Page 28 of Bottles & Blades

The drying rack.

My stomach flutters, my heart rolling over in my chest.

He did my dishes.

A billionaire washed my dishes.

While I wait for my brain to explode—or maybe to avoid his question—I hurry to the cheese, to the salami, to the bread, and start putting a plate together for him.

He stands close, his spicy scent in my nose, but he doesn’t speak.

So I slap together a plate that’s not nearly as pretty as what he made for me, but he doesn’t seem to mind, taking it without hesitation when I hold it out.

Of course, that may be because he immediately sets it aside.

He drops his hand to the side of my neck, the contact light but still searing through me.

I exhale.

The rough pads of his fingertips brush lightly over my skin, raising goosebumps in their wake. The sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced—or maybe that’s not exactly right. A man has touched my throat, but only in a medical setting, and as pathetic as it sounds, no man hasevertouched me in anon-medical way.

But almost as soon as the thought runs through my mind, I know that’s not fair.

I have a few friends, a father who cares—and they’ve held me when I’m upset, hugged me when I needed it.

I’m not starved for touch.

I just…well, nothing has ever felt likethis.

It’s not needles poking, tests being run, cold stethoscopes on my skin.

And it’s not comfort that’s approaching brotherly or fatherly or friendship.

It’s…

My nerves on fire, my blood singing, my heart thudding against my rib cage, my body so critically aware of this man that it feels as though I cannot take a full breath.

“You need to eat,” I whisper.

His hand flexes on my throat, and it’s not an order that comes out of his mouth this time—something I’m coming to realize is an anomaly. This man regularly deals in orders. Or dishing them out anyway. “Will you talk to me if I do?” he asks.

“Not about that time in my life.” I surprise myself with the vehemence in my words.

He studies me closely for a long moment then nods. “Back to tit for tat for anything but that?”

Relief boils up in my belly.

He’s not going to push this.

“I don’t think we were doing that all that well to begin with.”

“How about this…” He slides his hand down my throat, resting it on my shoulder, his thumb sweeping across my collarbone, back and forth, back and forth.

Pinpricks of sensation on my skin.

Heat twining through my insides.

My bones turning to mush, but somehow I manage to gather the few threads of rational thinking I still possess in this moment. And there’s enough of them that I identify the silken thread that’s now weaved its way into his voice. It’s delicate, barely perceptible, and yet…it’s sending alarm bells blazing through me.

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