by Owner
“The wind is kicking up again.” She coughed when a swirl of dirt pushed passed them.
He moved to stand up.
“Take it slow,” she coached.
With the ease of a hundred-year-old man, he creaked to his feet.
“The bike looks bad.” He grimaced at the bent, lopsided front wheel. “Did my laptop survive?” He didn’t try to bend over and retrieve it though. He couldn’t. When he looked down for any longer than a second he got dizzy all over again.
She picked up the computer and rattled its padded case. “Sounds like nothing’s loose.”
Jon nodded with relief, but stopped, quick. Nodding reeled his head, too. Leaning his back against the tree trunk, he rested while Maddie collected their belongings into a heap and stashed both bicycles behind the tree. “I’ll come back for the bikes later,” she said.
After a few minutes, he began to feel stronger. “I think I can walk now.”
She shouldered him and they made a few passes around the tree. It was a go. He could walk.
“We’ll head back toward the cottage. I’m not sure how far the dock is or how soon the rain will start.” Maddie slung her backpack over her shoulders and gripped his leather bag.
Hugging the laptop to his chest, he limped along the road toward the cottage.
“Is your leg all right?” With a frown, she watched him struggle.
“I think it’s my ankle.” He winced, knowing it was his own fault for wishing he’d break a leg before boarding a ferry again. Looking skyward, he thanked the powers-that-be for only granting part of his wish.
Jon puffed and sweated until the drab cottage came into view. But before they reached the porch, the clouds burst and spewed rain down on them. Drenching rain. They couldn’t get their garbage bags over their bodies fast enough.
After tucking his computer under the plastic bag, he hobbled on. His hair soaked fast. Water streamed down his eyelids and lashes, blurring his vision once again.
While he plodded on, Maddie reached the porch first. She dropped their luggage and jumped puddles to get back to Jon. As she laced her arms around his waist and shoulder, water logged her hair and flooded over her face. Rain droplets the size of acorns beaded on her trash bag while rivulets gushed down to splash mud onto her monster sneakers.
She never looked more beautiful.
****
A gust of wind ripped off his garbage bag as Maddie and Jon trod onto the porch. She swiped water from his eyes. He’d nearly been killed and now saturated in the cloudburst. He was certainly injured. Besides his limp, a lump bubbled up on his forehead. She gave him mega-points for being a survivor.
After leading him inside the cottage, she pried his cold wet fingers from his laptop. Propping him against the closed door, she warned, “Stay put until I get some towels.”
She grabbed whatever towels were in the bathroom and hurried back. While she ruffled Jon’s hair with a fluffy towel, she draped another over his shoulders. He shivered. So did she.
“Come here.” He pulled her against him to share his body warmth. His fingers felt cold and his lips were chilled where they touched her temple. He hugged her closer and smiled down at her. “We make quite a couple.”
“A poster pair for kicking up a storm.”
“Storm? That has to be a full-fledged hurricane.”
“Possibly the tail end of one,” she said in consolation, her mouth almost touching his. His breath tasted like cold coffee, and suddenly she had a craving for it. If she lifted her face a smidgen more, their lips would meet and she could sip from his mouth. His eyes connected with hers, and she read his willingness in their dark depths. She’d gone mouth-to-mouth with him earlier. Could once more hurt?
She shook off the notion. This wasn’t the time. The poor man was hurt. “Let’s get you over to the sofa and off that foot.”
They shuffled across the wooden floor, dribbling as they went. She wrapped him in the rest of the towels before plopping him onto the sofa rather clumsily.
When Maddie knelt and wriggled off his wet shoes, his sore ankle looked a bit blue. She frowned up at him. “It could be a bruise or it could be a sprain.”
He didn’t look too put out about either prospect. “At least I didn’t break my leg.”
Maddie smiled at him. What a brave outlook. “You need RICE.”
He squiggled his brows. “But I’m not hungry.”
“RICE. Rest, ice, compress, and elevation. But first, dry clothes.”
He thumbed toward his soppy leather overnighter. “I should have some dry things in my bag. It’s waterproofed.”
Maddie dug a dry shirt and khaki pants from his bag. The guy sure liked khaki. She helped him snake his wet shirt off and slipped the dry one over his head. That was easy. His shorts weren’t.
He winced with pain. “Please, I don’t think I can manage on my own. I feel dizzy when I bend or move fast.”
His head did have a knot on it, and he did say please. She sighed. He wasn’t in the best of physical condition to start with. While she covered his hips with a towel, he eased them upward.
In this case, out of sight wasn’t out of mind. Her hands had an imagination all their own. When he sucked in his stomach so she could undo his fly, her knuckles grazed the coarse hair that started at his belly and surely trailed down to a much harder spot. Her mouth went dry at the speculation.
Slowly, she edged his zipper down. The metal grated, loud, despite the noisy storm. Each tug kept tempo with the thud of her heartbeats and his labored breaths and the pounding rain.
When the zipper hit bottom, her hands hovered above his private parts. Parts she couldn’t see, but her fingers could easily explore if she so much as flexed them. Suddenly, as if her flesh-and-blood had a will of its own, an involuntary twitch brushed her hand against his hardening muscle. Jon was endowed.
She flittered her hands away before she changed her mind and her path. She yanked at his waistband, and he jiggled his bottom. As she worked the shorts from his body, she skimmed his narrow hips.
“Ow.” He peeked under the towel. “A black-and-blue mark.” Apparently Jon wasn’t a man who suffered quietly. Not many men did in her experience in healthcare.
She licked at her dry lips. With gentle force, she nudged the wet material down lower, over his thighs. Her palms tingled again, wanting to explore the texture of his skin, the silkiness of his body hair, feel his muscles tense with sexual anticipation. Inhaling deep, she continued dragging his soggy shorts downward. She forced herself not to let her fingertips trail the cord and contour of his calves. None too soon, she reached his feet. In his case, the urban myth rang true. His feet were long and a match for his penis.
With a kick of his uninjured foot, he helped her remove his pants.
Whew. Stripping a man’s clothes off had never been such an intense sexual experience before.
And she still had to get his dry pants on. When what she really wanted to do was leave him naked, while she jumped onboard and straddled his lap. Or lowered her head to suck him until he was harder yet and begging for it.
Pushing aside her carnal instincts, she pulled herself together. She had to think of him strictly as a wounded person in need of care and not her personal play toy.
She grabbed the dry khakis and started working his feet through them, taking extra care with his injured one. The ankle looked like it might’ve swollen slightly. She’d better hurry this along and stop pandering to her sexual longings.
At last, she worked his pants up over his legs and hips and allowed the towel to drop away. She was doing well until it came time to zip his fly. A few dark sprigs of hair peeked out at her and she thought about tucking them in. For all of a second.
“You can manage the rest.” She looked up at him.
“I thought you said you were used to dealing with hard-ons,” he dared, his voice husky and low.
Chapter Seven
Maddie jumped to her feet. Kneeling in front of Jon while he sat on t
he sofa unzipped was not the smartest spot to be in, especially with his erection standing between them and her ready to mount him at the slightest provocation.
After a hot zing of desire finished its head-to-toe circuit through her body, she managed to gulp in some cool-headed logic. His brashness had only been tit-for-tat for her earlier wisecrack about his morning boner.
“Touché,” she blurted and pushed him down on the sofa.
“How forceful.” He chuckled. “Just take what you want.” He outstretched his arms.
She bit her lip to hide her amusement while she propped his foot up on the arm of the sofa, higher than his heart.
“Don’t move.” She waggled her finger at him before escaping to the kitchen in search of ice.
The power was out, but the ice cubes in the freezer of the old Amana were still solid. Maddie rummaged through the kitchen drawers for plastic wrap or a dishtowel but came away empty-handed. Now what? Oh, well. She wasn’t wasting anymore time and giving his ankle a chance to swell. She shimmied out of her wet T-shirt and wrapped the ice in it.
“Close your eyes,” she called on her way back to the living room, but her bra covered as much as her bathing suit. Leaning over the end of the sofa, she gently applied the homemade icepack to his ankle. He moaned.
“Are you in pain? I might have ibuprofen in my backpack.”
He didn’t answer. When she glanced up, he had one eye open and zeroed in on her wet, lacy bra and cold, perky nipples.
“You’re incorrigible.” Her reprimand was half-hearted as her breasts ached to have him do more than merely look. His hot mouth on her chilled nipples would go a long way toward heating her body and satisfying what really ailed her—sexual frustration.
“Incorrigible’s one word for it.” He grinned. “But some women have called me boyishly delightful. I like that description better.”
She waved him off. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the damp rain and everything to do with her rampant desire, she hurried into the bathroom. By the time she combed out her wet braid and changed into dry clothes, she had her wayward sexual urges under control. Rummaging through the bathroom cabinets, she came across Band-Aids, aspirin, antiseptic spray, and an elastic bandage. She grabbed the bandage and headed back into the living room to peep in on him.
His eyes were closed. He looked peaceful and harmless. But she knew better. The man had a way of arousing her faster than her vibrator.
When she removed the ice pack from his foot, he stirred. “We’ll let the injury rewarm naturally before I assess the damage,” she told him. “Any pain?”
He shook his head, but kept his eyes closed. He looked pale against the dark brown of the sofa. A chill seeped through the cottage with the electricity still out, and she pulled the fuzzy cover from the back of the sofa down over him.
Maddie went about collecting their wet towels and clothing. Outside, the rain poured down. Wind and water rushed against the door and the windows in loud gusts. She hoped the storm blew itself out soon. She was stranded with a seductive, injured man who revved her hormones faster than she could think. What else could go wrong?
Padding toward the bathroom, she peeked into the two bedrooms on the way. If she and Jon ended up staying another night, she was planting her butt into one of them. Alone. There’d be no drooling on the sofa, no sexual fantasies, and she was definitely keeping her shirt on.
Kneeling over the bathtub, she wrung as much water as she could from their clothes and the sopping terry towels. With each twist, she convinced herself how wrong Jon was for her sexually. His preference for dumb women, his lack of physical expertise, his dislike for the vast body of water that separated their lives. Even so, he’d been ideal for venting her long suppressed resentments and disappointments. She’d felt a release more essential to her wellbeing than getting off on his body. As she draped the wet things over the chrome shower bar to dry, the idea of meeting him to share their vulnerabilities again, possibly next year, became tangible. Doing a lusty bump-and-grind with him would surely interfere with that, wouldn’t it?
About fifteen minutes had passed so she checked on him. He had his arm tossed over his eyes and looked asleep. What she could see of his face was rugged and handsome. Flared nostrils. A shadow of a beard. Kissable lips. She hated to disturb him. Best to let sleeping dogs and sexy men lie. But she wanted to wrap his ankle.
“Jon.” Nothing. No movement. She touched his arm. “Jon.”
“Hmm.” He blinked. His dark lashes fanned his dark eyes. Slitted, sleepy, and disturbing. Somewhere low in her tummy a smoldering tickle stirred. She ignored it. After all, she was a professional.
“I want to check your ankle for swelling and discoloration and then wrap it.”
“Uh-huh.” He stretched and shook the stiffness from his arm. “I must’ve dozed off. I’m not used to so much fresh air.”
Maddie lifted his foot in her hands and pressed ligaments on both the inside and outside of his ankle. “Does this hurt? Does this? How about this?”
“Nah. Nah. Uh, a little.”
She moved his ankle through its range of motion, up and down and around.
“Good.” As his brows knitted with worry, she smiled to reassure him. Most men were such babies. “Very little tenderness and no loss of movement. It seems like a mild sprain at best.”
“I take back what I said about your bedside manner. I’d not only hire you, I’d pay you.” His voice sounded syrupy, sincere, and dangerous.
She’d experienced this before. The last thing she needed was for Jon to become a grateful patient who thought he was in love with his care provider. Quickly, she wrapped his foot from his toes to well above his ankle. “Another twenty minute session of ice should do it. Hungry?”
“Yeah. Biking, falling, and slopping around in the mud and rain seem to be appetite builders.” His gorgeous brown eyes devoured her and tested her career competence all the way to its hands-off limits.
She backed up a step and laughed. “Aside from the fall, the bike ride and hike up and down the road are known as exercise.”
“I’ve been meaning to try that craze. I just haven’t found the time.”
“Busy businessman and all.” She propped her hands on her hips. “We still have granola cereal and fruit. Or hummus and rye bread. What would you like?”
“What I’d like isn’t on the menu.”
When Maddie nodded her pretty head, her long blonde hair, loose and unbraided, shimmered with her movements. “Oh, you mean meat,” she murmured, naively.
But that wasn’t what he meant.
“Red meat.” Particularly, red-blooded and female, as in a physical therapist with violet eyes and fleshy, creamy breasts and thighs.
He eyed her up, stacking his hands behind his head. The hell with this strangers-and-secrets stuff. Jon was done with that. And done worrying about the storm, too. Maddie knew more about him than any woman he’d ever met. More of his flaws, that was, right down to his less than skilled physical activities. Except for making love. That was physical and active and he was pretty good at it. She’d seen him at his worse. He sure as hell intended for her to see him at his best before they left this damn island.
Their eyes remained melded. Electricity arced between them. Sensual, enticing, hopeful on his part.
Until she opened her mouth. “Sorry, no meat.”
He reached out and hooked his finger into the palm of one of the hands she’d curled onto her hip. He needed to make body contact with her.
“I’ll try the granola,” he said in his smoothest, sexiest voice.
She looked pleased, for all of two seconds. Then she shook him off like a dog with fleas and trotted toward the kitchen.
Jon wasn’t deterred. He had tenacity when it came to business. He’d never had to apply it to a woman before, but what the hell, from the sounds of the rainstorm, they were going to be stranded for a long while.
“Here you go.” She returned in a short time with a pillow tucked
under one arm while balancing two bowls with spoons in her hands. The woman had great coordination. “It’s soymilk,” she said, proudly.
“We couldn’t get any more natural unless we ate in the nude.” He raised an eyebrow to see if the idea pushed her luscious envelope.
It didn’t. She plunked the bowls down onto one end of the driftwood coffee table and settled the pillow in front of him on the other end.
“Let’s sit you up so you can eat.”
He could’ve sat up on his own, but decided to go for whatever she was offering. With a sigh, he fingered the bump on his forehead for extra sympathy.
“Put your arms around my neck.” She leaned over him and wrapped her hands around his back. Silky strands of her hair caressed his face and smelled rain-fresh. His head swam with lust. Soon he was seated and eye-to-eye with her. He could taste her breath on his. Sweet as honey. All that health food must agree with her.
As he stared into her eyes, heat shot through his groin and urged him to kiss her. Now was probably a better time than later. He was hurt. If she objected, she wouldn’t belt him. Not very hard, anyway.
He leaned forward and their lips touched. Lightly at first. She didn’t pull away. Her lips felt hot and lush and tasted anything but healthy. They tasted decadent.
Kissing her harder, he ground his mouth against hers before slipping his tongue inside her soft wetness. Her tongue challenged his with a rhythm that shot testosterone through his veins, especially the prominent one throbbing in his penis. With his good leg on the floor and his bad one still propped up, he pulled her nearer to fit her between his thighs, snuggling her on top of his groin. Her breasts squished against his chest in a provocative manner while her crotch nestled his cock.
“You’re body’s made for love.” He groaned. He couldn’t stop himself. She felt so damn accessible.
That was when she pulled away and sprang to her feet. He slid to the floor, wedged between the sofa and the ugly coffee table. “This is typical,” she gasped.
“Not for me it isn’t.” He didn’t usually end up on the floor alone.
