Page 41 of Late Nights & Love Lines
Lick? What the what?
“Did I hit my head in the fall? How do you get that from me telling you that you’re infuriating?” I ask, but I’ve lost the bite that made it easy to keep him at bay.
“Because you keep going. If you didn’t like me, you’d simply walk away, you wouldn’t engage.” He tilts forward, resting me on his back so he can use one hand to enter a code to unlock the door. The adjustment places the bag of ice dangling from his hands on my upper thigh, and I hiss in a breath right before Lucky meows on the steps below us.
Of course that little fucker is here. Now I’m certain he’s the reason I slid into a pricker bush in the first place.
“In case you’ve missed it, Sebastian, you’re carrying me. Carrying me! I don’t have the option of walking away.”
He gently sets me down on a doctor’s table, then picks up Lucky and places him outside.
“I like our banter,” he chuckles, striding back to me with purpose. “Lie down on your belly so I can put this ice under your ankle.”
I do what he says and then grumble into my hands when I’m face down. After he positions the ice, I hear him searching through cabinets and drawers.
“How did you even get in here? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” I ask.
“I’m a silent owner of the camp, and what I’m doing is keeping you from getting an infection,” he says as if this is just another day.
He exhales, and it shifts the air at my back. He moved so stealthily I hadn’t heard him approach. “Okay, we’re going to have to lower the towel some.”
I choose to ignore the throaty tone of his voice.
Holding the towel to my chest, I lift up and undo the Velcro holding it together so it can slide down my back, then drop my face back to my folded hands.
“Could this be any more humiliating?” I groan.
His laughter catches fire in my veins. “Well, yeah. You could have them in your ass too.”
Mother forking jackoffs. I groan in answer, and his hands hover above my skin. The heat of them ghosts over my shoulder blade.
“You have them in your ass too, don’t you?” He sounds tortured, and I shudder to admit it, but he also sounds turned on, and that ignites every naughty thought I’ve ever had about this man.
“God, why me? I couldn’t get through this with a shred of dignity?” My voice doesn’t sound any less needy than his.
“I can always call Leo’s fiancée, Tabby, if you want.”
God. Did his voice drop and become even more silvery?
“No, forget it,” I mutter. “Let’s get this over with and then never, ever talk about it again.” As mortifying as this is, he’s right. My ass is on fire from sitting on it for so long in the car.
He rips open a package, and then his hands are on me, gently caressing my back with the softest touch. Then he stops, and my skin pinches as he plucks a burr out, and I hiss in a mouthful of air.
“Sorry,” he whispers, leaning so close to my ear that I shiver. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
And lord help me, but I believe him.
We’re silent as he meticulously makes his way down my spine. When he leans down to get one close to the side of my breast, I hear him swallow. It shouldn’t turn me on, but like everything else in my life right now, nothing behaves as it should.
His fingers skim the sensitive skin of my side, so close to my breast that it grows heavy with want.
Holy shit. I want this man to touch me.
I’m over thirty. I’ve had sex, but it’s usually better when I take care of things myself. A single touch has certainly never stolen my breath before.
“Sorry, I’m not trying to feel you up, I promise.”
A whoosh of air releases in a semi-choked laugh.
