Chapter 6
Finally, having arrived home safely, Sierra sighed with relief. She opened the passenger’s door, grabbing her purse, and got out of the Hummer. Before she could hurry through the rain to the house in her bare feet, Adam was at her side, swooping her up in his arms to navigate over the twigs and other debris littering her driveway and walkway to the front door. She hadn’t expected that, but she sure appreciated it.
He set her down on the porch and she entered the numbers on the keypad, then opened the door. As soon as she walked into the house, she flipped up the light switch, forgetting that there was no electricity. “Old habits die hard.”
He laughed. “I do the same thing. I guess your keypad had battery backup.”
“It does.” At least with their wolf vision, they could see in the dark.
“I’ll get your bags.” Within minutes, he was carrying them into the house.
“Thanks!”
“You’re welcome.”
She’d forgotten all about the ton of drawings and paintings cluttering her dining room table. She’d been working on some portraits of wolves—some of pack members in their human form and some of members of the police force—before she took off on her vacation.
“Sorry for the mess.”
“Don’t be. Everything looks fine, and don’t bother to move anything. We can sit at the kitchen bar if you want.”
“Okay.” Sierra opened the freezer and frowned. “Oh, I, um, cut my steaks in half and repackage them to freeze because I can’t eat a whole one at a sitting.” She sighed. “Is that okay?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, sure. Two halves are as good as a whole.”
She pulled three halves of steaks out of the freezer and handed them to him.
He set the steaks on the counter. “Let’s take care of your head injury first.”
She realized then it was throbbing. “Okay, sure. And your cheek is cut too. I need to get out of these wet clothes and so do you.”
Adam opened his mouth to speak, and she said, “Don’t tell me you are fine. You’re soaking wet like I am.”
She led him to her master bedroom where she had left another couple sketch pads on the side of the bed she didn’t sleep on and smiled. Her artwork had taken over the house. She pulled some black sweatpants out of her chest of drawers, an old antique piece she had hand painted with a country setting of flowers and rabbits and a little pond. “I think the sweatshirt will be too small for your broad shoulders.” She liked clothes that fit. If she’d had something larger, it probably would have been fine.
“That’ll work. Let’s take care of your forehead first.” They went into the bathroom then.
She brought out the medical kit from the cabinet down below, and he washed her forehead with a gentle touch. She winced when he wiped it with antiseptic. He covered the injury with a bandage. “Head wounds bleed a lot, but it doesn’t look like you’ll have any trouble with it. No need for stitches.”
“That’s good.” Then she did the same with the cut on his cheek, taking care to be gentle. “Did you want me to cover it with a bandage?” She suspected he wouldn’t.
He glanced at the mirror. “No thanks, it’s good. Let me see your arm.”
Even though it wasn’t as bad as her head or his cheek, he was sweet to take care of it, but he had to bandage it too. “Thanks, Adam. Are you ready for dinner?”
“I sure am.” He moved into the bedroom and unbuttoned his wet shirt.
She left the bathroom to get her clothes and suddenly felt like they were getting ready to have sex in her bedroom. Where that notion was coming from, she had no idea.
She grabbed some clothes from her closet and chest of drawers, went into the master bathroom, and shut the door. Even though lupus garous stripped out of their clothes and were naked before they shifted into their wolves, this felt way too intimate with a bachelor male wolf when she wasn’t dating him.
She quickly removed her clothes and dried herself, suddenly remembering she should have gotten him a towel too. “Towels are in the linen closet down the hall!”
“Thanks!” He left the bedroom and she envisioned him totally naked when she left her bathroom. There was no sign of his wet clothes or him, but she heard him in the hallway, opening the linen closet door.
She pulled on a pair of panties, shorts, her bra, and a T-shirt.
A big bang sounded, and the light came on in the living room, went off, came on again, and she heard him say, “Hallelujah!”
She smiled.
With her own wet clothes and her small amount of dirty clothes in the laundry bag in hand, she walked through the bedroom and out to the hall where she caught an eyeful of one sexy man. He was butt naked, his skin still wet, his wet clothes on the floor, and he was drying off one of his legs. Hot buns, hot legs, back, and arms, and when he turned to see her gaping at him, the rest of him was just as hot.
“Uh, I’ll throw your clothes in the wash with mine and then dry them, now that the electricity is on.” Her face was flaming—speaking of hot—as she scooped his clothes off the floor, all but his shoes. She didn’t wait for an answer as she flipped on the hall light, then hurried to the laundry room on the other side of her kitchen. She turned on the light in there and tossed the wet clothes and her dirty clothes into the washing machine, added soap, and started to wash them.
Before she reached the kitchen, the lights on the house flickered. She paused, and the lights went out. “Well, it looks like I’ll have to wash the clothes when the electricity comes back on.”
“No problem,” he said, easygoing about the whole affair.
Sierra was glad because she still couldn’t get the incident with the pregnant woman and toddler out of her thoughts and she needed only positive vibes right now.
She fetched a lantern out of her pantry and set it on the patio table while Adam joined her wearing her sweatpants and nothing else, still towel drying his short light-brown hair. She smiled at the length of the pants on him, the hemline reaching about mid-shin. His bare chest was buff and lightly haired with dark, damp strands, his nipples pebbled from the chilly air. She rarely saw him get naked, certainly never in her house. So eating with him when he was wearing so little that way was definitely a first. And thoroughly titillating.
“The pants are good enough,” he said, catching her smile. He got the grill ready. “Thanks for washing my clothes—when the electricity comes back on.”
“You’re so welcome. I’m glad I at least had something for you to wear.”
She was relieved the winds had died down, but it was still raining hard. Thankfully, she had a nice-sized patio that kept everything dry. She went back inside to set up a lantern in the kitchen too. After that, she grabbed a couple of baking potatoes out of the bin and washed and wrapped them in foil, then took them outside to set on the table. He started the potatoes first on the grill.