Page 41 of The Unlikely Pair
He’s watching me with intensity etched between his brows. His lips are parted slightly, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
Harry doesn’t like me touching him.
It’s weird to see Mr. Unflappable so clearly…flapped.
Is it just because he dislikes me? Or is there something else going on here?
I’m suddenly aware of how intimate this position is, kneeling before him, my face level with his thighs.
My heart thuds in my ears.
I deliberately run my hands over the top of his foot and up past his ankle. I keep my hands gentle, halfway between a touch and a caress. And even though it’s just an experiment, just asimple test to gather data, my mouth goes dry as I run my hands over Harry’s smooth alabaster skin.
I swallow hard, trying to get some moisture back into my mouth.
“Just checking for more blisters,” I manage to say.
“I think you’ll find my calves are unlikely to have blisters.” Oh fuck, I can tell he’s trying for his usual dulcet tones, but his voice definitely has a rougher edge than usual.
I lift my gaze up to his.
His blue eyes, which normally contain pure ice, have something else in them. Like there’s a storm raging among the icicles. As if Harry’s fighting a battle within himself right now.
Is Harry…?
The thought has never entered my head, but now it’s there, I can’t get it out.
He’s married to a woman. But I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He can easily be married to a woman and still be attracted to men.
That weird, unsettled feeling is back in my stomach. But now it’s sloshing around, churning with something I’m not quite ready to name.
A perverse side of me likes that Harry is finally showing some emotion. It appears experiencing a plane crash in the wilderness and being chased by armed terrorists won’t fluster Harry Matheson.
But me touching him will.
I let go of Harry’s feet and busy myself by rummaging in the first-aid kit for some dressing, my mind racing. My hands shake, and I can feel the weight of Harry’s gaze on me, heavy and intense.
An unexpected noise startles me from my endeavors.
The bark of a dog.
And any feelings I have about Harry Matheson’s reaction to me touching him is eclipsed by another, pure emotion.
Terror.
Chapter Twelve
Harry
The distant sound of a dog yapping pierces through my brain.
My instant reaction is happiness. Dogs mean people.
It also means a distraction from trying to control my reaction to Toby’s touch. Having Toby Webley kneeling at my feet, caring for me with such tenderness, evoked emotions I am unprepared to acknowledge.
But fear instantly sweeps across Toby’s face at the sound of the dogs, which causes another memory to engulf me. When I was a teenager, my grandfather invited me along on a hunt. I’d detested every second, the deafening blast of the shotguns as the pheasants took flight, the sight of the dead birds and rabbits being strung up like trophies.
And one particular memory from the hunt reverberates in my head now. The hounds with their noses pressed to the ground, using their superior sense of smell to tell us which direction the game had run.
