Declan, having reached out to grasp her arm as she would have stormed off down the hallway, instantly hissed with the pain it caused to have his stitches and muscles pulled as she continued walking.
But not enough for him to release her. Or to react to what he knew to be deliberate provocation on her part with the babysitting remark. “I’m sorry, okay?” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Certainly not enough for you to walk out.” His mouth twisted. “Especially when it seems this River guy is seriously in need of the extra money you’ll be earning by staying here with me for the next two weeks.”
Fawn wrenched her arm out of his grasp, probably bruising herself in the process. Her cheeks were flushed, leaving Declan in no doubt that her current emotion was anger. “You can put your money in the same place you wanted to stick the hospital board’s policy about patients being required to leave the building in a wheelchair. In fact, why don’t you just stick the whole wheelchair up there!” She stormed toward the elevator.
“Fawn!” Declan called after her. “Please!”
For several seconds it looked as if she would just keep walking away from him. Before her steps faltered. Then came to a halt. She drew in several deep breaths before turning.
Her face was pale again rather than flushed with anger, those gorgeous amber eyes shadowed. “Have I asked about or made any comment on your life, private or otherwise?”
“No. But if this man is coercing you in any way?—”
“He isn’t,” she snapped. “And even if he was, it’s absolutely none of your business.” Her eyes flashed her displeasure at this verbal intrusion into her life. “I was employed to take care of you for two weeks, after which I very much doubt the two of us will ever have reason to see or speak to each other again. Unless you get shot and end up in hospital again, of course,” she derided.
His mouth twisted. “I’ll try not to do that.”
“Like the last time, it might not be your choice.”
His eyes widened. “Are you threatening me?”
She snorted. “Now who’s being ridiculous? I am merely commenting on what appears to be the day-to-day danger of your own chosen lifestyle— What?” she prompted suspiciously when she saw Declan’s frown.
He grimaced. “Nothing.”
“It was definitely something.”
“That might amount to being nothing,” Declan insisted. “For now, I suggest that we go back to before this conversation took place?—”
“Before you insulted me and someone close to me?”
“Where I’m on my way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water,” Declan continued, unwilling to get intothatargument again, “and you’re staying here as my nurse for the next two weeks.”
She studied him for several long seconds before releasing a defeated sigh when his expression remained deliberately unreadable. “But if that other situation changes, you will tell me?”
He nodded. “And if you need any help, with anything, you’ll tell me? Please,” he encouraged.
She gave an abrupt nod. “If it comes to that, okay. In the meantime, while I’m staying here, you might want to think about not leaving your bedroom in only your underwear.”
Declan looked down to his black boxers, his chest and legs completely bare. He was basically wearing the equivalent of what someone would wear beside a pool or on a beach.
Except men lounging beside a pool or on a beach didn’t usually have a hard-on tenting the front of their swimwear!
He looked back at Fawn, easily noting the blush in her cheeks as indication she was well aware of his arousal. “Is me being dressed in my boxers bothering you?” Declan turned the awkwardness of the situation back on her.
The color deepened in her cheeks. “Of course not.”
“Then why mention it?” he taunted.
Whyhadshe mentioned it?Fawn wondered. Especially when it had only resulted in drawing attention to the muscular and almost naked body standing in front of her.
Fawn’s mouth had gone dry at the sight of Declan and the unmistakably long and thick bulge of his aroused cock clearly defined inside his boxers.
Did that obvious arousal mean Declan was attracted to her?
She had believed that time it happened at the hospital had just been a one-off reaction. And possibly not even to her. But what if it wasn’t?
Declan was a lot older than her own age of twenty-four. He also had an easy self-assurance, whereas she got by with plastering a smile on her face and hoping no one would notice that smile didn’t reach her eyes.
