Touching Kit wasn’t like touching anyone else in the world. He thought he wanted to touch those he cared for more than they did, but I couldn’t see how his need for my touch could be any more than mine. I used every excuse to crowd closer to him, to breathe in his bookish scent and close my eyes wrapped in his warmth.
If kissing could be good with anyone, then it would be good with Kit. I didn’t feel what everyone else did before they kissed someone, but maybe that was okay. I wasn’t pulled to Kit like I was caught in some irresistible riptide, but I’d slowly bobbed closer to him. That didn’t sound as romantic or dramatic, but that didn’t mean kissing him wouldn’t be good.
I blinked despite the view remaining as unchanged nothingness. I wished that it was Kit pressed to my side rightnow, not snoozing goats. I wished my fingers curled into his hair, rather than rasped against harsh strands of straw. I wished I could turn my head and brush my lips over his, find out if kissing him was exactly as perfect as every other touch between us had been.
Nothing warned me I was slipping into an uneasy sleep, but I woke at a shout.
‘Lucas?’ Pounding footsteps, louder than the rain hurling itself at the hut. ‘Lucas? Can you hear me?’
Kit. He’d found me.
Despite the pain crisscrossing my body, lightness flooded my chest. Kit was here. Everything would be okay.
I blinked open my eyes. Or tried to. My eyelids wouldn’t lift to more than halfway. It didn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t see anything.
‘Are you really here?’ I rasped. I had to ask. My need for Kit was overwhelming. Perhaps my throbbing brain had conjured him.
I flinched when a hand gripped my shoulder, and my cry of pain as my leg twitched was far louder than my words had been. Instantly, the stabbing aches across my body receded.
I didn’t have the energy to frown, but it wasn’t good that the pain had faded so quickly. Pain was an indicator of wrongness. Nothing had changed about my leg, it was as messed up as when I’d dragged myself out of the storm, so the pain emanating from it in sharp spikes shouldn’t have left.
‘I’m here.’ Another hand cradled the side of my face. After nothing but stinging rain and brittle straw and wiry goat’s fur, the palm of Kit’s hand was blissfully soft.
‘I wish I could see you,’ I whispered.
Another set of hands rested across my stomach, then a large palm spread across the centre of my chest.
My eyes fluttered closed as the pain ebbed away even more. Maybe it dulling wasn’t a sign of something terrible going on. Maybe before I’d had nothing to think about but the pain, whereas now there was Kit’s hands on me. Plus those of whoever he’d brought with him.
‘Errol, what’s wrong with him?’
I didn’t like the harsh edge to Kit’s voice. I wished I could see his face, could lift my hand and trace my thumbs over the lines across his perfect skin. Watch them disappear.
‘We need to get him to Callum. Now.’ Errol didn’t answer Kit’s question. He had to be helpless in the dark to figure out what was wrong. ‘I’ll carry him.’
‘Let’s get clothes on him first.’ It must have been Louisa’s hands on my belly.
‘You two keep draining.’ Errol’s voice was a deep growl. I must have misheard the last word in the battering rain. ‘I’ll get him sat up.’
The hand on my chest lifted and the pain in my leg re-awakened with a dull throb. Before I had a chance to beg Errol to touch me again, firm fingers gripped the backs of my shoulders and levered my body upwards.
My scream matched a screech of thunder. Whimpering, I leant heavily into the hands braced against my back. Pain lashed over me, then swept away in a great swoop.
‘Don’t take too much,’ Louisa hissed.
Kit’s soft hand was still on my cheek. My head lolled into the cradle of his fingers. My nose brushed his skin. It was damp, but under the wetness was a hint of vanilla.
I tried not to cry out again as clothes eased up my arms and settled over my chest, but a few gasps escaped. Even in my helpless state, I recognised that my saviours were hurting me to help me. They couldn’t clothe me without moving me, and theycouldn’t sort out my deeper hurts without taking me from the hut.
‘The best way to lift him will be over my shoulder,’ Errol rumbled. ‘That way, I don’t need to hold his leg. We can zip it inside my coat to limit its movement.’
‘Are you ready, Lucas?’ Kit’s nose pressed into my cheek.
‘Stay with me?’ I pleaded. I couldn’t clutch at him, but my words were like hooks.
He didn’t seem to mind them snagging him. ‘I’ll be right here,’ he promised.
‘Lucas, I’m going to lift you now,’ Errol warned.
