“Yes, I can.You aren’t the only one who likes a bit of motivation.”He smiled at her, but his eyes were intriguingly inscrutable.Was he flirting with her or just being nice?It had been so long since she’d had even the remotest interest in someone that she couldn’t even tell anymore.He held out his hand to her.
“Deal?”He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Okay.”She reached out and put her hand in his.“Deal.”
He gave her a rough sense of the cost.It made her eyes water, but she could afford it.She clutched the piece of paper that listed her appointments.
“Just one last thing I’d like to do before you go,” Trent said as he put the designs back into the brown tube.
“What’s that?”
“I need a sketch of your back.”Harper could feel the color drain from her face.She’d thought she’d have a few days to deal with the psychological buildup of him touching her.
“I’m going to make the transfers that make up the outline, so I can put them on your back at your first appointment.I drew the artwork with a rough idea in mind.”
She watched as he put the brown tube on a shelf,Harper Connellywritten on it in black marker in the same script he’d used in her tattoo.There was a small lotus blossom in the curve of the letterY.Trent had paid attention to every small detail.Grabbing her own hand, she jammed her fingers painfully together to stop their usual dance.
“Guess I am going to have to get used to you touching my back at some point.”
He turned back to look at her.Reaching out, he separated her hands, holding them gently and rubbing his thumbs on her inner wrist.His furrowed brow relaxed as he looked at her.“Yes, you are.”
“Okay.Where do you need me?”
“I’ll take you to the private room we used the other night and have you lie down on the bed.There’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“How would you feel if Cujo came in and helped me?It’s a big area, and it’ll be hard to keep the paper still.I can manage if you’d rather not, but it will be more accurate if he can help.”
“No” was on the tip of her tongue.Someone else seeing her back was not part of the plan.But she trusted Trent.He was looking at her so patiently.No pressure.Everyone else seemed to expect her to have switched back to “normal” by now, in a hurry for her to get back to the rest of her life.
“Okay.I’m fine with Cujo.”
Trent stared at her intensely.“Can I ask you something highly inappropriate?”
“You’re about to see me partially naked, so sure.”
He grinned at that, a delicious smile giving up both dimples.
“How would you feel if I hugged you?”
Being touched by him didn’t seem as frightening as it had the night before, but what if she freaked out?
“I’m not sure,” Harper whispered.
He opened his arms to her.“Care to find out?”
Harper’s fingers started to twitch, but she stopped them quickly by linking them together.Wasn’t all of this about moving on?She slowly walked toward him, never losing contact with the dark pools of his eyes until she was close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him.
His chest was reassuringly sturdy, an anchor to her restlessness.She rested her forehead on it, the only part of her to touch him.Her arms hung uselessly by her side, incapable of reaching for him, unable to deal with anything more than just standing there.
Harper flinched as his hands settled first on her shoulders, resting there softly.She closed her eyes.Slowly he slid his hands down her arms and wrapped them around her lower back, south of the scars that had taken control of her life.He smelled of soap, laundry detergent, and something decidedly male.
Like a desert flower after the rain, Harper drowned in the contact.Her chest expanded, and she breathed deeper.Inexplicably, she felt safe in the arms of a man she hardly knew.
***
What was it about this woman?She tugged at him in a way no one had in a really long time.His thoughts wandered to his one disastrous attempt at a long-term relationship.A game changer for his love life ever since.Not once, since then, had he considered any kind of permanent relationship.Until now.Trent pulled her closer to him and took a deep breath.
