“Would you stop squirming? Do I need to tie you down?”

I snorted at Manson’s suggestion, forcing myself to sit still on the edge of his tub. My adrenaline from the fight had calmed, and I finally felt like I could get some sleep. But Manson wouldn’t stop fussing over my busted lip and swelling nose.

It really wasn’t a big deal. I doubted my nose was broken, and if it was? It wouldn’t be the first time.

But it was a big deal to Manson and this was his effort at apologizing without saying it. If he apologized out loud, I’d reject it because he had nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t his damn responsibility to protect me.

“You better not feel guilty,” I said, my movement making him fix me with another glare before he went back to cleaning up my lip. It needed stitches, but I couldn’t be bothered with all that. Wounds healed. Maybe they’d scar and be ugly in the end, but I didn’t care. “Nothing that happened tonight was your fault, so don’t dwell on it.”

His eyes narrowed even more. “Yeah, except I had a feeling shit would go south. I should’ve —”

I grabbed his wrist, yanking his hand down from my face. “Stop. Fucking stop beating yourself up about it. Getting punched in the face is nothing new for me. In the grand scheme of things, this was a damn good evening.”

He didn’t look convinced. “How do you figure?”

“No one got shot,” I said. “No one got stabbed. I’m not in the hospital.” I shrugged. “Sure sounds like a successful night to me.”

He shook his head, yanking his wrist out of my hold. Jojo and Haribo were barking downstairs, probably needing to go outside again. Manson started dabbing something that smelled nasty on my face, and I tried my best to sit still for him.

“You’ve still got blood on your teeth,” he said.

“You like it. Looks sexy, right?”

That finally got a little grin out of him. Maybe I wasn’t ready for sleep yet. Maybe I needed to let off a little pent-up energy first, especially considering things had gotten hot and heavy with Jess before I abruptly cut her off.

“You better be careful looking at me like that,” Manson said. He had one hand on the side of my jaw to keep my head steady, and his hold grew a little tighter. “Unless one punch in the face wasn’t enough pain for you.”

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. That was part of why he and I got along so well, part of why we meshed both at work and in the bedroom. Exploring the edges of what I was capable of enduring was something I trusted him with, but only him.