Page 40 of Love Undercover
A genuine smile peeked behind her chagrin. “Who knew wearingyourclothes would be such a turn on for you?”
He laughed to cover the way the thought unsettled him. “Not me.”
Was it some weird macho, territorial thing? Because he’d had some sort of feral reaction to seeing her in his clothes, smelling his own scent on her. Even now, a primal tug was there under his skin.
He needed to steer his mind from that line of thinking because it would derail him, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.
Remembering her ankle, he shifted to lift her and bring her back into the living room. Like before, her whole body tensed with surprise, and she clung to him like she thought he’d drop her.
“I can’t believe you can just whip me into your arms like that,” she said breathlessly. “Well, looking at you, I can. But it still shocks me every time.”
He smirked. “Not the scrawny basketball guy I was in high school.”
She tilted her head. “No, you’re not.”
Discomfort crept through him as he sensed her desire to press that topic again, to bring the conversation back to those days he’d rather forget. His reluctance to talk about it earlier would maybe deter her, but still, he decided he’d better say something to curb the possibility just in case.
“So the birth control,” he prompted, lowering her onto the couch. He tucked the pillows under her foot again and moved to the freezer for another ice pack.
She took a deep breath, and he wanted to see her face, to make sure she wasn’t still ashamed of the topic.
“There are lots of reasons.” She paused, the weight of her silence pressing against him. “But particularly because it messes with the body’s natural function. Playing with hormones, masking health issues, forcing the body to think it’s pregnant, causing weight gain, messing with mood.”
His brows lifted as he walked back to the couch. She wasn’t looking at him, and it confirmed that she was still feelingashamed of her own convictions, even though he heard the passion in her voice. Subdued, but there all the same.
“Those are all valid reasons,” he said softly, setting the ice on her ankle again.
She looked up at him, her face a little flushed, a twinkling of admiration in her eyes as she took him in. “You don’t have to be so nice about it.”
Her words, spoken mildly, made a little spot in his chest pinch. She didn’t think he was taking her seriously, and that made him angry again. Not at her, but at whoever had made her so cynical about it.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she spoke before he could: “I probably should put some more arnica on my ankle.”
He blinked, thrown off.
“Would you mind getting my purse?”
He spun on his heel, walking stiffly to where he’d tossed the bag onto the counter earlier, trying to shove the anger and confusion down. He snatched it from the island and brought it to her.
She dug around for the tube she’d produced the day before to treat his face. He hadn’t even checked it, but just feeling around the spot on his cheekbone now told him how much better it was.
There was a knowing smirk on her face as she unscrewed the lid of the arnica, and he wondered what she saw in his expression.
“Your cheek feels better, doesn’t it?”
He fought the urge to deny it. He’d already been trying to convince her that he wasn’t making fun of her or dismissing her fondness for the hippie life, but it wasn’t like he could explain the real reason behind it.
That he habitually denied help, denied that anyone or anything had an effect on him whatsoever, good or bad. Thescene not fifteen minutes before would serve as evidence that she was the exception to the rule.
So he mentally pushed out his tension, the desire to act as if nothing had happened at all, and forced his smile.
“Yeah, it does.” The smile became genuine as he took in her pleased expression. “Kind of amazing, actually.”
Her fingers rubbed the cream around her swollen ankle, and his eyes traced the pained grimace on her face. He clamped down against his desire to fix it or offer something so he didn’t feel useless.
And because it made him jittery, he went to the bedroom to retrieve the clothes she’d shucked before showering so he could put them in the washer, all the while wrestling his mind away from thoughts of her stripping them off.
15
