scrape, but it’s bleeding quite a lot and we need to get it looked after.”
He helped her to her feet, still way too aware, steeling himself against the silky resilience of her skin. She swayed against him. Her wet curves were pressed into him, and her chin was pressed sharply into his chest as she looked up at him with huge, unblinking eyes.
Had he thought, just an hour ago, her eyes were ordinary brown? They weren’t. They were like melted milk chocolate, deep and rich and inviting.
“You were right.” She giggled. “I’m swooning.”
“Let’s hope it’s not from blood loss. Can you walk?”
“Of course.”
She didn’t move.
He sighed and scooped her up, cradling her to his chest, one arm under her knees, the other across her back. She was lighter than he could have believed, and her softness pressed into him was making him way more vulnerable than the embraces of women he’d known who had far more in the curvy department.
“You’re very masterful,” she said, snuggling into him.
“In this day and age how can that be a good thing?”
“It’s a secret longing.”
He did not want to hear about her secret longings!
“If you don’t believe me, read—”
“Stop it,” he said grimly.
“I owe you my life.”
“I said stop it.”
“You are not the boss over me.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
He carried her back along the path. She was small and light and it took no effort at all. At the castle, he found the kitchen, an enormous room that looked like the kind of well-appointed facility one would expect to find in a five-star hotel.
“Have you got a first aid attendant here?” Drew asked one of the kitchen staff, who went and fetched the chef.
The chef showed him through to an office adjoining the kitchen, and Drew settled Becky in a chair. The chef sent in a young man with a first aid kit. He was slender and golden-skinned with dark, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes that matched.
“I am Tandu,” he said. “I am the medical man.” His accent made it sound as if he had said medicine man.
Relived that he could back off from more physical contact with the delectable Miss Becky, Drew motioned to where she sat.
Tandu set down his first aid kit and crouched down in front of her. He carefully unwrapped Drew’s wet shirt from her leg. He stared at Becky’s injury for a moment, scrambled to his feet, picked up the first aid kit and thrust it at Drew.
“I do not do blood.”
“What kind of first aid attendant doesn’t—?”
But Tandu had already fled.
Drew, even more aware of her now that he had nearly escaped, went and found a pan of warm water, and then cleaned and dressed her wound, steeling himself to be as professional as possible.
* * *
Becky stared down at the dark head of the man kneeling at her feet. He pressed a warm, wet cloth against the tender skin of her inner thigh, and she gasped at the sensation that jolted through her like an electric shock.
He glanced up at her, then looked back to his task quickly. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I will try to make this as painless as possible.”
Despite the fact his touch was incredibly tender—or maybe because of it—it was one of the most deliciously painful experiences of Becky’s life. He carefully cleaned the scrapes, dabbed an ointment on them and then wound clean gauze around her leg.
She could feel a quiver within her building. There was going to be an earthquake if he didn’t finish soon! She longed to reach out and touch his hair, to brush the salt and sand from it. She reached out.
A pan dropped in the kitchen, and she felt reality crashing back in around her. She snatched her hand back, just as Drew glanced up.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure,” she said shakily, but she really wasn’t. What she felt like was a girl who had been very drunk, and who had done all kinds of uninhibited and crazy things, and was now coming to her senses.
She had kissed Drew Jordan shamelessly. She had shared all her secrets with him. She had blabbered that he was masterful, as if she enjoyed such a thing! Now she had nearly touched his hair, as if they were lovers instead of near strangers!
Okay, his hand upon her thigh was obviously creating confusion in the more primal cortexes of her brain, but she had to pull herself together.
“There,” he said, rocking back on his heels and studying the bandage around her thigh, “I think—”
She didn’t let him finish. She shot to her feet, gazed down at her bandaged thigh instead of at him. “Yes, yes, perfect,” she said. She sounded like a German engineer approving a mechanical drawing. Her thigh was tingling unmercifully, and she was pretty sure it was from his touch and not from the injury.
“I have to get to work,” she said in a strangled voice.
He stood up. “You aren’t going to work. You’re going to rest for the afternoon.”
“But I can’t. I—”
“I’m telling you, you need to rest.”
She thought, again, of telling him he was masterful. Good grief, she could feel the blush rising up her cheeks. She had probably created a monster.
In him and in herself.
“Go to bed,” he said. Drew’s voice was as caressing as his hand had been, and just as seductive. “Just for what is left of the afternoon. You’ll be glad you did.”
You did not discuss bed with a man like this! And especially not after he had just performed intimate rituals on your thigh! Particularly not after you had noticed his voice was seduction itself, all deep and warm and caressing.
You did not discuss bed with a man like this once you had come to your senses. She opened her mouth to tell him she would decide for herself what needed to be done. It would not involve the word bed. But before she could speak, he did.
“I’ll go scout a spot for the wedding. Joe will be here in a while. By the time you wake up, we’ll have it all taken care of.”
All her resolve to take back the reins of her own life dissolved, instantly, like sugar into hot tea.
It felt as if she was going to start crying. When was the last time anything had been taken care of for her? After her father had left, her poor shattered mother had absconded on parenting. It felt
