Free Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse) by Amity Cross

aback by his negative tone, I asked, “Why would you say that about yourself? Surely there are plenty of people who care about you.”
    Sadness flickered through his eyes, but it was so quick I almost missed it. “I don’t know a single person who’d rescue me like you did.”
    I scoffed. “It wasn’t a daring rescue.”
    “No, but you didn’t just step over me,” he shot back. “You dragged my sorry ass inside.”
    “It’s my—”
    “It’s your job,” he said thinly. “I get it.”
    This wasn’t going so well. It was my job, at least that’s how I saw it, but Josh had taken it as meaning something more. Was he that alone in the world that he saw any kindness, no matter how small, as the biggest deal in his entire life? It would explain a great deal, but I hoped it wasn’t true. Everyone should have someone even if it wasn’t romantic.
    “I’ll cut you a deal,” he declared, his tone changing.
    “A deal?” I asked slowly.
    “Don’t sound so suspicious,” he teased. “It’s simple. You tell me something about yourself, and I’ll tell you something about me. Equal measures.”
    “Equal measures?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “What’s that mean?”
    “You tell me something and I’ll tell you something back in equal weight.”
    “Is that some kind of sports metaphor?”
    He laughed, his eyes lighting up. He was so damn sexy it hurt to look at him. My gaze fell to his lips, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss them…to feel him lick—
    “So,” he prodded, breaking me out of my naughty thought pattern, “what are you going to tell me? Better be juicy .”
    The word juicy ran off his tongue and I flushed. When he laughed in triumph, I knew he was totally onto me. The man had to be psychic. Yeah, he was psychic.
    I thought for a moment and tried to formulate something that might get him to reveal something about his situation to me. I was dying to know how he’d come to be here at all.
    “In fifth grade, I got into a fight with another girl because she kept putting shaving cream in my locker,” I said, hoping he’d reciprocate. “I got tired of it, so I launched myself at her and gave her a bloody nose and a black eye. I was suspended and grounded for a week. I’m not really a fighter. That was my only foray into punching on. How about you? ”
    “I’ve been known to fight,” he said, the suspicion in his voice giving away that he was onto me.
    “If you fight, then it’s my medical opinion that you don’t anymore. At least whatever kind of fighting it was that put you here.”
    He narrowed his eyes, and I knew I was right on the money. A fight had put him here. A fight he’d consented to.
    “ Sparks ,” he said thinly.
    “I’d like to know you some,” I said. “But I’m not going to tiptoe around something that will put your health and continued use of your legs at risk just to save your pride. If you get pissed at me, then you get pissed at me.” I shrugged. “That’s the life I’m in.”
    His chest rose as he took a deep breath. He let it out in a long sigh that seemed to stretch on forever.
    “I thought you’d be a woman who dished out tough love,” he murmured, staring across the room.
    “I’m only guessing at what happened to you, but it’s that easy, Josh. One hit the wrong way and you’re out. Gone. Done and dusted.”
    “I know,” he hissed.
    Meeting his gaze, I said, “Then know I can’t condone it as a doctor.”
    He stared at me for a full minute before nodding. “Advice noted.”
    I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know he had no intention of listening to me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I could give him all the professional advice I wanted, but he had to be open to hearing it. The more I sat here staring at him like a lovesick teenager, the more I realized he was just a typical macho male.
    “So tell me something else,” he said. “Something a little less fucking depressing.”
    “I really