Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Ledger
She must think I’m insane, I’m sure of it. It’s all I thought about during my sleepless night. I quizzed her about sex with her ex and then tucked her in, for fuck’s sake. What was I thinking?
Maybe I should be proud of myself. Because I feel borderline primal around this woman, and I wanted to do a whole lot more than tuck her in for the night.
I refrained because I wanted her to feel safe.
But no matter which way I try to spin it in my mind to make myself feel like less of a horn dog, there’s just no getting around it. I want this girl, and I want her bad.
Seeing her was the tip of the iceberg. But the more time we’ve spent around one another, and the more I learn about her . . . the more I want to pathetically crawl in her direction on my damn knees.
Sweat drips down my temples, and I pull my beanie off to wipe it away with the back of my hand. It was a short walk down the drive to check on her car just as the sun came up this morning. This steep hike back up to the cabin through drifts of snow is another story.
Too bad the road grater doesn’t do driveways.
The storm has tamed during these early hours of the morning, thankfully. But the wind still shifts quickly and lands with a bite against my face.
My cabin comes into view as I trudge through the drifts. My sides burn, but I welcome it and pick up speed, hoping it’ll clear my thoughts. I could use the distraction from the girl currently screaming in my house right now.
Wait.
Screaming?
I freeze in place and squint to make sure I’m hearing that right. Yeah, that’s a screech. I skip the three steps on the old porch, bounding to the front door and whipping it open. Izzy is on her knees about a foot from the fireplace, one hand clutching the other to her chest.
It only takes a few strides to reach her, and I lower myself to one knee in front of her. She’s squeezing her eyes shut and smashing her lips together. I try to gently touch her hand and pull it away from her body, but she grips it tighter.
“Iz— Shit,” I mumble while sliding the beanie off my head. “What happened?”
“I’m clumsy,” she groans. “I opened the fire, thinking I would add to it. I thought you were still asleep in your room, and it was getting chilly in here. When I went to shut it, I forgot about the handle and grabbed the side of the door like I was closing a damn microwave.”
Reaching behind me, I close the glass front door to the fireplace and then turn back to her. “Let me see.”
If she says no, she’s either too embarrassed to show me or she doesn’t want me to touch her.
I hate either one of those possibilities, so I clench my jaw waiting for her to decide.
It’s only a moment later that she slowly releases the tension in her arms and extends her left hand toward me with an open palm.
I look down, cradling my hand beneath hers. Her skin is much softer than my callused fingers. She trembles slightly, like I’ll rip through her fragile skin. I know it might sting, but I run my thumb lightly over the pads of her fingers that are already reddened and swollen from the burn.
“You should be more careful.”
She snorts, and I don’t have to look up to know she’s rolling her eyes because of the little puff of defiance in her tone. “Revolutionary advice.”
I like the sarcastic version of her personality as much as the sweet one, and it causes a faint smile to tug at the corner of my mouth. I try not to let it show. But if she noticed and then realized how much everything she said made me like her, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I take a deep breath and stand, wrapping my hand around her wrist and pulling her with me. “Come on.”
Her eyes narrow at first, but she doesn’t yank her hand out of my grasp or plant her feet firmly on the ground in protest. I walk through the living room and down the hall with her shuffling behind me, finally entering my bedroom, which has the only bathroom in the cabin attached to it.
I hook my finger under the light switch and flip it on, then turn to face Izzy again, bending over to get a better look at her hand.
The bulb overhead isn’t very bright, but it’s still easy to spot the angry streak of red.
The edges of the burn are faintly white, where the heat seared the deepest, and a tiny blister is already beginning to form near the center.
She sucks air in through her teeth when my thumb traces near it, testing the tenderness.
Letting her hand go, I open the cabinet door, looking for some burn cream and bandages. Between branding and having to sometimes use ropes that aren’t broken in, I’ve had plenty of burns myself. I usually ignore them and let them go away on their own, but I still keep this stuff just in case.
The magnetic cabinet door that doubles as a mirror closes with a soft click, and I set the supplies on the counter. Izzy holds her hand underneath the cold water for a few minutes, and then I unscrew the top of the tube of burn cream.
“It feels kind of itchy when you first put it on, but it won’t last long.”
She holds her hand out toward me and nods, but squeezes her eyes shut like she’s bracing herself.
Could I lift her hand higher toward the light so that I can see better and not have to bend down? Sure. Would I rather lift her onto the counter while I take care of her instead? One thousand percent.
It’s a stupid excuse just to touch her, I know. And it might be a little forward, getting up close and personal with her like that. I dig deep for a fuck to give but come up short, and my hands automatically move toward her waist without another thought.
Her eyes shoot open as soon as my fingers wrap around her hips.
In one fell swoop, I turn her back to the counter and lift her until her ass slides across the smooth surface next to the sink.
Her burned hand is closed in a fist against her chest, but her free hand is now clutching my forearm for balance.
“Show off,” she deadpans. To my delight, there’s a teasing smile on her face and a new blush covering her cheeks.
I smirk, standing between her legs. There’s an urge sitting in the center of my chest to tease back. But I keep my mouth shut, still paying close attention to the way she holds her breath and the hair stands up on her arm as I spread the burn cream over her fingers.
It’s not hard to apply an ointment, and it certainly shouldn’t last this long. But I take my time anyway. It’s neurotic how badly I don’t want to stop.
When I think I’ve probably reached my time limit, I reach for the bandages. I place a small strip on each pad of her fingers so that she can still spread them and use them for . . . whatever she might need them for before they aren’t hurting anymore.
We’re close, as I lean forward to inspect my work. I can feel her breath, and to my surprise, her free hand reaches up to the soft stretchy collar of my shirt, tugging it gently to the side.
“Okay, I thought it was a sideways mountain or something because only half of it was showing,” she jokes.
I tuck my chin toward my chest, looking down to the tattoo on my collarbone that I think she’s referring to. Her burned hand is still in mine, for no particular reason.
“Paper airplane?”
I nod, flexing my jaw. “My brother has the same one. He’s deployed right now, so—”
She tears her gaze away from the base on my neck and meets my eyes. I’m more proud than I am sad about my brother being so far away. So hopefully she doesn’t read too far into my expression and decides to leave the room and go back to the couch where she’s a lot farther away from me.
“What does it mean?”
It’s not a real deep story. “Just something we liked to do as kids. We’d make them out of anything we could find and throw them out of the hay loft. Our sister made them with us sometimes too.”
She squeezes my hand and smiles so big, I bet it makes her cheeks sting. I hate that she hurt her hand, so seeing her flash a grin makes the surface of my skin feel warm again.
“Why do you have so many tattoos?”
I shrug. “I’m sentimental.”
“They’re all beautiful,” she says.
My thumb traces down away from her burn and mindlessly smooths over the pulse point on her inner wrist. She looks down, but I don’t stop.
“I think you’re beautiful.”