Melody is kneeling amid broken glass and picking up fragments of a vase. One of her fingers is bleeding.
She lets out a yelp when she sees me. “You startled me,” she says.
I can’t answer. I’m focused on her finger. Whether it’s a drop or a lot, the sight of blood bothers me. It takes me back to a time when I was too little to prevent bad things from happening.
“Jonas?”
The sound of her voice snaps me out of the past and I stride over to lift her to her feet. Wrapping my arm around her waist, I steer her to the sink in the back and stand behind her while holding her finger beneath the water.
Problem number one. The water is cold. She is not. I am not. Her ass is against me. I’m against her. My fingers rest against her curvy hip. I’m on fire. I clench my teeth as my cock hardens.
“It’s not deep,” she says, turning her head to look into my eyes.
I make the mistake of glancing down at her. And I’m swimming in the blue of her eyes.
She chews her lower lip and I come to my senses.
I pull her away from the sink and walk her to a chair.
She sits and I turn to search for a first aid kit while discreetly adjusting my burgeoning cock.
I finally locate one and pull a chair up across from her.
“No one has ever bandaged my wounds,” she says like she’s in a daze after I take her hand and rest it on my thigh.
I apply antibiotic ointment and then glance up. Problem number two. I’m swimming again. “What?”
“No one was around so I bandaged up my own wounds.” She does a slow blink with those long lashes of hers, then frowns. “Why did you return?”
I smooth the ends of the bandage snug against her finger. “To tell you that Mom picked up the kids. She said she’d drop them off after we got dinner ready. So you don’t need to go to the school.”
“Okay.”
I’m still a prisoner of her blues. I swallow hard and try to take a deep breath, but the air feels too heavy for my lungs.
Melody frowns. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Her lips quirk with amusement. “Do you want a quick fuck or something?”
“No.” My denial has the strength of a dandelion against a hurricane and that embarrasses the hell out of me.
“Good, because that can never happen.”
“Agreed. There will be no physical ties between us.”
“Unless it’s ties to a bed.” She smirks when she says it, looking pleased with the way she’s taunting me.
I stare at her.
“It was a joke. Keep your denims zipped, cowboy.”
If my cock gets any bolder, he’s gonna unzip them himself.
She stares at me. I glance at her lips, then back to her eyes. She glances at my lips, then back to my eyes. She clears her throat and stands, shoving the chair away with the backs of her legs. “I’m going to walk away now.”
She says it like she’s trying to convince herself to move. Another minute passes.
The front door chimes as a customer walks in.
Melody hurries off without looking back.
