“Who are you?” Her voice was hardly louder than the crackling fire.
“I’m not sure.” I slowly brought my hands to cup her cheek, gentle enough to cradle a baby bird. “I just know I have to leave quickly. I’m searching for my brother, I think.”
I winced as I tried to pull up the memory. Her thumb brushed my furrowed brow and I relaxed into her touch.
“Your injuries?” Her hand moved to trace fingers across a large bruise on my ribcage, yellowed and almost healed. “You seem so much better.”
I swallowed and her gaze went to my throat.
“I heal quickly.”
“Clearly.” She moved to stand up.
“Don’t go,” I whispered and reached for her hand.
She hesitated, her expressive eyebrows twisted with doubt. “You said you have to go.”
“I know,” I added. I tugged her back closer. “Just a few more minutes.”
She relaxed her full weight next to me. I tugged her closer until my erection pressed against her thigh. She gasped. The pajamas were thin and the only thing separating us now that the blanket was gone.
“I don’t even know you. This is insane.”
“But it feels right,” I said.
She felt it too; the raw desire that filled the air between us. It was as tangible as holding her in my arms. I rested my head on her chest. She tensed at first but soon relaxed, bringing her arms around my head to hold me closer. The heat of her body was all I needed to feel better. It soothed me like a salve. Her sweet and spicy scent filled me with hope and a feeling of rightness. I wrapped my arms around her small body. So strong, yet so soft. So much fight in such fragile packaging. Each thump of her steadily beating heart calmed my aching muscles. We held each other for a long time, just listening to the snow falling and the fire crackling.
I couldn’t remember who I was or where I came from, but this felt right. I was meant to meet this woman. But there were reasons I was here. Reasons I had to move on.
Eventually . . .
“I don’t even know your name.” Her nails scratched softly through my hair.
“Me neither,” I said.
She laughed and pulled back so I’d look at her. She lifted my chin. Her features scrunched as she studied me. “Where did you come from, really?”
A flash of light. The blur of stars. The feeling of falling. Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through my skull. I winced and pressed fingers to my temple.
“What is it?” she asked.
“My . . . head.”
“Let me see your pupils. It could be a concussion.” She gently cupped my face to look into my eyes, straddling my lap in her haste to examine me.
I winced as she tugged up an eyelid.
“What the hell?” she gasped. I forced myself to relax. “That was weird . . . I swear, for a second your pupils disappeared . . .”
I closed my eyes again to collect myself. “I’m okay.”
I forced my eyes open to take in the beautiful woman in my lap. When I focused on her, it was like all the pain in my brain ceased. She was my relief.
Slowly, she stood up and off my lap though I didn’t want her to go.
“Maybe we should call the sheriff’s department?” She paced in front of the fire. “Or take you to the hospital? If you can’t remember anything, you may need more help than I can give you.”
We both looked to the window where the wind whistled loudly through the cracks and snow fell in fat flakes. Our tracks from not that long ago were already covered in inches of snow.
“I don’t think I can drive in that.” She worried her bottom lip.
“I don’t think I can drive,” I said.
“Really?” She shot me an assessing gaze.
Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that. Did most men this age drive? Much like many of my skills, I was well taught but I hadn’t had a chance to practice them. That much I knew. Instead I pointed to my head, using an easy excuse. “Because of my head,” I added.
“Ah, right.” She wrapped her arms tight around her middle. “I think we’re gonna have to wait out the storm until the morning.”
I nodded. The nagging need to move weighed on me but when Anna looked at me through her lashes, reason shifted. Was it being in this form that made me able to rationalize bad decisions so easily? Because now I wanted nothing more than to stay the night and practice some of my skills . . .
8
Anna
I wanted to kiss him. I needed it in a way that terrified and fascinated me in equal measure. He was otherworldly and beautiful. Seemingly innocent yet full of delicious innuendo. But more than that, I felt like I was the only one who could help him. He needed me. “You shouldn’t sleep tonight. I mean if you have a concussion, then sleep is not advised.” I blurted.
“I will do as you wish,” was his immediate reply. I gulped as I reclaimed my seat next to him.
“There are many hours until morning. How do you propose we spend the time?” He asked me innocently enough and yet my mind dove straight into the gutter. Maybe it was the way the fire accented his masculine features. He was so good looking it was almost a sin to look directly at him. I sort of wished I had changed into something nice rather than these damp-in-more-ways-than-one PJs. But no! Sex was not on the table with him . . . oh, table sex . . . NO! Bad, Anna. The pull toward him was so real and I didn’t even know his name.
“Uh, we . . .” I swallowed as his gaze flicked from my eyes to my mouth, and I could swear the blanket in his lap twitched in my periphery. His gaze grew soft and he leaned ever so slightly closer to me.
“You need a name!” I sat up straight, putting a throw pillow between us and pretending to smooth the fabric. It was a gift from my friend and fellow nurse at the hospital, Elizabeth, and embroidered with a red faced, jovial Santa and the words There’s some Ho Ho Ho’s in this house.
He frowned, pushing out a full bottom lip. Not that I was thinking of sucking on it. Wait, what? Focus. “I’m sure that I have a name. But I would like to know what you think I should be named.” His smile was teasing, his ice blue eyes bright with mirth.
I tilted my head and allowed the first name that came to me.
“Sam,” I said with a quick nod of the head. Yes, that felt right.
“Sam?” He watched me closely. I smiled and he blinked. “Sam,” he mumbled under his breath, seeming to test the way it felt in his mouth. “I like it.”
“It suits you,” I said.
His gaze moved to my mouth and I became aware of how close we had drifted again. It’s like our faces were trying to smash without our minds’ consent.
I stood up quickly. “Want some hot chocolate?” I asked.
“I would like whatever you offer me, Anna.”
My insides clenched. I wished he wouldn’t say things like that. It confused my simple lady parts.
“Okay, but don’t get too excited. It’s just from a package,” I said.
A few minutes later, I came back into the room and almost dropped the tray of hot chocolate and cookies I managed to scrounge together. “Woah,” I said.
The Christmas tree that had sat for weeks, dehydrated and losing needles with nary an ornament placed upon a single bough, was now lit up like, well, a Christmas tree. The strands I had started to put on were mostly busted and it caused me to give up on my task before I even got halfway done. That cheating SOB, Dr. Buttface Von Liar, had offered to help but it turned out he was too busy sticking his hands down other people’s pants to actually come over.