That was a statement she couldn’t really deny with a straight face, so she shrugged. She expected him to offer her his shoulder. She even braced herself for the possibility of him putting his arm around her waist.
Matt did wrap his arm around her waist, moving in so close her arm was forced over his shoulders, but she wasn’t ready at all when his other arm slid behind her knees. As he lifted her off her feet, she made a squeaking sound and clung to him.
“You could have just let me lean on you,” she hissed.
“Faster this way. Bear, stay outside.”
Hailey tried to relax enough to enjoy the sensation of being carried by a man for the first time. It would have been even more enjoyable if he wasn’t wearing a shirt and they were heading to her bedroom, but she’d settle for being cradled by hard muscles.
Matt managed to climb the back steps of her deck without hitting either her head or her feet on the railings, and then he paused while she reached out and opened the door. After successfully navigating the door frame, he kicked it closed behind them and carried her into the living room.
Now didn’t seem like a good time to point out she preferred shoes be left on the mat by the door, so she kept her mouth shut while he lowered her onto the couch. When he stood back up, she was strangely flattered to see he didn’t grimace or rub the small of his back. What a gentleman.
“Wow, you have a lot of throw pillows,” he said. “Shove some of them under your leg while I get some ice.”
It was strange seeing a man in her house, and she tried to remember the last time a guy had crossed her threshold. When she did go on a date, she took her own car and met him at their destination. She’d dated one man a few times, so he’d eventually picked her up at home and even kissed her goodnight on her front step. But inviting him in hadn’t felt right and that had been the end of him.
The last man to stand in her living room was probably the guy who’d repaired her phone line. The phone guy had been taller than Matt and definitely more round, but it still seemed as if Matt took up more space in the room, as though he were somehow larger than life.
Naturally, he took the easy way out and grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables rather than making a real icepack, which he then plopped on her knee. “How bad is the pain?”
“It’s honestly not that bad. I think I just tweaked it a bit and, if you didn’t have a hero complex, I probably would have walked it off by now.”
“Hero complex?” He walked behind her and adjusted the big pillow behind her back so she was more comfortable. “Hardly.”
When he palmed the back of her head and gently pushed it forward, Hailey’s breath caught in her throat. And when his other hand brushed the hair away from her neck, it released in a long, shaky exhale.
“What is this?” His voice was low and she felt the cushion shift as he leaned on the back of the couch.
What was that? That was a soft and lonely stretch of skin that loved to be kissed and had gone without for far too long. “What is what?”
His fingertip traced a gentle circle at the nape of her neck and all she could do was hope the low-grade tremor she felt on the inside didn’t show on the outside. “This is a bad bite and you’ve been scratching it. A lot.”
“I didn’t realize I had a bite there until I was at work yesterday. The tag on my shirt rubbed against it all day and drove me nuts.”
“You should put something on it.”
His touch was working just fine, replacing the annoying itch with a rather pleasant tingling sensation. “I will.”
“Do you have any hydrocortisone cream? I don’t want to leave it like this.”
“I think I have some in the junk drawer next to the stove.” If her friendly neighborhood game warden wanted to give the back of her neck some tender loving care, who was she to stand in the way of him doing his duty?
When he pushed himself up off the back of the couch, a gust of Matt’s breath blew across her exposed skin and she closed her eyes.
“Who keeps hydrocortisone cream in the kitchen junk drawer?”
“People who tend to cut themselves making salads keep antibiotic cream there, so it all goes in. And it qualifies. Batteries and first aid creams and junk. In the junk drawer.”
“Or aspirin and first aid creams and medicine. In the medicine cabinet.”
Hailey could tell he was walking away from her, so she opened her eyes to watch him go. Even if she tried to put aside being under the influence of his touch on her neck, she had to admit he had a nice ass. Exceptional, even. It was probably all that walking he did in the woods, rescuing lost women.
She was in so much trouble.
*