Her eyes close, embarrassment tingeing her checks. Or maybe the heat is caused by something else. A little flash of satisfaction courses through my veins.
“That’s what I came about,” she says. “I’m not usually such a weirdo.” She can’t look at me now and is playing with a frayed bit of fabric on the bottom of her denim shorts. The long-sleeved baggy sweater she’s wearing swamps her small frame, and the blue scarf in her hair nearly covers her whole head. She’s chic, in a cutesy kind of way.
I approach her, but slowly, mindful that it’s taken all her courage to come here. Her shyness, while almost painful, is quite endearing. “I don’t think you’re a weirdo.” I pop a big spoonful of ice cream in my mouth and relish the small smile she points at the tub in my hand.
“Chunky Monkey for breakfast?”
I flash her the inside of the tub. “What about it?”
The small laugh she allows to escape lights up her face, and it’s truly a sight to behold. “Well, I just wanted to break the ice.” She waves a hand between us. “I didn’t mean to be rude on Thursday night, or in the store Friday morning.” She frowns. “Or in the pub Saturday night.”
“I didn’t think you were rude. Shy, maybe.”
“I’m not shy,” she retorts, far too quickly. Defensively.
“Okay.” I plunge my spoon in the tub and set it on the picnic table next to me. She’s definitely shy. And maybe awkward. “How’s your knee?” My eyes drop down to her leg and find a pretty pathetic dressing covering it.
“Fine.” Her stare is back on my chest, her nervous fingers twiddling.
Then…silence. And it begins to get awkward again.
So I intervene. “Hello?”
“Hi,” she says, looking up at me as she blinks rapidly. “I think I need some abs.”
I choke on nothing. “Sorry?”
“Water!” she yells, taking a blind step back as she proceeds to laugh, a little deranged.
She’s not looking where she’s going. She’s flustered. Embarrassed. I can see what’s about to happen, all so very clearly. “Hey, watch the—”
I’m too late. Her foot lands on the branch, her arms begin to flail, and she starts to fall backward. Fucking hell, she’ll be injured again, and once again it’ll be my fault.
“Shit,” she yelps. I lunge forward and catch her hand in the nick of time, hauling her forward with a little too much force.
Mistake.
Now she’s flying toward me, and when her body crashes into mine, I stagger, catching my own damn foot on a branch and falling to my back on the dirt. I wince at the impact, leaves and dust wafting up around me, twigs digging into my skin.
“Fuck,” I curse, my eyes squeezed shut. And when I open them, I find her plummeting face-first toward me. Oh shit. My muscles lock naturally, bracing for impact.
I note her wide eyes. I note the mortification on her face. I note my blood warming.
She lands right on top of me with a thud, and I grunt before forcing myself to be still, mindful there is only a tiny towel around my waist. Good God. I gulp and breathe in, slow and controlled, as she remains with her face squished into my chest.
“Water,” she murmurs eventually. “I meant to say I need some water.” Placing her palms into my pecs, she pushes herself up and looks at me, her face crimson, her fingers flexing a little into my flesh.
And I find myself laughing on the inside, though I keep my face straight. “You’re feeling me up, and I don’t even know your name.”
Cringing all over me, she quickly removes her hands and sits up. She cringes harder. “And now I’m straddling you,” she sighs, her shoulders slumping, though I get the feeling she is past being embarrassed. “My name’s Hannah,” she mumbles.
“I’m Ryan.”
“I know.” She shrugs when I cock my head in question. “The girl in the store told me.”
Interesting. Is that because she asked? Quite unexpectedly, my thoughts go into overdrive, thinking how good she looks straddling me. Adorable, messy, and good. I find my arms lifting and folding back under my head as I admire her. “Nice to meet you, Hannah,” I say flatly, and she rolls her eyes dramatically.
“I would say the same, but…” She drifts off as her eyes drift, too, roaming the lengths of my arms until she finds my eyes. “Nice to meet you, too.” And she chuckles, her head shaking in dismay. The sound is clean, pure, and if I don’t remove myself now, she’ll find out that it’s also gotten my blood pumping. So begrudgingly, I engage my muscles and she takes the hint, lifting her arse from my stomach. Though she flinches as she stands, prompting me to rush to help her with the one hand that’s not holding my towel in place.
“Okay?” I ask, running my eyes over her gorgeously bedraggled body.
She nods and steps away. “I caught my knee on the way down.”
I quickly find the graze, noting that the bandage is hanging off and the scrape is bleeding again. She reaches down and pats around the edges of the dressing, trying to refix it. “Damn it.” Giving up, she lets the dressing flop down, and I wince when the wound comes into view.
“Did you clean it?” I ask, taking her arm and leading her to a nearby log.
“Yes.” Her arse drops to the wood, and she gazes up at me.
Her impossibly big blues are wide in surprise as I lower to my haunches before her, getting a better look. “What did you clean it with?” I reach forward and dab at the edge, not liking the sight of raw flesh.
“Warm water.”
“That’s it?” My alarm can’t be hidden. “Just water?”
She looks timid now as she nods her confirmation.
Exasperated, I rise. “Wait there,” I order, pacing back to the house to fetch my first-aid box. “It needs seeing to before it becomes infected.” I ditch my towel and drag on some jeans before opening a few cupboards in search of my supplies. As soon as I lay my hands on the box, I fill a bowl with some warm water and antibacterial liquid, and head back outside. She’s still perched on the log, gazing around, and I have to stop myself from taking a moment to admire how fucking lovely she is.
I set down my things as she straightens out her injured knee. “How’s your shoulder?” I ask. “You were rolling it the other night.” I bend and wring out the cloth, taking it to the graze and dabbing gently as I wrap my hand around the back of her knee to hold her still. Her leg tenses.
“Stiff,” she whispers.
Stiff. I shift in my crouched position, trying in vain to make room in my jeans, my eyes firmly rooted on her knee. Until they’re not, my gaze dropping down the length of her shapely leg. My hand jerks, as well as my dick. I’m breaking out in a sweat. “Hold still,” I order, a bit harsher than I meant to.
“I didn’t move a muscle. You moved.” Her hands push into the tree stump on either side of her body as I realign my focus and continue cleaning her wound. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“You’ve got bits of gravel in it.” I reach for the tweezers and get closer, unreasonably annoyed. I shouldn’t have let her refuse my help the other night. I would have removed all the dirt and dressed it properly, and it would be healing by now. “Don’t move.”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“Shh,” I hush her, picking out the small stones and flicking them away.
“You shush,” she retorts through gritted teeth, and I can’t help but smile down at her knee, trying to concentrate. “I haven’t seen you around here,” she says, her teeth clenched as I work on her wound. “Not before you ran me over, anyway.”
I ignore her dig, since I suspect it won’t be the last poke I receive about that. “I just got back to town after finishing a job.” I lift a small flap of skin to get to a larger piece of grit.
Her leg jerks, and I force it still again. “Youch!”
“Got it.” I toss the tweezers aside and grab the cloth, wiping away the rest of the blood.
“You said you work in protection.”
“I did work in protection,” I reply.
“No.”
“Why?”
I look at her on a smile. “Anyone would think you want to get to know me.” Does she? Do I want to get to know her?
Her cheeks flush again. “Just trying to make conversation.”
Intrigued by her apparent interest, I decide to feed her curiosity. “I joined the army when I was eighteen. I was pulled from the ranks at nineteen and put through a grueling recruitment process. By the time I turned twenty, I was working for MI5.”
“Oh my God, were you a spy?”
I laugh a little. “No, I wasn’t a spy.” I’m not lying. I wasn’t. I was an intelligence officer. So what if it’s technically the same thing. “I worked in protection.” Not lying again. I was protecting national security.
“So why’d you leave?”
“Change in circumstances,” I say, looking up at her, not feeling the need to tell her about Alex. God, I can’t wait to see her. “I started working for a private protection agency.”
“And now you’ve left there?” she asks, and I nod, seeing the desperation in her to ask why that is, too.
But before she can, I point to her knee. “Does it sting?”
“Not too much.”
“You’re so brave.” I peek up at her, seeing her nose wrinkle. That’s cute, too. She’s just too damn cute. “So I haven’t seen you around here before.” I throw her words back at her.
“I moved into town a few weeks ago.” She gingerly flexes her knee when I prompt. “I have an art shop in town. It’s kind of a gallery, but I sell craft stuff, too.”
Ah, the new store. She looks like the creative type. But if anyone was going to set up a new business, especially in such a niche field, why on earth would they do it in Hampton? We’re miles from civilization.
I don’t have the heart to rain on her parade, though. Not after spotting the extra glow in her face when she mentioned her store. “I wondered where that store had come from,” I say, reaching for a bandage. “What’s your area of expertise?”
She laughs a little, and, God damn me, it stirs my dick to the point I cringe at my body’s reaction. “I wouldn’t say I have a specific area of expertise. I just have a passion for painting. I’ll paint anything.”
I smile as I rip a bandage open, remembering the paint splatters all over her the other night. “Then tell me, what’s your favorite thing to paint?”
“I love the outdoors. Color, nature.” She smiles, lighting up her face some more. “So landscapes, mainly. Things of natural beauty.” Listening to her talk about something she so clearly loves is…enjoyable.
Hannah’s eyes glisten as she stares at me, and suddenly the easy atmosphere shifts, the air thickening. The bandage sits in my useless hand, her foot on my knee, and I’ve completely forgotten what I was doing. Her tongue wets her lips. Oh shit. Adorable and effortlessly sexy. Desire races through me with a vengeance. “Things of natural beauty,” I say quietly, and she nods slowly. “So you want to paint me, right?”
A grin slowly forms, and she breaks out in laughter, her head thrown back. My eyes lock on her throat, the smooth lines down the column positively begging for me to put my mouth there. Fucking hell, Ryan. Sort your shit out.
I slap the bandage on her knee a bit heavy-handed, and she yelps, her laughter gone in a second. Hannah looks at me, startled, and despite knowing I should apologize, I don’t. I place her foot on the ground, then rise to my feet. I’m uncomfortable with how comfortable this woman makes me feel. She’s like a precious box of adorableness. Her blond hair is a mass of messy waves pinned up haphazardly, her dark roots bold and undoubtedly meant to be, and the scarf knotted on her head is the brightest of blues you could find. And don’t get me started on her big, sapphire eyes. They’re hypnotizing. She’s so slim, I want to feed her. Does she eat? Look after herself? I should cook her a burger. A big one. And watch her eat it. Whoa! I clear my throat and back away.
“So you live here?” Hannah stands, aware of my sudden withdrawal.
“Home sweet home,” I say quietly as she gazes around. She’s impressed, and I don’t know why that pleases me. The only other woman I’ve ever so much as touched in Hampton hates this place. Hannah isn’t like her. Nothing like her. I push away thoughts of the woman who is the epitome of high maintenance. A woman who has an exceptional ability to make everyone feel beneath her. A woman who tried to take away the one thing in this world I adore. A woman I fucking hate.
“Is that an outside shower?” Hannah’s question yanks me back to the here and now, where a woman stands before me looking at my sanctuary like it’s the most amazing thing she’s ever seen. She’s not appalled in the least bit. Just awed. It feels…nice.
“Yes, it is.”
“And a hammock?”
I nod as she continues to take in my land, from the barbecue to the veranda circling my cabin. She turns and walks over to the shower stall and peeks around the wooden slats, up to the spray. “We’re in England. It must be freezing most of the time.”
“It’s heated,” I explain, joining her and flipping the lever. “Connected to the cabin’s central heating system.” The water hits the polished concrete slabs and splashes up our legs, and she nods with a thoughtful smile, gazing around again while I turn off the shower, wandering here and there, looking back at me every so often.
“You built all this, didn’t you?” she asks, and I nod my confirmation. “So you’re good with your hands?” My eyebrows shoot up without thought, and she laughs a little. Fuck, that sound. “It’s wonderful here,” she says. “I love it.” And why does that make me so happy? Since when have I cared what a woman thinks of me and my way of living? My mind is going off on a tangent, and I look back at my outdoor shower. A woman has never been in that shower. What would Hannah look like in it? I jolt, kicking myself into line, finding that Hannah has put herself in my hammock. She’s swinging back and forth, looking up at the treetops. I let her have her moment, not prepared to interrupt her when she’s clearly so serene. Peaceful suits her. And she looks damn good in my hammock. Now she’s humming, too. I smile to myself, though it’s curious, and watch her for a while, my head whirling.
“Comfortable there?” I ask as she lifts her head and squints to see me.
“I’m moving in.”
I laugh under my breath, unable to stop myself. “You sure do move fast. You only straddled me ten minutes ago.”
Her eyes drop to my chest, reminding me that it’s still bare. “Yeah,” she all but breathes, struggling to sit up. The hammock swings precariously, and she yelps, forcing me to dive forward and steady her. Though I make damn sure we don’t end up in a messy pile of bodies this time. “I’m not usually this clumsy,” she blurts, holding my forearms and throwing her legs over the side.
Her clumsiness is quite endearing, yet I refrain from telling her so.
I help her down, ensuring her stability before I release her, though it’s only when I try to step back that I realize she’s the one clinging to me. She’s looking at me again, her blue eyes ridiculously large and beautiful.
I look away. I need some breathing space. Weird shit is happening in my veins, my heart, my head. “Excuse me,” I say, forcing myself from her hold and heading back to my cabin, scrubbing my hands down my face and breathing out. For a man who’s content on his own, a man who’s not interested in getting involved with a woman, this one sure has my blood hot. No woman has ever done this to me. Stirred my interest. Gotten me so curious. Made me laugh. Stoked desire.
I splash my face with cold water, if only to bring myself around from this…oddness. Only once I’ve composed myself do I head back outside. And stop dead in my tracks at the threshold when I see no sign of Hannah. Where’d she go? “Hannah,” I call, taking the steps and scanning the area.
“Yeah?”
She appears from behind a tree, and my muscles relax. That’s fucking weird, too. “I thought you’d gone.” And so what if she had?
>
She blows a strand of hair from her face, trudging toward me. “You’ll have to tell me how to get out of here.” She gestures around to my hidden sanctuary. “I just followed my nose.”
Followed her nose, huh? Should I read more into that? Probably not. “So today you came to see me to tell me you’re not awkward,” I say, my head tilting. “What were you doing up this way the other night?”
“Looking for Molly’s house.” She shrugs. “I was delivering paint and got completely lost.”
“Then I’m glad I found you.” The words come from nowhere, making her withdraw a little. “I mean—” What the actual fuck, Ryan?
“I’m glad, too,” she says on a mere wisp of air. “Or else I could’ve been eaten by a bear or something,” she adds cheekily, as if she’s regretting what she’s said.
“There are no bears around these parts.” Silly female.
“Wolves?”
I shake my head. “You’re in the Peak District, not Alaska.”
“Wild dogs?”
“Nope. No man-eating monsters around here, sweetheart.” I pick up my axe from its resting place by the pile of logs, swinging it casually as I kick my foot onto a nearby log and lean forward, resting my elbow on my knee. “Only me.”
She rolls her eyes for effect, approaching and claiming my axe. “No offense, but you’re not the least bit scary,” she says casually.
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she regards me carefully. What’s she thinking? “It’s heavier than it looks.” She rips her eyes from mine and inspects my axe. Now I know she wasn’t thinking that. “Did you chop all these logs?”
“Yep. I love the springtime. It’s warm during the day, but early mornings and nighttime are still cool enough to light a fire.” I kick a few logs as Hannah studies the handle, both hands flexing around the wood. “Wanna try?” I ask. Where are these words coming from? And is this wise, given she’s so fucking clumsy? She could take my head off.
Hannah looks up at me. “At chopping wood?”
Leave Me Breathless Page 6
