Page 22 of Restored By the Mountain Man
"I'm coming over. Pull your pants up."
I struggle to get my pajama pants back in place, my heart hammering with a combination of panic and mortification. "This is so not how I imagined this business trip going."
Ezra appears beside me with the flashlight. "Where exactly did it bite you?"
"My left... cheek." I can barely get the words out. "It really burns."
"I need to see it."
"You need to what now?"
His voice is gentle but serious. "Zoe, if it's venomous, we need to know. And if there's a stinger, it needs to come out."
I stand there in the darkness, weighing my options. Risk of venom versus the humiliation of letting my boss examine my backside.
The burning sensation decides for me.
"Fine," I say through gritted teeth. "But this never happened. We never speak of this again."
"Agreed."
I turn around and with hands shaking from embarrassment, lower my pajama pants just enough to expose the affected area. "Do you see anything?"
Ezra crouches behind me, the flashlight beam illuminating what I'm sure is the most mortifying moment of my life.
"I don't see any obvious bite marks," he says, his voice professional. Clinical. "But there's some redness. Hold still."
I feel his fingers, surprisingly gentle, probing the area around the irritation. His touch is careful, methodical, and completely impersonal. But my body doesn't seem to understand that.
Heat races through me. His hands are warm against my skin and suddenly I'm fully aware of how close he is, how intimate this position is despite the circumstances.
"I think it was just a plant irritation," he says, and I can feel his breath against my skin. "Maybe some kind of nettle or?—"
I bolt upright, yanking my pants back into place. "Great! Thanks! All better! Let's go back!"
"Zoe, wait?—"
But I'm already power walking back toward the RV, my face burning with embarrassment and something else I don't want to analyze. Behind me, I hear Ezra following at a more measured pace.
I practically throw myself into the RV and dive for the bedroom, but stop short when I remember we're sharing the bed. The pillow barrier lies in shambles, half the pillows on the floor from my earlier escape.
A few seconds later, I hear him enter the RV. I'm standing frozen beside the bed, suddenly unable to decide what to do.
"Zoe?" His voice is soft from the doorway. "You okay?"
"Fine!" I call back, my voice pitched too high. "Just... rearranging the pillows."
I hastily rebuild the barrier, my hands shaking slightly. When I finally climb back into bed, Ezra appears in the doorway.
We stare at each other across the pillow wall, and suddenly the absurdity of the situation hits me. Here we are, two professional adults, building a pillow fort to avoid acknowledging the attraction crackling between us.
"Good night," I whisper.
"Good night."
I lie in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, replaying every second of what just happened. The gentle way he touched me. The concern in his voice. The fact that he saw my ass — oh myGod, he was stooping so he may have seen way more than that — but he somehow made it feel less mortifying than it should have.
And the way my body responded to his touch, even in the midst of my panic.
