okay.” She realized that was true, she was fine, possibly only because she had a two-hundred-pound blanket of bone and muscle covering her. “You?”
“Bleeding, but okay. And see? Seems to be all finished,” he said in a ridiculously calm voice. He lifted his gaze to scan the tunnel. “Let’s give this a few more seconds to make sure it’s done, then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Light silt still showering down in intermittent swishes mingled with his heavy breaths against her lips, and her own fast breathing against his. Their eyes met and held, and she was suddenly acutely aware of the feel of his skin against her palms, the strength of his muscles, the movement of his naked chest against her. The grip she had on his warm shoulders loosened, and her hands moved down his pectorals, smoothing across the soft hair covering them before she realized with dismay what she was doing. Making herself let go, she curled her fingers into her palms to keep from touching him again. Fought the peculiar combination of sensations swirling around her belly that didn’t seem connected to the fear that had consumed her just moments before.
She pulled in another deep breath. What in the world? The two of them were lying in a collapsed tunnel, for heaven’s sake, and it was long past time to get safe.
“I’m...I’m ready,” she said unsteadily. “To leave.”
“Finally?” His lips curved just a little. “Let’s go.”
His big body lifted from hers, and his hands grasped her waist, effortlessly swinging her to her feet. His arm wrapped around her shoulders as they moved quickly out of the tunnel toward the light. Miranda blinked at the brightness of the sky—how had it seemed so gray and gloomy before? The fresh, cold air filled her lungs, sharp and stinging and wonderful. Trembling a little now that the whole thing was over, she tried not to think about how bad it could have turned out, and turned to see Mateo watching her with an odd expression on his face.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Probably, she looked pale and shaken, her pretense of bravery through the situation now shot to heck. “Yes, okay. Thanks for, you know, crushing me with your body so I didn’t get crushed worse by flying debris.”
“You’re welcome. Except I didn’t completely succeed. Your coat is torn.”
She followed his gaze to the large rip in the shoulder seam of her coat, and couldn’t help the little dismayed sound that came from her lips. “Oh, no! I just bought this last month! Must have happened when you tackled me.”
“Better a torn coat than a broken head. Which you would have deserved for not leaving when I asked you to.”
“Not even I deserve a broken head.”
That statement made his lips quirk as he reached out to brush his finger across her dusty eyelids. “You’d better get washed up.”
“Me? You look like a gray-haired old man right now.” Which couldn’t be further from the truth, since no old man had the kind of wide, muscular chest that was mostly bare right in front of her, or flat, rippling abs, or such a chiseled jaw. And because she couldn’t stop looking at him and was enjoying their banter far too much, she forced herself to look away up the sidewalk, pretending to focus on all the emergency equipment and personnel. Then her peripheral vision caught bright red drops of blood splattering on the sidewalk behind his feet.
Wide-eyed, she jerked her attention back to him. “You’re bleeding! Oh, my God.”
“I can tell it’s just a scrape. Maybe a gouge, too, but nothing worse than that.”
“Take off your coat so I can see.”
“I’ll freeze.”
“Better to freeze than die from blood loss.” She pushed at the shoulders of his open coat and, shaking his head and grumbling, he finally slid it off. She turned him around, then stared in dismay at the swollen, raw scrape and shallow puncture wound that was the source of the drops of blood. “For heaven’s sake, you really did take a boulder for me!”
“I’ll live.”
“Does it hurt anywhere else?” She ran her hands across his shoulders and back, wiping off the dusty debris from when he’d had his coat off earlier, looking for other injuries that might not be obvious. “I feel just terrible that I was pushing and jabbing you to get off me when you really were hurt.”
“Like I said, just a scrape. And I’m tough.”
He tried to turn around, but she stopped him. “And you call me stubborn! Just be still a minute.” With her scarf gone, the best she could do to staunch the trickle of blood was a pathetic wad of tissue she scrounged from her coat pocket, pressing it firmly against the bruised indentation as her left hand continued to roam his hard contours and smooth skin.
Abruptly and without warning, he surprised her by turning, her hands moving along with him, and the sight of that manly chest and the feel of his skin and soft hair on her palms had her mesmerized again, touching him the same way she’d touched his back, slowly and thoroughly, though there was clearly no injury on this side of his body.
“You about finished examining me, Doctor?”
Oh, my God. His low rumble made her realize exactly what she’d been doing. Dropping the tissue and yanking her hands back like she’d touched a hot furnace, horrified that she’d practically been fondling the man, she stared up at amused brown eyes.
“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to, you know, run my hands all over you like that, I was just, um, checking for more injuries, but you seem...” She cleared her throat, utterly mortified. “Fine.”
He gave her a slow smile that said he knew exactly why she’d been touching him, which had been way too softly and leisurely to be considered a medical necessity. Heat flooded her face because, yes, the man was very, very fine and she’d just made an utter fool of herself.
Beyond relieved that he slid his coat back on, she wished with all her heart that he’d button it up, too, so she wouldn’t have to keep finding other things to look at. Like his gorgeous face.
“Thanks for the first aid.” He reached out to gently smooth a finger down her dirty cheek. “You’re a mess. Do you live nearby?”
“No, I live in Brooklyn. But I’ll go to the hospital and use the showers there.”
“Be careful walking—looks like some of the sidewalk has heaved in the collapse.”
He turned and, astonishingly, it looked like he was about to head back inside the collapsed street they’d just come from. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to find John’s dog.”
“What? Surely you’re not going back in there! Or at least get the safety equipment and hard hat on before you do.”
“Unless he somehow got out, it won’t take long. The space beyond where John was injured ends just another thirty-five feet or so back.”
And with that, he disappeared, leaving her with her hands clutched to her chest and her mouth gaping open after him.
What should she do now? Go on to the hospital like she didn’t
