Page 23 of Rescuing Josiah
Not giving him a chance to disagree, Chelsea took Josiah’s elbow on his good side, guided him to the couch, and then hurried off into the kitchen. Beside it was the laundry room, and under the laundry sink was the first aid kit. She grabbed it and a couple of towels, then paused in the kitchen to fill up a bowl with some water.
When she returned to the living room, she found Josiah right where she’d left him. His back was ramrod straight, and that wasn't the only thing hard and straight. His erection stood at attention, and there was no way she could tend to his wounds or have any sort of conversation with him like that.
“Okay, I can't talk to you like this,” she informed him.
“Like this?” Josiah’s brow furrowed like he had forgotten the fact that he was naked, although she had no idea how that was possible.
While his thighs were thick and muscular, his erection impressive, and she had no doubt that beneath the Kevlar he was absolutely ripped, she felt a little uncomfortable seeing him naked. Not because she wasn't wildly attracted to him, but because she was.
And he wasn't attracted to her.
Although the erection did hint otherwise.
“Can we do something about Mr. Woody?” she asked with a giggle, indicating his thick length. If she stared at it for much longer, she was going to start dreaming about how good it would feel thrusting inside her, and once she went down that path, she wouldn't be coming back.
“Oh.” Josiah looked down, shrugged, grabbed a throw blanket from the armchair beside the sofa, and tossed it over his lap. “Better?”
“Uh, yes.” Chelsea nodded, but she was still picturing that huge length of his. Already she’d had a vivid imagination, spent hours daydreaming about her and Josiah in bed together, now her dreams were going to be a whole lot more accurate. “I can't believe you came down here naked.”
Another shrug. “Wasn't even thinking about it.”
“Well, your little buddy was obviously thinking about something,” she muttered as she sat beside him and reached for his injured hand.
“You.”
“Huh?”
“You. It was thinking of you.”
Her cheeks heated in what she knew had to be one pretty major blush. “You think I'm pretty?”
“I think you're gorgeous.”
Her gaze snapped to his, needing to see if he was just messing with her.
From the way he didn't shy away from meeting her gaze, she didn't think he was.
That Josiah might be attracted to her was more than she could ever hope for. It took pretty much every bit of self-restraint she possessed not to strip off her clothes and crawl onto his lap, take him inside her, and make him fall in love with her.
Since she absolutely could not do that, Chelsea began to clean away the streaks of blood on his hand so she could assess the damage.
“Sorry I answered your phone. I didn't mean to upset you, I just didn't realize it was a big deal. I'm sorry, though, I won't do it again,” she assured him. If she’d known that it was going to make him so angry, she would have ignored the call.
The hand she wasn't working on clenched into a fist. “I'm sorry I scared you. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“I'm not afraid of you.”
“I yelled at you twice today. Once at Dr. Wood’s office, and once in the bathroom, I saw the way you looked at me after.”
There was so much recrimination in his voice that she abandoned her work of cleaning away blood, and did climb onto his lap, although she ignored the erection prodding her side. Framing his face with her hands, she feathered her fingertips across his temples.
“Look at me, Josiah.”
Somewhat reluctantly, he brought his gaze up to meet hers.
“I am not now, nor have I ever been afraid of you. I was confused in the doctor’s office because I was expecting you to think bringing along surveillance equipment was a good idea, and yet you freaked out. Is that why you were hiding from me in the gym? You were worried I was scared of you?”
He gave a slow nod.
