Page 60 of Melt for You (Slow Burn 2)
His voice turns dry. “Do you always freak out when someone pays you a compliment?”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Oh, no? Then why did your entire body go stiff? And your eyes are rollin’ around under your eyelids. You look like you’re gettin’ electric shock therapy.” He returns to the bathroom and runs the water again, leaving me feeling exposed and vulnerable on the bed.
No one has ever told me I have beautiful skin. No one has ever told me I have beautiful anything. Well, there is Dr. Sternberg, my dentist, who always tells me how lucky I am to have such naturally straight teeth, but in the same breath he usually suggests a whitening product, so he can’t be counted.
When the mattress dips again, I crack open an eye and look at Cam. “Do you really think I have beautiful skin?”
He makes a face like I’m being an idiot. A bloody idiot, I’m sure he’d say. “You don’t even have pores.”
“But I’m so pasty.”
“Ha! You wanna see pasty, come to Scotland.”
“Oh. So that explains it.”
He looks at me warily. “I don’t know what kind of demented BS is about to leave your mouth, lass, but lemme just say this. Your skin isn’t the only beautiful thing about you. If you weren’t such a wee numpty, you’d realize what a braw bird you are.”
My other eye opens, and now I’m gazing up at him, wishing I had a translator handy. “Um . . . thanks?”
“Close your eyes,” he demands, sounding mad. “I’ve gotta get all the goop off your lashes.”
“I think you just pull those off. Be gentle—there was glue involved.”
He mutters, “Jesus.” It sounds like Jayzus and makes me giggle.
Cam carefully peels the fake eyelashes from my eyelids, making noises of disgust while he’s doing it. When he’s done with that and satisfied he’s gotten most of the goopy foundation off my skin, he says, “You didn’t eat last night, did you?”
I roll away from him onto my side and bury my face in the pillow.
His huge gust of a sigh stirs my hair. “All right, lass. I’m gonna make you somethin’ to drink, and then I’ll let you sleep.”
He rises and leaves. I don’t know how long he’s gone because I drift back to sleep, but then he’s there again, gently shaking me awake by my shoulder. I roll over to find him holding out a glass of poisonous-looking amber liquid.
“What’s that?” I ask groggily.
“Homemade hangover cure. Drink it all, sleep for a few hours, and you’ll be right as rain.”
I lift to an elbow, take the drink from his hand, and chug it, coughing at the end because it’s so vile it makes my eyes water. “What the hell is this?”
He winks at me. “Butt crack juice. Sourced fresh this mornin’.”
The faint taste of bile rises up in the back of my throat, hot and acidic. I slap my hand over my mouth.
Cam throws his head back and laughs. He takes the glass from my hand and rises from the bed, looking down at me with a huge grin. “I’ll see you later, lassie. Sweet dreams.”
I fall asleep within moments, smiling.
SIXTEEN
In green and gold and brown they’re lit,
Composed of dazzling color,
With sparks and laughter and lively wit
They move me like no other
