shade of pink.
He wasn’t into feet. Hell, what he was into was women. But he wanted to lift her foot to his mouth, kiss her instep….
A wave of hot longing shot through him.
Quickly, he stood up. Turned on the water in the sink, adjusted it in hopes the icy flow would warm.
“Okay,” he said again, and winced. Okay seemed to have become his favorite word. “Soap? Check. Water? Check. All we need now is a washcloth, a towel and a bandage.”
And a smile from Sage, who was looking at him with no readable expression on her lovely face.
He knew how to change that.
Bend to her. Bring his mouth to hers. Run his fingers into her silken hair …
“Caleb.”
Her voice was soft. He shuddered under its gentle touch.
“Yeah,” he said, forcing a big smile, “I know. My medical skills are limited, but—”
“Caleb.” She was looking at him, her head tilted back. He could see a pulse beating in the hollow of her throat.
“What?” he said in a hoarse whisper.
She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.
“My—my foot is fine. Really. Look. The bleeding stopped and the cut is so tiny it’s barely visible.’
He tore his gaze from her face. She was right. The bleeding had stopped. All that remained of the cut, just as she’d said, was the tiniest possible scar.
What would she do if he put his mouth to it?
He swung away from her.
One more second and he’d be hard as a rock. Then what would become of honor and trust?
He drew a steadying breath, thought about cold rivers, cold lakes, cold streams.
“Washcloths,” he said. “Where do you keep them?”
“Honestly, Caleb—”
“I can clean the cut with tissue but then you’d be that old joke, a woman blissfully unaware her sexy outfit is spoiled by a trailing plume of toilet paper.”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. Good. Laughter. That was what he needed.
“Oh, I’m certainly wearing a sexy outfit,” she said. “All right, you win. Washcloths are in that cupboard, on the middle shelf.”
He nodded, got a washcloth from a neat stack of them, then checked the water running into the sink. It was still cold but better than it had been, and he dumped the cloth into the basin, swished it around, then wrung it out.
“Perfect,” he said, squatting down in front of her and lifting up her foot again.
Sage smiled.
“What?” he said, glancing up and catching the smile.
“Only that you were right. You really can be stubborn.”
He grinned.
“Told you.”
He dabbed at the cut. Sage went back to watching him. His hands were big. They were clean, the nails neatly trimmed, but they weren’t the hands of a man who earned his living at a desk. They were strong hands. Powerful. Masculine.
What would they feel like on her?
A rush of heat swept through her. Dammit, hadn’t she thought about him enough tonight? Weren’t images of this man, this stranger, what had kept her tossing in her bed?
Ridiculous, was what it was.
And it had to stop.
She cleared her throat.
“I, ah, I guess I made quite a mess.”
He looked up again.
“My fault. I scared the life out of you.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I just—I couldn’t sleep.”
“Bad dreams?”
She shook her head. “No. I just couldn’t—”
“I couldn’t, either.”
“No wonder. That sofa’s—”
He looked up at her again.
“It didn’t have a thing to do with the sofa.”
His voice was low. Rough. She stared at him. Then, slowly, a soft pink glow suffused her cheeks.
She knew what he was telling her. She was what had kept him awake.
How would he react if she told him it was the same for her?
Her heart gave an unsteady bump. Their eyes met and held. Then he rose quickly to his feet.
“Almost finished.” His tone had become brusque. “Let me just dry that cut and put a bandage on it.”
“It doesn’t need a bandage.”
“It does. Are they in the medicine cabinet?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
There was no point in arguing with him. By now, she knew that.
Her knight was a determined man. It was, she had to admit, an admirable quality, especially when all that determination was devoted to taking care of her.
Nobody had ever done that before.
Well, except, sometimes, for David—but that wasn’t the same thing at all.
Caleb made her feel … protected. More than that. He made her feel cherished, which was a silly word to use because he was a veritable stranger.
And yet, that was how she felt with him.
She watched as he took a towel from the rack, took the box of bandages from the cabinet, opened one, then squatted in front of her again.
His touch was gentle. Everything about him was gentle. It surprised her, considering his size, considering the way he’d dealt with her attacker and the pair of animals in the entry hall a couple of hours ago.
And he was intensely focused. On her foot, on the inconsequential wound.
Was he always that way?
Would he be so tightly focused on a woman in bed?
She made a little sound in the back of her throat. He looked up.
“Am
