We soon arrived at the estate. By then, my heartbeat had steadied, and the full-on body shakes had faded to a faint tremor in my hands.
Inside the house, Dane gently guided me into the kitchen and lifted me onto a stool at the island. “Be still.” He examined the smarting graze on my palm. “It’s not deep, and there’s no gravel in it.”
“It doesn’t hurt badly.”
“It might when the adrenaline fully bleeds out of your system.”
“You should ice those knuckles.” They were red and a little swollen from the punch he’d delivered to Jeff’s jaw.
“I’ll do it later. Stay there.”
And then, well, one of the most surreal moments of my life occurred. Dane very gently cleaned, patted dry, and applied a sterile adhesive dressing to the graze. He was careful, thorough, and precise—as professional as any nurse. He also refused to let me help; just instructed me to sit still.
Done, he said, “Antiseptic creams can damage the skin and slow healing, so I didn’t bother putting any on you.”
“How do you know that? How do you know how to treat grazes so well?”
He shrugged. “I Googled it when we were in the car.”
I stared at him. “You … you Googled it?” My heart melted. I thought he’d been working to keep himself occupied. No, he’d been looking up how to treat grazes. “Thank you,” I said, my voice soft and a little raspy.
He inclined his head. “Want a drink?”
In truth, what I wanted was to have him inside me again. This whole night—the knockout punch, the adrenaline rush, the heart-melting—had my body all fired up even as an odd sense of exhaustion began to settle in. But even if he would have been game for that, I knew better than to let anything happen between us again.
“I want you to ice your knuckles. Then I want to sleep.” But, not trusting that he wouldn’t go to bed without first seeing to his hand, I didn’t move until he’d iced it enough to make the swelling go down.
“You sure you don’t want a drink?” he asked, flexing his hand.
“I’m good, but thanks.” I slipped off the stool. “And thanks for hauling me out of the way of the car.” He only inclined his head again, so I gave him a faint smile and padded out of the room. As nights went, this one had been damn bizarre.
Chapter Eighteen
“Shh, you’re all right.”
I snapped awake with a loud gasp. The room was dark, but I didn’t panic at the sight of a figure sliding into my bed; I knew it was Dane; knew that voice and scent.
I was breathing hard, my pulse was racing, and I felt a lingering echo of anxiety. “I was dreaming,” I remembered. Dreaming about screeching tires and bright headlights. There’d been a jumble of images—some from when I was nine; some from tonight. More, it was Dane who’d been knocked over … and Travis had been the driver. It didn’t take a psychologist to work out what had prompted that part of the dream.
“I know, I heard you,” he said.
I winced. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. I was getting undressed when I thought I heard you call out something. I came to check on you and quickly realized you were having a nightmare.”
Keeping my arms folded, I shuffled closer to him, feeling cold. It was only then I realized his chest was bare, but I still didn’t move, needing the warmth that radiated from him.
Dane snatched the covers, which I’d apparently kicked off in my sleep, and dragged them over us both. He slid his hand under my tee to splay on my back. “Now settle.”
Settle? How could I do that when he was lying so close, smelling so damn good, with his palm pressed against my bare skin? The memories of the last time we’d been so close, of him pounding into me like a man possessed, flipped to the forefront of my mind. Hell.
It was a good thing I’d folded my arms before I’d shifted nearer to him. It not only meant my hands couldn’t wander, it meant he wouldn’t know my nipples had tightened.
I really did despise how effortlessly he affected me. It had been bad enough before we slept together. But now that I knew what it felt like to have him moving inside me, it was so much harder to ignore his pull.
A low growl sawed at the back of Dane’s throat. “Stop thinking and sleep.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
Sighing, I closed my eyes and tried blanking my thoughts, figuring it would be useless. But I must have managed to doze off at some point, because the next time my eyelids fluttered open, sunlight was creeping around the edges of the electronic shades.
I licked my lips. And froze. Oh, shit, I was half-sprawled on top of Dane.
My head was pillowed on his chest, my arm was slung around his waist, and one of my legs was curled over his. Moreover, one of his hands was loosely curved around the calf of the leg I’d hooked over his; the other hand had dipped into my panties and shorts to palm my ass.
I tensed. Well this wasn’t good. Not wanting to wake him, I carefully tugged my leg free of his hold and straightened it. Just as slowly, I pulled back my arm and tucked it between us. I shuffled backwards, hoping the arm he’d curved around me would slip away and that his hand would then slide out of my panties. But that arm stayed where it was … as did his hand.
Giving up on moving him, I stared at his frowning face. He was such a remote, troubled, relatively remorseless man who struggled with empathy and seemed largely indifferent to the feelings and sensitivities of others. But he’d punched Jeff for calling me a gold-digger. He’d dragged me away from the skidding car. He’d treated my graze with utter gentleness. He’d come to me when I had a nightmare. And he’d stayed with me the rest of the night, even though he allegedly didn’t like sleeping in the same room as others.
Fuck, how was I supposed to keep an emotional distance from him when he was chiseling at my defenses?
Desperate to remain on solid ground, I reminded myself that none of it actually meant anything. I mean, he’d had to punch Jeff—it would have looked weird if he hadn’t defended me. People all over the world had pulled perfect strangers out of the way of cars; put in that light, his behavior wasn’t such a huge deal. He wouldn’t have treated my graze if my hands hadn’t been trembling too much for me to do it myself. And of course he’d wake me when I was having a nightmare—who wanted to listen to someone make all kinds of noise in their sleep? It also had made sense for him to stay with me, since it would have made it easy for him to snap me out of any further nightmares.
Yep, everything he’d done had been motivated by pure common sense, nothing more.
I flexed my sore hand. Damn, my palm stung. At least I’d have the weekend to help it heal before going back to work.
Maybe it made me a little shameless, but I was truly considering flipping back the covers so I could get a better look at his bare chest. What I could see of it was certainly impressive—he looked deliciously toned. Downright lick-able, in fact.
My nose tingled and twitched as a sneeze built up out of nowhere. I covered my nose and mouth as the sneeze burst out of me. His eyes flipped open. I seriously had no idea how anyone could snap awake so easily. It concerned me, really. It made me wonder if there’d once been a time when he’d needed to be on his guard during the night; if he’d needed to wake at the slightest sound in order to protect himself. The very thought made my chest tighten.