I grab the first aid kit, pull out a cotton ball, and dip it in water. I tap gently around the wound, testing the pain of each area. My torso is still peppered with bruises, most of them yellow and fading, but the spot on my ribs is still purple and sensitive.
Hissing through my teeth, I swipe at the area closest to the scab, and blood swells from beneath it. “Shit.” If this thing opens back up, I could delay us getting out of here. I decide to leave it as is and wrap it back up.
Gauze, tape… where’s the ointment—
The ladder rung creaks.
I look up to see Grizzly’s socked feet descending and grab my shirt to hold over my breasts. Those intense hazel eyes nearly glow in the firelight, and I’m paralyzed under his gaze.
He takes a few steps toward me, his eyebrows slanted and pinched together as he does a quick inventory of the first aid kit and me topless. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep.”
His eyes grow darker as they drop to my cleavage, where my good arm holds my shirt to my chest, and I cup my breast. “You removed your bandages.”
“I was itchy. I thought I should change them.”
His eyelids are heavy as his gaze slides up from my chest to my face. “Did you?”
“Not yet.”
He makes a humming sound and then comes closer, squatting in front of me. His massive size blocks the heat from the woodstove, and I shiver. He tilts his head, and his eyes bore into mine. “Let me see.” The low gravelly tone of his command rolls over my skin like a gentle touch.
I lift my arm and turn slightly.
He looks behind him at the woodstove. As if realizing he’s blocking the light, he scoots aside to allow the firelight to shine on me, and with the return of heat, goosebumps burst across my skin. His fingers brush along my ribs. “You’re cold.”
“Not anymore.”
Only his eyes lift to mine. “Lie back.”
I do as he asks. My breath saws in and out of my lungs as he peels away my shirt and tosses it aside. I still keep my arm over my chest, my hand holding my breast, and I watch as his gaze lingers there.
If I had to count the number of times a man has looked at my breasts, it would be in the millions. And yet, none of them were memorable. When men look, I always see a greedy lust reflected in their eyes.
The way he looks at me is something altogether different.
With a reverence. A longing. A hope for something he won’t allow himself to take.
He clears his throat and then rips open an alcohol wipe from the kit. I jump as the cold hits my skin and I feel my nipples tighten.
“You needed stitches,” he says, pressing the cool pad around the wound.
“Do you think it’ll scar?”
He rests his elbows on his knees and takes in the entire landscape of my torso, the bruises, cuts, and scrapes that line my side from the hip up. “Yes.”
I huff out a heavy breath. Great. If there was any chance I’d forget about my near-death experience in the Adirondacks, the scars make it unlikely.
I suppose it’s possible I don’t want to forget.
Every mark on my skin will remind me of the brutal, savage man who saved me. The man who struck me with both fear and longing.
He places a clean square of gauze on my side and rips the medical tape with his teeth to secure it in place. “There,” he says, more quietly than a whisper. He makes no attempt to move, his lips slightly parted to accommodate his breathing. I wish he was shirtless rather than in his thermal so I could watch his chest rise and fall with every heavy breath.
He seems to be waiting for me, but to do what?
“Thank you.”
He still doesn’t move.
My fingers twitch against my skin, and he watches them intently. In the stillness of the cabin, the only sound is of us breathing, and the air charges with tension. Without using words, his eyes beg for me to reveal myself to him, to trust him with my body as I have trusted him with my life.
I slip my arm from my chest. My hands rest nervously on my stomach while he pores over every inch of my skin. His slow inspection feels like a tentative touch as it moves from my throat to linger and circle my nipples. I bite my lip to keep from moaning while he openly admires me with palpable intensity.
I wish he would touch me. My skin burns to feel the heat of his hands, the softness of his lips, and the rough scrape of his beard. My back arches, my body’s need speaking louder than my mind’s doubts as it offers itself to him. Touch me.
His hands fist between his knees. His jaw flexes. He’s holding himself back.
I sit up, and his eyes follow the movement of my hair as it falls over one shoulder and lies against my chest. Seconds pass and turn to minutes, and with the stretch of time that he doesn’t touch me, insecurity sets it. I cover my breasts with my hands.
His eyes heavy, longing, lift to mine. “Your ring.”
I feel for the metal, but it’s not there. “I took it off when I washed your hair.”
“Go get it,” he says roughly. “Put it back on.”
The answer is easy. “No.”
Anger fires behind his eyes. “Do it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Put it on.”
“Why?”
“I need the reminder that you belong to him—”
“I don’t!”
“—or else I’ll decide that you belong to me.”
I suck in a breath at the possessive power behind his words. “I belong to no one.”
His lips peel back from his teeth. “Is that a challenge?”
My heart races in what should be fear or warning, but instead, I find myself eager, enticed to push him until he cracks so that I can finally get a peek behind the wall he’s built up around him.
“Yes.”
He reels back at my answer, and his expression twists in disgust. “You willingly subject yourself to danger.”
“Because you’ll hurt me? I don’t believe that.”
He stands and ducks behind the woodstove to grab the blue Burberry flannel. “Then you’re dumber than I thought.” He tosses the shirt at me, and I catch it to my chest. “Cover yourself.” He grabs my ring from the table and tosses it into my lap. “Put it on.” He takes two rungs at a time back to bed.
A pain deep in my chest flares. “You’re an asshole!”
Not only does he reject me physically, but he thinks I’m dumb. No, dumber than he thought, which is worse. I throw his flannel to the farthest end of the cabin, followed by Lincoln’s stupid ring.
Leaving my shirt off, I crawl under my animal pelt blanket, pulling it up over my head so he can’t hear me cry.
I just want to get out of here.
The sooner, the better.
Twelve
Alexander
I forced myself to stay in bed for as long as I possibly could.
After waking up at two o’clock in the morning to find the woman topless by the fire, my heart nearly beat its way from my chest at the sight. Like dangling raw meat in front of a starving lion, so did my body respond to the sight of her full feminine curves cast in the firelight. Her dark hair fell over her bare skin, and with the memory of its softness fresh in my mind, combined with a hunger to know what other parts of her body were equally soft, I wanted to take her as mine.