Page 15 of Alone With You
“It wasn’t your socks I was trying to get off.”
She clutched her chest, still imprinted with the muscular mysteries of that solid chest. “Listen,” she said, her pulse racing, “if this is some kind of man-in-the-wilderness, sex-under-the-open-sky kind of thing, you picked the wrong girl.”
“I really got your circuits crossed, didn’t I?”
“If it’s a quick roll in thedicranoweisia cirrhatayou’re looking for,” she said, feeling more flushed by the minute, “I’m just not interested.”
“We just lit up the whole forest, Jenny.”
“It’s time to go.” She turned her back to him. At her feet lay the bag of honeysuckle blossoms she’d held in her hands before he kissed her. She must have dropped them, for the bag had burst open and now blossoms tumbled across the ground. “Once we’re home,” she said, crouching to stuff the flowers back into the sample bag, “we need to talk about the limits of this— Ouch!”
She heard the angry buzz, felt the vibration against her finger just as something pierced deep. She tumbled onto her backside and yanked her hand out of the bag, just as the body of a bumblebee fell from the stinger lodged in her skin.
She winced as the poisoned pain shot straight to her elbow, intensifying with every throb. She shook her hand in a vain effort to diffuse the pain.
A shadow fell over her as Logan crouched. “Let me see.”
“Just a sting.” She gritted her teeth. “Occupational hazard.”
“Bee stings can be serious.”
She winced an eye open, saw strained concern on his face. “It’s your fault I’m stung.”
“We both were distracted.” He turned her hand over, fully focused. “Where is it?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She yanked her hand away from him. “The pain will go away in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Sooner if you get the stinger out.”
“It’s emptied of bee venom by now.”
She cradled her aching hand as Lucas reached into his back pocket, flipped his wallet, and thumbed out a black credit card so metallically stiff it could be used to slice cheese.
Was that a platinum card?
She pulled her hand away. “Don’t.”
“C’mon, Jenny.”
“You’ll just push the stinger in farther.”
“Trust me.”
“Seriously?”
A muscle flexed in his cheek. “I won’t kiss the sting. Is that what you need to hear?”
She sighed in frustration. She was overreacting to everything today. Logan was used to kissing women senseless, but she wasn’t used to having her better sense fried. She willed her heartbeat to slow and then shoved her injured hand toward him.
“You’re not allergic, are you?” With the edge of the credit card, he probed the lump rising around the stinger.
“No.” Did he have to lean in so close? “I’ve been stung before.”
“You could still have a reaction.” His green gaze rose up to meet hers. “You are flushed.”
“The sun,” she said tightly, “is hot.”
“Any tightness in your chest?” He flicked the card across the lump and leaned in close to inspect the rising welt. “Having difficulty breathing?”
