“You alright?” he asked, and she nodded. “You passed out. Does this happen often?”
“I have low blood sugar,” she said lamely and felt a flush of embarrassment creep up her cheeks. “I have peanut butter crackers and an orange juice in my bag.” She pointed to her heather gray Adidas duffel bag across the room, her hand trembling uncontrollably.
A guy with a goatee, who was standing over Travis’s shoulder, disappeared and came back a moment later with the package of crackers and the single serve bottle of OJ.
“Can you sit up, Red?” he asked, his voice gentle, a vast contrast to how gruff his exterior looked.
Roxy nodded again, bracing to lift herself off his thighs. The arm behind her shoulders tightened and then she was being lifted into a sitting position… and now her ass was solidly in his lap, her hip pressed tight against the V of his thighs. Blood rushed to her head and pounded in her ears. Though she wasn’t sure if it was remnants from the blood sugar crash, or because she could feeleverythingagainst her hip.
“Take it easy,” he murmured low as she shifted. Her fingers shook too much to grasp the plastic wrapped package, so he took it from her hands and opened it swiftly, producing two of the small orange, square crackers. “Where’d your friend go?”
“She left a little while ago,” Roxy said, nibbling on a cracker. The crowd around them had dispersed some, leaving her alone with the tattooed god who’s lap she was still sitting in.
“Did you drive yourself here?” he asked, uncapping the orange juice and handing it to her.
“Umm… Yes. I drove myself,” she said quietly, then shifted again. “I should probably get up—”
With a small squeak of alarm, Roxy found herself being lifted into the air as Travis stood, one arm behind her back and the other hooked under her knees. She was pressed flush against his bare chest, and out of reflex she flung her right arm around his shoulders to hold on. His skin was warm and surprisingly soft against her hand. He walked with her like that to the other side of the room, as if she weighed nothing, then gently deposited her onto her feet next to the bench, where her duffel bag was housed. His hand remained locked on her elbow, though, as if sensing how wobbly she was on her feet. She sank onto the bench seat, and he finally released her elbow.
“I would feel better if you were accompanied home.” She looked up at him, taking in more of the up-close view she was being afforded of the man she’d only watched from afar. “Do you think your friend would come back to give you a ride?”
“I can call her,” Roxy mumbled, dropping her eyes from his honey brown ones. Dammit was he hot. Mind addling hotness. Or was that still the blood sugar low?
Glancing up at him from under her lashes, she surmised it was definitely his godlike hotness that was doing the brain addling. All that naked, tattooed skin…
Swiping through her phone to Natalie’s contact, she lifted the phone to her ear as he padded over to where his bag had been stowed, bringing it back and setting it down on the floor. He stripped the black athletic tape off his other hand, balling it up and tossing it into a trash bin nearby. Then he plucked a t-shirt out of his bag and pulled it over his head. The sleeves of the shirt had been cut out, revealing large swaths of his tattooed skin on his ribs. She stared at him, her mouth hanging open slightly.
Shaking herself internally, she sighed after several rings went unanswered, then she heard, “You’ve reached Nat! Sorry I missed you. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back!”
Roxy sighed and hung up, there was no point to leaving a voicemail… she wouldn’t listen to it anyway. “I’m honestly fine. I’m only about ten minutes away from home. I can drive.” Sliding the phone into her bag, she stood, swaying on her feet unsteadily.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, Red,” she heard him mutter as he took hold of her arms again to steady her. She didn’t fight when he settled her on her bottom on the bench again before he knelt to zipper her bag closed. “I’ll take you home.”
Fear at the possibility of being seen with another man bringing her home made panic close her throat. Not to mention Travis was basically a stranger to her. “No, you can’t do that.”
His head came around and fixed her with that damn penetrating stare, and she lowered her eyes to her hands, which were shaking more than before. “Alright. At least let me get yousome food, I doubt those crackers were enough. Your hands are still shaking.”
“I’m totally capable of getting myself home,” Roxy snapped, though it didn’t hold the weight she wanted it to. Dammit. She clasped her hands together tightly in her lap to disguise the shaking, both from the low blood sugar and the paralyzing fear of being seen with another man. Because she knew he would be watching… and even if Travis’s help was innocent, it wouldn’t matter tohim.Frustrated with herself and the fear this ghost could still induce, she muttered, “You could be some kind of serial killer for all I know. You haven’t even introduced yourself properly and I’m just supposed to trust you?”
Travis paused in gathering his own bag, raising his head to pin her with a stare, a guardedness in those golden-brown eyes. Then he blinked, and it was gone. Brushing his long hair away from his face where it had fallen like a curtain on one side, he raised one eyebrow. He rested one elbow on his bent knee, leaning close to her. “You know who I am, Red, so don’t pretend you don’t know me, because that’s bull. I’ve never once put my hands on a person that didn’t know what they were getting into or didn’t have it coming, and I always fight fair… mostly. I don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it, I help them.” He fixed her with that golden-brown-eyed stare, and she felt a flush rush up her cheeks again. “Which is why, in good conscience, I cannot let you walk out of this gym and get behind the wheel of a vehicle knowing you’re not feeling well, at least until youarefeeling better.”
Then his eyes softened, and he reached out his right hand toward her. She stared at it for a long moment before placing her hand in his, and he shook it gently, then said gruffly, “For the sake of formality, I’m Travis. Nice to meet you, Red.”
“Umm, it’s Roxsanna, actually,” she stammered, fighting the urge to rub her fingers together after they pulled away, her hand tingling at the contact. “Roxy.”
Leaning toward her on his elbow which was still braced on his bent knee, foot flat on the floor, he husked, “How about we walk to the sandwich shop next door? I really would feel better letting you leave once that shaking stops.”
Oh buddy. If only you knew that the tremors weren’t only from the hypoglycemia episode…But she nodded grudgingly, her lips tightening into a line. “Okay. Fine.”
He stood in one fluid motion, hiking his bag over his shoulder, then bent at the waist and picked up her bag as well, tossing the strap over his, so both bags were hanging off his right shoulder. With his left hand, he assisted her up off the bench.
“I can carry that,” Roxy said, gesturing toward her gym bag, but he fixed her with that golden brown glare and placed his hand at the small of her back, leading her out into the twilit evening.
“You concentrate on walking without falling over; I’ve got the bags.”
Roxy wanted to be offended, but her legs were still shaking enough that she couldn’t.
He escorted her down the sidewalk to a nearby sandwich shop, then held the door open for her to enter in front of him. As soon as she cleared the door, his hand returned to that spot on her lower back, making her skin burn with the heat from his hand.
