Except this morning.
My hands aren’t as steady as they should be as I reach for the cutting board and knife. That simple fact should be enough to set off warning bells in my head, but I stick to the routine and start slicing the bell peppers—red, orange, green, and yellow—until the colors start to blur and my mind drifts somewhere it has no business going.
Back to last night and the way she looked in that bathtub, with the bubbles covering her body but still hinting at every curve. Then there was the way her lips felt against mine, the way she reached out for me and the soft, needy sound she made when I kissed her.
Fuck, I’m hard right now just thinking about it.
I’ve kissed plenty of women before, but this was different from all those past kisses. This was?—
The blade slips and bites into my thumb, stinging like hell and bringing me out of my Heather-induced daydream.
“Dammit.” I hiss the word through gritted teeth as the knife clatters to the cutting board.
I hurry over to the sink so I don’t bleed all over the counter, still cursing myself for letting my focus slip. The cut is deeper than I’d like, but probably not bad enough to need stitches.
It’s exactly the kind of careless, thoughtless mistake that I try to avoid with my strict routine. Then again, my routine was never meant to compete with the kind of thing that happened last night.
I’ve trained myself to track a hundred-mile-per-hour puck without blinking, but thinking about Heather has me bleeding like a stuck pig.
“Grant?” Heather still sounds half-asleep as she comes around the corner, squinting against the bright kitchen lights. “Are you okay? I thought I heard you—oh my god, you’re bleeding.”
She’s next to me in an instant, still wearing her pajamas—a loose t-shirt and shorts that barely peek out under the hem of her nightshirt. Her hair is still sort of wild from sleep, and she smells exactly like the floral, fragrant bath I drew for her last night.
Which, it has to be said, is probably redirecting the blood flow from my thumb to another inconvenient area.
“It’s nothing,” I start to say, but she’s already taking charge, studying my thumb like she does this for a living.
“Where is your first aid kit? This needs to be cleaned and bandaged.”
I nod toward the small half-bath just off the kitchen. “Just in there, under the sink.”
She’s already moving before I can finish speaking, and I’m actually a little surprised by the way she’s taken control of the situation. Most people would hesitate or ask if I need help before jumping in, but not Heather.
Within seconds, she’s back with the white plastic box that holds my first aid kit.
“Have a seat.” She leads me to the nearest barstool. “And try to keep your hand elevated.”
I do as I’m told, silently watching as she lays out antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape on the counter. There’s no doubt she’s done this all before. Probably a hundred times with April.
“This might sting.” She gently takes my hand in both of hers. “But only for a minute or two.”
The antiseptic does sting a little, but I’m more focused on the warmth of her hands on mine, and the way she nibbles at her lower lip in concentration. She starts humming something, maybe a nursery rhyme or song that she sings to April when these things happen—but I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.
Which makes it a hell of a lot sexier than it should be.
“It’s not as deep as I first thought,” she says once she’s finished wrapping the gauze around my thumb. “You should pull through just fine.”
It takes me a second to pick up on the hint of sarcasm, and it catches me off-guard enough that I’m smiling before I can school my features back to normal.
“Good to know.” I try to match her semi-playful tone, but I’m pretty sure that’s a fail. “I have a game on Thursday.”
Yeah, that definitely came out rougher than I intended. Which sucks, because we’re already so close that she has to look up to meet my gaze. Close enough that if I lean down just a few inches, I can taste those beautiful, perfect lips again.
But the moment passes and she looks away, focused again on making sure my bandage is secure.
“There.” Her hand lingers for another moment on mine before she releases it. “All better.”
When she looks up again, she’s biting her bottom lip—exactly the same way she was doing last night—and the memory combined with her lingering closeness sends a jolt of searing heat through my body that starts somewhere deep in my chest and ends in the pit of my stomach.
