She moves past me toward the stairs, and I want her so bad, I have to physically stop myself from reaching out to touch her again.
When she’s gone, I drop back onto the bench and press the heels of my hands against my eyes.
Why the fuck did I kiss her knuckles?
Stupid.
So fucking stupid.
Yep.
This is bad.
I’m attracted to a woman who has every reason to hate me.
And now I’m kneeling at her feet, kissing her injuries, wanting her with an intensity that borders on desperation.
The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so fucked up.
I force myself through another set of exercises, punishing myself until my muscles scream. But the physical exhaustion does nothing to quiet my mind, nor to erase the memory of her hand in mine, or the way she looked at me, or how right it felt to care for her.
Because one thing is becoming increasingly obvious as this storm continues to rage on, trapping us together.
I’m in serious danger of falling for Sorrel.
13
Sorrel
Ispend way too much time looking at the bandage on my palm.
Like, an embarrassing amount of time. The kind of time that would make my roommates exchange knowing looks and start the group text without me.
It’s just a band-aid. Wrapped around a scrape that honestly didn’t even need this much attention. But he kissed my knuckles after he bandaged it, kneeling in front of me like he was getting ready to propose, and now I can’t stop replaying that moment in my head.
Get it together!
It was just a polite gesture.
Probably European or something.
Plus rich people do weird stuff like that all the time!
Gregory disappeared into the blizzard right before lunch without warning. I was in the frigid guest bathroom when I heard the mudroom door slam, and by the time I got to the window, he was already trudging through the snow toward the north side storage area.
I debated whether or not to join him, but decided against it.
He came back ten minutes later with two frozen chickens, his hair dusted white with snow, his cheeks red from the cold. Somehow still looking drop-dead gorgeous despite it all.
“One for lunch, one for dinner,” he announced, dropping them on the kitchen counter like he’d just conquered Everest.
I left the second chicken thawing in the sink and cooked lunch.
We ate in silence.
The kind of silence that felt loaded, like we were both thinking about things we shouldn’t be thinking about. Like waking up tangled together on Christmas morning. Like the way his thumb stroked my hip bone before we pulled apart. Like him kissing my bandaged hand in the gym.
He ate most of the chicken, of course. And I mean,significantlymost of it. Must need all that protein to maintain those ridiculous muscles he’s been working in the gym all day.
