Page 47 of Only Mine
“I—I can’t see?—”
Before I can finish, he makes a low sound, something between a growl and a curse. Then, with a swiftness that steals my breath, he releases my hand only to scoop me up into his arms.
My scream is swallowed by the wind as I’m lifted, my body colliding with his hard, wet chest. I instinctively wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him as he strides through the tempest. I press my face against his shoulder, the scent of rain and his skin filling my senses, his heart thudding a powerful, steady rhythm beneath my ear.
Saint moves over the slick ground with surprising agility, navigating as if he could see in the dark. It’s like I weigh nothing to him, but I’m clinging to him like he’s the only fixed point in a collapsing world.
The back door of the main house bursts open under hisshoulder, and then we’re inside, the relative quiet of the kitchen a sudden, shocking contrast to the storm’s fury.
He sets me down. My legs are so embarrassingly unsteady that I lean against the closed door, gulping air. Rain drips from my hair and pools around my feet.
Saint is already moving, grabbing a thick towel from a drawer.
“Here.” He wraps it around my shoulders after I peel off my cardigan, his fingers brushing my neck again, sending another jolt through my system. “Dry off.”
“You’re soaked too,” I manage to say.
I reach for another towel, intending to hand it to him, but he’s already turning away, heading toward the living room.
“Fireplace,” he calls back. “We need light. And warmth.”
I follow, clutching the towel around me, shivering.
The kitchen is dark, but the living room is even blacker, though I can hear him moving around. A clink of metal, then the rasp of a match.
A small flame flickers to life, casting dancing shadows on his face as he kneels before the hearth, coaxing the kindling until the fire catches and pushes back the oppressive darkness.
Only after he adds more logs and the warm light illuminates him more fully do I truly see him.
Water streams down his bare chest and arms. His briefs are soaked through, molding to his muscled thighs and very toned ass. But setting aside his gorgeous, well-endowed body, I realize he hadn’t bothered with a shirt, pants, orshoesbefore running outside to find me.
Me.
That naked truth hits me with the force of another thunderclap, but this one resonates deep in my chest, a strange, warm ache.
“You didn’t even grab a shirt,” I whisper.
He hears me over the crackling fire and stops, his hand tangled in the wet hair on his head. Saint looks down, as if just noticing he’s bare-chested and dripping, and every ridge of him under his briefs is on display. “There wasn’t time.”
“You could have been struck by lightning,” I say lamely, because I’m so overwhelmed by the fact that this man ran out in a dangerous storm for me.
Saint lifts his gaze to mine before he looks away, toward the growing blaze. “The main house is renovated, but the guesthouse is old. I didn’t want you trapped in there alone.”
This entire time he hasn’t shivered, hasn’t complained. Hasn’t even paused to consider his own comfort or safety until I was wrapped in thick terrycloth and a growing sense of bewildered gratitude.
“Is Ivy okay?”
“She has a white-noise machine that rivals the sound of a pod of a thousand whales. She’s sleeping through this like a baby.”
He finally turns, grabbing another towel from a linen closet I hadn’t noticed tucked beside the fireplace. He scrubs it roughly over his hair, then his chest and arms, the movements brisk. Water still slicks his skin, gooseflesh rising on his arms despite the growing warmth from the fire.
I’m holding the spare towel I’d grabbed earlier, the one I’d almost offered him. It suddenly feels rough in my shaking hands. “Saint.”
He turns, one eyebrow raised in question.
“You’re going to catch your death.”
I pad closer, into his space. The heat from the fire warms one side of me and the chill from his wet skin cools the other. I lift the towel, my intentions clear.
