Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Savannah
Thayer Gerard is kneeling in front of me.
Touching me.
Sure, he’s doctoring my wounds, and he’s trying his best to take care of me, but I can’t stop my mind from reeling.
Minutes ago, I came here gasping in fear. I was sure that the men who murdered that cop followed me. I snuck around the city trying to find something that would help me find my way here, to the only friends I have.
And now… the man who’s the epicenter of every damn fantasy I’ve had in months is here.
Touching me.
Okay, so he’s not exactly touching me in the way I’ve imagined, but right now, his hands—those strong, masculine, capable hands of his—are cradling my injured leg.
“How did you get this injury?”
“It’s just a scrape,” I tell him, trying to ignore the way I shake when he touches me. “I wouldn’t exactly say it’s an injury.”
A sharp look makes me snap my mouth shut.
Okay, it’s an injury.
“I fell when I was running,” I tell him truthfully. Running for my life, convinced I was being followed, determined to survive.
“You ripped both knees and tore up your hands from one fall?”
I look down. For some reason, I’m ashamed, like I’m a clumsy child.
“It was… a few times,” I say honestly. I look away. My cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“Savannah.”
I’ve never heard his voice so gentle, yet he still holds the command of a man that’s used to getting his way. I don’t know what he does for work, but I would imagine it has literally nothing to do with doing what anyone else tells him to do.
“Yes?” I whisper.
He smells so good. All virile and masculine. I’m not sure if it’s aftershave or bodywash or cologne, but I want to continue to sit here just so I can inhale deep lungfuls of him.
When he cradles my injured leg, he flicks away the fabric from the wound with his thumb. A thread gets caught in the torn shreds of my skin. I gasp and draw in a quick breath at the sudden sharp stab of pain.
“You’ve got bits of fabric embedded in the skin,” he says with a scowl.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure why.
He looks back up at me. “Savannah,” he says sternly, that scowl between his brows making my heart go pitter-patter. There’s my name again. My mind somehow short-circuits when he says my name.
Goddammit, I need to get a grip.
“Do not apologize. You were not the one who caused this.” I have the strange and sudden desire to say yes, sir.
“You look angry.”
Still holding my leg, his dark blue gaze meets mine. “I’m fucking furious, but not at you.”
I nod and swallow, unsure of how to respond. I’ve never heard him string together so many words at once. He’s a man of few words, dark and mysterious, and sometimes brooding.
We don’t speak again while he treats my wounds.
I’m caught halfway between observing every detail of my interaction with Thayer—he’s touching me—and reliving the shocking events of the night.
Someone’s life was taken tonight. Someone who woke up this morning and likely ate breakfast with his family and fully anticipated coming home this evening, lies cold and lifeless.
He was a man of the law. A uniformed officer.
Someone who dedicated his life to justice, who provided safety to the vulnerable.
And now he’s dead.
That quickly. One minute he was breathing, his heart beating, his body alive and vibrant. The next… he was gone.
I didn’t even know him, yet I still feel a sudden rush of tears.
“Did that hurt?” Thayer’s dark eyebrows knit in concern.
“Did what hurt?” I ask stupidly, my mind still turning over the details of a life taken so suddenly.
Thayer blinks. “The antiseptic.” I look down to see my jeans damp with some kind of liquid he’s clumsily poured over my wound. Nothing about Thayer is haphazard, so I’m surprised to see he spilled it at all. He’s usually such a perfectionist.
“Here, let me. I can do it,” I say, reaching for the cotton pad and small bottle of antiseptic. The slanting frown between his brows tells me that’s not an option and he pauses only long enough to give me a cold, hard stare.
The collar of his shirt is open at the neck, revealing a hint of dark curls. I shiver and turn away, aware that I am having very inappropriate thoughts about a man who might as well be my brother.
My very much older brother, I remind myself.
But while he dabs the liquid on another clean cotton pad, I lean down to look at my injuries. He smells like fresh air, pine, and cedar with a little spice.
I realize he’s talking to me.
“What?” I say, pretending that I’m not indulging in schoolgirl fantasies but maybe I’m a little traumatized.
I begin to shake when I remember what happened again. I close my eyes against a rush of anxiety that sends nausea swirling in my belly. I swallow and look at him.
“I said,” he begins, holding my gaze for a little too long. I squirm. “It would be a lot easier to tend to these wounds if you removed your pants.”
I blink as if I don’t understand him.
“Is that the best pick-up line you could muster?”
I can’t believe I just said that.
He narrows his eyes at me.
“Okay, so yeah, it probably would help, but I’m not crazy about… about removing my clothing,” I say in a whisper. I look wildly around the room for something that will get me out of this situation, because I am so not taking off my pants in the middle of the Gerard family living room.
His eyes are trained on me, narrowed.
“Maybe we need to remove the bits of gravel embedded in your flesh,” he chides. I wince at his scalding tone.
I nod.
Right.
Yes.
I should… remove my pants.
I reach for the button at my belly and flinch when I clench my hands. Good God, that hurts.
“Here,” he says in a harsh whisper. “Let me.”
And then his hands are on my waist and he’s lifting me to stand.
“I’m going to hell for this,” he says as he meets my eyes. “Just so we’re clear.”
“It’s a strange, harsh world you live in that you think doctoring someone’s wounds would send you to hell,” I whisper.
But his hands are at my waist and he’s expertly unfastening my pants.
Pushing them down my hips. Lowering them past my knees one by one, gently, making sure the fabric doesn’t scrape against my wounds.
“That’s not the part that would damn me,” he says, shaking his head. “Now sit back down before I fucking do something I regret.”
I’m standing in front of Thayer, who’s kneeling in front of me. I’m in my panties. He’s so close I can feel his warm breath on my skin. I imagine what it would be like if he held me.
This should… not be… erotic.
He’s… doctoring me.
I was injured.
He’s just being… brotherly.
“Are you laughing?” he asks, in that scowly-stern way that makes my heart flutter like butterfly wings.
“No,” I lie, and totally bust out with another laugh. I’m choking on my attempt not to laugh and failing miserably. Oh, God, I have to stop laughing.
“Savannah.” Thayer leans back on his haunches and fixes me with a harsh gaze with a hint of judgment behind it. He draws in a breath as if prepared to lecture me.
Mmm, lecture me, baby.
I’m giggling again, covering my mouth with my hand so he doesn’t see, which is about the same thing as closing my eyes and hoping that means he doesn’t see me.
Oh, God, I think the wildly swinging emotions of the night have me a little punchy.
“Yes?” I ask.
“What is so funny?”
“I—I don’t want to tell you what’s so funny.”
It takes more courage than I think it would to say this, but I soldier on, because there’s no way I’m telling him what’s going on in my mind.
“You’re damn lucky,” he says under his breath.
I feel my cheeks suddenly flame. “Why is that?” My words sound choked.
He holds my gaze for a few disquieting seconds. I squirm.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Wait, now that isn’t fair.
“Okay, excuse me?” I ask. Nicolette says I have a temper and I should watch it, because one day it will get me in trouble. “You can’t do that stopping in mid-sentence thing. You don’t like when I do that, and yet you did the same thing!”
“It’s called thinking before you speak, a concept I know is foreign to you.”
Oh, what an ass! How could I have thought he was hot?
“Sometimes, the better choice is not to complete a thought out loud, or to keep one’s thoughts to oneself.”
“Oh, really, is that right, Mr. Smarty-pants?”
The Gerard boys speak fluent English, and my French is actually excellent, but I’m not sure the whole “Smarty-pants” thing translates well.
Thayer stands. I haven’t forgotten that my pants are around my ankles.
I’m suddenly aware of every one of my senses, as if my simmering emotions have amplified them.
The feel of his hands on my skin. The way his breath burns me like I’m standing too close to a bonfire. His masculine scent, the deep vibration of his voice…
He reaches for my chin and holds it so I can’t look away. Quaking under the look he’s giving me, I stare at his lips, full and gently parted, like he wants to kiss me.
When he speaks, he bares his teeth to me like an animal. If I could step back, I would.
“Because if you were mine,” he says in a low rumble that ignites every nerve in my body, “you wouldn’t be allowed to hold things back from me.
I’d train you to talk to me. To tell me what was on your mind and stop giving me bullshit answers and half-truths.
You’d learn to speak honestly and answer my questions when I asked. ”
I stare, aghast. I’m not sure he’s gotten the memo that this is the twenty-first century.
What’s scarier is that I’m not sure I care. The latent threat in his words, delivered in that protective yet nearly overbearing tone, electrifies me.
“If you were mine,” he continues, “I would discipline you for going out alone without a guard. You’d learn, and quickly, that putting yourself in danger merits swift and severe punishment.”
I’ve forgotten that I’m standing in his living room in my panties. I’ve forgotten the stinging pain in my knees. I’ve forgotten my crush on him, how badly I wanted his attention, because now that I have it, I realize He. Is. An. Asshole.
“How dare you?” I hiss. “How dare you?”
“You asked,” he retorts. “I responded.”