Chapter 17 #3
He manoeuvred the material over her bandages as gently as possible and drew the whole thing down over her arms – which she held stiff like a wooden nutcracker soldier – and down over her head and the broadening flare of her shoulders and ribs, absolutely not taking in the dimpled notches at the base of her spine where the ends of her hair swung, and not weakening at the sight of the satin shorts skimming over her gorgeous, round arse, glad of his two layers of ski bottoms hiding the heaviness of his attraction, because none of that would have been gentlemanly.
Moving her hair one final time, he arranged the straps so they sat properly over her exposed shoulders speckled like a robin’s egg, brown patterns on delicately sheeny buff skin.
‘Thanks,’ she said, throwing one shy glance at his face, which he had to rearrange as fast as he could from open-mouthed reverence, a sailor drowning on her rocks, to what he hoped looked like a kind of heroic neutrality.
When she was gone behind the bathroom door again, the sound of her giggling told him he’d failed and she’d caught sight of him stupefied and gasping for breath.
It was a full minute before he had command of his brain and body again, and he could return the tailor’s shears to where he’d found them.
When Florrie emerged into the café corner, he’d poured her a glass of water and left it by her sofa bed, and he’d made another trip up the ladder to find a hoodie with a zip to drape over her shoulders, because he’d be damned if he had to be in her presence in those tiny garments and not be condemned to hell forever for having the most impure thoughts of any man on earth.
Except, as he pulled the sweatshirt around her, and she’d stood, provocatively wordless before him in front of the flames, nothing at all felt wrong about his need to hold her again, and so he delivered a soft press of his lips to her forehead and drew her into him, cocooning her with his hug.
All the while he told himself he’d have to live satisfied with their kiss earlier.
Nothing else could happen now. She was injured and exhausted and far from home.
Anything more risked taking advantage when she was vulnerable.
That thought steeled his resolve, making it easier to let go and step away.
‘There’s something else I need,’ she said, and for a moment he thought he was destined to die here from bursting into hellish flames. ‘My laptop.’
‘Oh, of course, uh… just a sec,’ and he ran for it, up the ladder and back down in an instant. It was still switched on, must have been all day, and with what was unmistakeably her report about his ski centre open on the screen.
She had quickly climbed between the covers on the sofa while he was fetching it, and had managed to pull the duvet over her legs.
‘I have to stop looking at your screens. It’s getting to be a bad habit.’ He set the laptop over her legs.
‘Do you want to read my report?’ she said. ‘I wish you would.’
Nothing on earth could induce him to look at the death sentence for his old way of life. He shook his head.
‘You should know, in my report, I say how amazing I think you are and how you deserve some other kind of opportunity…’
‘Thanks, I can’t…’ he cut her off, waving her words away because the whole thing stung way more than he could stand, and her generosity and kindness weren’t making it any easier. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’
He watched as she sent off the email with her report attached, and she quickly shut down the laptop and passed it to him. ‘OK, I did it.’
He stowed it beneath the sofa, glad to be her servant, even in this.
‘I’d better go, then,’ he said, hiking a reluctant thumb at the door, knowing he’d better follow it or regret it forever. But she was watching him with such round, pleading eyes.
‘Please don’t leave now.’
He stood on shaky legs. ‘I have to. What would your father say if he knew the same guy who’d chucked you down a mountain earlier today was now hanging around you in your tiny wee jammies?’
She laughed, her eyes dropping to where he’d tucked away her laptop, before lifting them to meet his gaze again. ‘Who cares? And my dad would say there’s risk in everything, but that’s how you win.’
He wanted to ask what it was she could possibly see in him that was prize-worthy, but instead he told her she ought to get straight to sleep. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘The doctors said someone should stay with me in case I’m concussed.’
‘No, they didn’t,’ he said with a smile.
‘Can’t you just pretend they did?’
‘I can’t win with you,’ he said with a laugh.
‘Yes you can.’ She was getting to her feet. Long hair, long legs, tiny silly pyjamas, all moving towards him in the fire glow.
‘I’m not going to take advantage of a vulnerable woman who only five hours ago was whacked out on morphine,’ he said, as she stepped dangerously close, and he dodged out of her reach. ‘But I will take you to the big Christmas lights switch-on street party tomorrow, if you’ll come with me?’
‘OK,’ she said easily.
‘OK?’
‘Yeah,’ she shrugged, like it was the easiest thing in the world. ‘It’s a date.’ She stepped even closer, and he had to plead with her.
‘Show some mercy, I’m only a man.’
‘All right, all right,’ she held up her hands. ‘I’m sorry. So, what are we going to do now, then?’ she retorted, challenge shining in her eyes.