Page 32 of Wildest Dreams

“Yeah? What’re you working on? Sanding your bones?”

He glances away from me for a good five seconds and then, like an obsessive psycho, looks back at my knees again.

“You got any Band-Aids?” he asks.

“I don’t need Band-Aids,” I reply.

He exhales hard, biceps flexing. “Aisling, you’re bleeding.”

I glance down at my knees. I am in fact bleeding.

I re-cross my legs in the opposite direction to him, so that he can’t see.

He breathes out a humourless laugh and shoves himself to his feet. Then he hauls me up with him.

“Uh, what the hell do you think that you’re doing?” I whisper as he starts pulling me silently towards his cabin. Then I spot a third burger baggie beside where he was sitting and I stare at it with my jaw on the floor. “Were you about to eat a third burger?” I ask. His giant hand grips surprisingly gently around my elbow.

He snickers and flicks his eyes down to mine. “Baby, I was already on burger number two before your little ass came struttin’ over here. That’s burger number five.”

I blink up at him, speechless, and he stares down at me, hungrier than ever.

He shoulder-shoves his cabin door open and stabs a finger toward his bed.

“Sit there. I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

My eyes almost roll out of my head. “There’s not a chance in hell that I’m going anywhere near your bed.”

“Yeah?” he asks absently as he yanks open a wooden cupboard in the small back bathroom. “Caught you eyeing it up pretty friendly yesterday morning.”

I shuffle a little, resisting the urge to give the soft quilt cover a little scrunch.

“That was because I thought that you’d vacated the premises,” I say, swallowing hard to try and choke down the lie.

“You’d miss me,” he says, his voice seductively deep.

I shove five French fries in my mouth and mumble, “In your dreams.”

He smirks as he moves in front of me, red first aid kit in his big fist.

“You do more than just miss me in my dreams,” he drawls.

Then he drops down to his knees.

“W-what are you doing?” I say nervously, stumbling backwards.

His cheeks are red, eyes refusing to meet mine as he searches quickly for some saline. “Gonna fix up your knees,” he mumbles, his breathing a little heavy.

He looks up at me from his position on the wooden floor, haunches spread and shoulders heaving. My heart beats wildly in my chest at the amount of adoration in his eyes.

I shake my head quickly and wheeze out, “N-no, that’s okay. I’ll do it myself.”

“Aisling,” he rasps.

“Tanner, we shouldn’t–”

“Baby–”

A ringing sound makes me jump, and we quickly glance at his bed in confusion.

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