The wound wasn’t deep; it had just been rinsed with ice water and the bleeding had stopped, but Adam Jones wasn’t reassured and pulled her towards the living room.
Elly Campbell was still thinking about the images that had flashed through her mind a moment ago and didn’t notice anything else, allowing Adam to lead her to the living room to sit down.
It wasn’t until the sting of the iodine on the wound that she was jolted back from the blood-boiling images in her head.
At some point, Adam had fetched the first-aid kit and was now half-kneeling on one knee, cleaning her wound.
From her angle, Adam’s features were so flawless that she couldn’t find a single fault to pick at.
Back then, she decided she wanted to marry him at first sight, probably because of his face—she must have been smitten by his looks.
Brother, will you marry me?
Suddenly, her own voice popped into her head, not the childish tone of her youth, but her current voice.
This realization shook Elly so hard that her hand, held by Adam, trembled violently, causing Adam to lift his head and look at her, "Did that hurt you?"
His voice was gentle, and his gaze impossibly tender, yet his question, filled with implicit meaning combined with the images flashing in Elly’s mind, made her feel like her entire body was on fire.
"No... no, it didn’t."
Her face burned red as she shook her head in a fluster, and only then did Adam notice her severely blushing face and her gaze flickering chaotically.
Seeing her evasive eyes and cheeks as red as ripened apples, Adam seemed to guess something as a smile quickly spread across his eyes.
He took a band-aid and applied it to her wound. As Elly prepared to withdraw her hand, Adam caught her wrist.
The pads of his fingers teasingly rubbed against her wrist, seemingly oblivious to her increasingly rigid body, and he whispered, "What are you thinking about to make your face so red?"
Feeling as if Adam had seen through her thoughts, Elly sprang up from the sofa, and her hand swiftly pulled away from Adam’s grasp as she scrambled to explain:
"What am I thinking? I’m not thinking anything!"
Her voice rose a few notches, nervously and involuntarily.
Watching her defensive reaction, Adam’s eyes dipped to suppress a smile, his lips pursed. Looking up at her, he asked, "Then why is your face so red?"
"It’s from the pain!"
She stood up in a mix of annoyance and embarrassment and walked toward the kitchen, but Adam pulled her back from behind, making her sit on the sofa.
"Your hand is injured, I’ll wash up."
"Isn’t your hand injured too?"
Elly reflexively retorted, and after realizing it might have come out wrong, was about to explain herself when she heard Adam chuckle softly, his gaze lowered toward her:
"Are you worried about me?"
Elly kicked out at the hollow of his knee in frustration, and Adam didn’t move out of the way, taking her kick squarely. His knee bent and he deliberately fell towards her.
Instinctively, Elly reached out to steady him, but the next second, she found herself in Adam’s arms.
"There, don’t be angry. I’ll handle the rough work," he said.
Before Elly could explode, he swiftly let her go and turned to walk to the kitchen.
Elly watched his retreating figure enter the kitchen, her face a stern mask. She certainly wasn’t going to follow him and instead turned to take a seat on the sofa.