bunch of trees and shrubs
where I can hide it."

That was enough to make Ethan relax, though
not too much.

Jamie didn't move, however. He stared at
Ethan with those intense blue eyes, the color of shimmering snow in
the night. “Would you have...?" Jamie didn't finish.

Ethan was curious. "Would I what? Have gone
to save you?" Or turned him in?

He hoped the question was the former one,
because Ethan didn't want to be honest about what he would've done
if Jamie asked the latter.

Jamie was doing that thing he did when he
tried not to look at Ethan, but then couldn't help it so there were
a lot of sideways glances. "Just forget it."

Ethan sighed. He couldn’t forget it. "I
would've gone after you," he said. "I wouldn't let anyone hurt you,
Jamie. Not even a chick with scary, crazy, flesh-ripping
powers."

He was fairly lucky that the only thing
wrong with him at this point was that he'd lost some blood and got
queasy. He'd never hunted down someone who could control flesh like
that. It was a strange and rare power, also incredibly painful. It
took a lot for someone with flesh manipulation abilities to be able
to kill another person, but that was the horrifying thing about it.
It was supposed to be like experiencing the death by a thousand
cuts.

Ethan would recover soon enough. His limbs
already didn't feel so stiff.

"If she hadn't been caught and taken in, in
the first place, she might not have been so out of her mind."

What the hell?
“You’re actually defending her?”

Jamie didn’t look at him. Or maybe he
couldn’t. “It’s true,” he muttered.

"You don't know that," Ethan said. "She
could've been killing people long before she went to the labs.
Paranormals aren't usually picked up unless they draw attention to
themselves. That's how we find them."

Jamie said nothing.

"I'm serious. I can't just look at a person
and tell they have powers. I can't look at you and see that you'll
electrocute me if I shake your hand. You have to do something
before someone can report it. That's when we do the pick-ups."

"I wouldn't electrocute you," Jamie said
sullenly.

"You wouldn't?" Ethan asked.

Jamie glared at him. "No!"

"I didn't mean on purpose. You did suck the
power out of a couple city blocks."

"That's different," Jamie said. "When I get
nervous and antsy, sometimes it can be harder to control, but for
the most part I'm all right. I end up sucking up energy without
meaning to instead of just letting it loose. I can hold it back for
a long time."

Jamie looked to the nightstand. There was an
electric clock on it, and it was still on. The big red letters
stated it was one in the afternoon.

"I guess you're not nervous or scared
now."

Jamie shook his head. "You should've seen me
when I brought you in here. The power flickered a little. I had to
relax before I started stitching you." He lifted his hand just
then, and Ethan got a good look at that glowing, white-blue energy
sparking from his fingertips. It looked like tiny bolts of
electricity that waved in random patterns, like in one of those
round lightning lamps.

That was the same stuff Jamie had launched
at Allison and the two paranormals with her, scaring them away even
though they'd had Ethan's weapons. "I'm better at controlling it
than I used to be. It takes a lot to scare me into having a
reaction like that nowadays."

Ethan tried not to read too deeply into
that, but it was impossible. With what Jamie had just said about
draining the power in the motel, Ethan could take that to mean that
the man really did care about him. A lot.

"What had you so scared that you had such a
bad reaction in the city? Was there another hunter after you?"

Jamie lowered his hand and shook his head.
"No, I couldn't get a hold of a friend. That's all I'm going to say
about that, but I really wouldn't hurt you. I've touched you enough
for you to know that."

"I know," Ethan replied. He thought of the
times Jamie had touched him, and how he’d looked forward to more of
those touches. The light roughness of his hands always brought a
shiver to his spine when they came into contact with the sensitive
flesh of his cock.

Jamie had also touched Ethan with his tongue
many times, always warm and wet, sliding over Ethan’s abs. Jamie’s
hands against Ethan’s thighs, fingertips barely touching Ethan’s
skin as they traveled to his cock. Each fingertip a separate
sensation of its own, leaving a trail of goose-bumps in their wake
before his hands would cup Ethan’s balls, stroking him to insane
pleasurable heights.

Just thinking about it was
enough to make Ethan’s prick stir. Jamie was very good at putting a
smile on Ethan’s face with his touch. Fuck if he wasn’t missing
that,
aching
for
it, right about now.

"I still had to go after you. When I
realized what you were doing—"

"I know what I was doing. It was an
accident, all right?" Jamie snapped. "I didn't mean to drain power
like that, but you don't have to put people in shackles and then
send them off to labs to be studied."

Jamie was getting angry now. There wasn't
electricity sparking from his skin or anything, but his eyes were
hard and his nostrils flared. Ethan knew the reason why.

"I'm sorry it was such a shock that I'm a
hunter."

It must’ve seemed like such a betrayal.
Ethan could just imagine how Jamie had felt. Ethan had been pretty
stunned himself when he'd found out Jamie's little secret.

Jamie snorted. "Yeah, well, it was more of a
shock that you would try and chase me down. I thought you...I don't
know. I thought you liked me better than that."

Sucker punch me in the gut
and rip my heart out.
Jamie was proving to
be good at that.

Ethan had liked him. So much. And then it
turned out that Jamie was the type of man who wouldn't even leave
someone behind to be tortured and maybe even killed by other angry
paranormals. Jamie was also really good at making Ethan feel like
an asshole. "I have to bring in anyone I recognize as paranormal,
but I try not to do it all the time. I only go after the ones with
outstanding warrants," he said, and Jamie stared at him as if he'd
been slapped. Ethan had to be quick about this. "It wasn't that I
wanted to bring you in, but with what happened in the city, I
thought I had to."