His eyes left mine to glance at my calf, and when he looked up again, his eyes found my lips instead.
“The injured girl is right. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”
Then he stepped inside my apartment and closed the door.
The light from the streetlamps outside disappeared, and we stood in the darkened hallway because my overhead light had been burnt out for weeks, and I still hadn’t replaced it.
I could feel the heat radiating off of him as he stepped closer. His hand once again settled in the small of my back, and he whispered in the dark, “Lead the way, love.”
Chapter Four
I stood in my bathroom in a tank top and underwear with my pants around my knees, on the verge of hyperventilating. Garrick was outside the door, and it was like he was a magnet. My heart kept trying to leap out of my chest toward him. He had told me to take off my capris, and that I’d need to keep from wearing tight clothes over the burn for a while. He had offered to help me get the capri pants off, but that made me feel like I was going to vomit again. So instead, I began wiggling them off myself, trying and failing to keep the fabric from touching the damaged skin.
I slid the material a bit lower, and bit down on my lip to try and silence a groan.
“Bliss?” Garrick knocked lightly at the door. “You okay?”
“Just peachy!” I said back.
I pulled on the pants again and gasped.
“Bliss, just let me help. You’re worrying me.”
I closed my eyes, trying to think of a way around this. Hobbling awkwardly with my jeans around my knees, I found a skirt with an elastic waist in my hamper. I pulled it over my head, and down to cover my underwear, and then took a seat on the toilet.
I felt my cheeks, certain that they were probably a mortifying shade of red. Nothing I could do about it now. I said, “Okay. Come in.”
The door swung open slowly, and Garrick’s head peeked around the corner, followed by the rest of him. He took one look at my rumpled skirt, and the jeans bunched around my knees.
Then he laughed. Raucous laughter, actually.
“This is so humiliating.” How was I ever going to have sex with him now?
He pressed his lips together to stop the laughter, but amusement still danced in his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I know you’re in pain. You just look so…”
“Ridiculous?”
“Cute.”
I leveled him with a glare.
“Ridiculously cute.”
His grin was intoxicating, and I couldn’t help my begrudging smile.
“Alright. Now that you’ve had your laugh, help me take off my pants,” I said with the same sarcasm I’d been relying on since he entered.
Either he didn’t catch the sarcasm or he just didn’t care because his eyes fixed on me in a way that I could only describe as downright predatory. Suddenly, much more than my leg was burning up.
He stared at me for a moment before dropping his eyes, and clearing his throat. Kneeling beside me, he took my leg into his hands.
I had already started to pull the capris down, so the burn was currently covered. His hand hovered by the zipper, which was now around the middle of my thighs. He cleared his throat again, and then slipped his hand down my pant leg.
HEART. ATTACK.
I was pretty sure I was having one.
Using his other hand, he pulled the jeans down as far as he could, just over my knees. He looked up at me, cleared his throat again, and said, “Can I borrow your hand?”
I couldn’t speak, but I put my right hand forward, the palm of which was embarrassingly sweaty. He took my hand, and pulled it inside my pant leg to join his own.
“Keep your hand here, and pull the fabric as far away from your leg as you can. I’ll do the same at the bottom, and we’ll try to slip them off without touching the burn.”
I nodded, my hand ten times steadier than my heart.
He slipped his hand up and out, his light touch sending shivers through me. He did as he said, pulling the fabric away from my skin at the bottom, and then together we tried to pull the pants off.
It wasn’t the most successful mission. These jeans were indecently tight (thanks to Kelsey), and every once and a while the fabric bumped my skin, and I cringed.
“Sorry,” he apologized each time like it was his fault. I wanted to correct him, but I just loved the way he said “soo-ri” so much that I let it go.
After a minute or two of slow and careful maneuvering, my jeans hit the floor.
We both laughed—the way you see people in movies laugh after they’ve just diffused a bomb. And when I stopped laughing, I realized that his hand was still on my leg. One hand was cupped around my ankle, and the other was brushing softly against the skin around the burn.
If he kept touching me like that, I was going to melt into a puddle right here on the floor.
“Um, thanks.”