His eyes burned, from the chilies he was certain, although that had never happened to him before. Along with burning eyes his throat felt raw. He knew anyone looking at him would see the stark fear on his face. Because Siena Arnotto could tear him apart easily. Rip him to shreds. She could do what no member of his family, no enemy, no one who had tried to hurt him had done. She could annihilate him. Destroy him.

“Damn it, Siena,” he snapped. “Don’t you fucking move. And don’t touch your face. Keep your hands away from your body.”

He rushed back into the kitchen, turned off the blender, yanked open the refrigerator, dumped a sizable amount of milk and ice into a large bowl and hurried back to her. He slammed the bowl onto the table hard enough that the milk splashed over the edges. Gripping her wrists, he yanked her hands over the bowl.

“Put your hands in that,” he ordered. “You didn’t run your hands under cold water, did you?”

She nodded, biting hard on her lip in an effort to control the tears streaming down her face.

He cursed more, tipping her face up toward him, inspecting her for any places she might have touched with her hands. “Is your face burning?”

She shook her head. “Just my hands. I was careful, once I realized they were burning, not to touch my skin anywhere else.”

Dios, it could have been so much worse. The need for physical action was so great that he paced away, slammed his fist into the side of the house hard, three times.

She jumped, her hands coming out of the milk.

Instantly he was back at her side, forcing her palms into the ice-cold milk. “Fucking keep them there.”

“Stop saying the f-word at me,” she protested.

He ignored that. She had to stop crying. She had to. “Baby, what the hell were you thinking? Peppers contain capsicum. That’s used in pepper spray. You can’t get that shit on your skin, especially someone as sensitive as you. And sometimes when you blend those chilies the fumes can make you feel like you’re choking. Seriously, Siena, what the hell?”

His hands actually itched to shake her. “I left for a few hours, baby. That’s it. I come home to this. You could have really hurt yourself.” He hit the tabletop with his fist, making the milk splash around her wrists. “Fuck. Don’t you ever do something so stupid again.”

“Elijah.” She said his name. Low.

His gaze jumped to her face. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to see her tears, that just tore him up inside and the part of him that felt helpless because he fucking wasn’t there when she needed him just pissed him off.

“Go away.”

He scowled at her. “What did you just say to me?”