Dreya didn’t realize how sore she was until she started undoing the buttons of her uniform top. While she could handle the bottom ones, she couldn’t lift her arms up high enough to get the upper one without a lot of pain. She gritted her teeth and tried again, but the pain in her forearm, elbow, and shoulder made her groan out loud.
Crap.
“You okay?” Braden asked softly, suddenly at her side and making the small bathroom seem even tinier. “You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”
She shook her head. According to Clayne, her aches and pains would be gone in a couple of hours, but Braden had no way of knowing that.
“No, I’m good. Just sore,” she told him. “Taking a shower will loosen everything up. Go ahead and figure out what you can nuke for dinner.”
He smiled as he came around in front of her and gently moved her hands away from the buttons. “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll take care of it after I help you get this off.”
Dreya opened her mouth to tell him that was completely unnecessary, but Braden already had one button undone and was working on the other. The heck with it. She did need help.
A frown creased his brow as he tossed her uniform top on the floor. She followed his gaze and almost groaned again when she saw the nasty bruise coloring her forearm.
He caught her eye. “You sure you don’t need to get that looked at?”
Clayne had assured her any bruises would disappear as fast as the aches and pains. But she couldn’t tell Braden that. “Nah, I’m fine. I’ve hurt myself worse making jewelry.”
He shook his head. “If you say so. I have to admit, you’re a lot tougher than I ever gave you credit for.”
For some stupid reason, the compliment made her smile, though she had no idea why she cared one way or the other what he thought.
“You don’t need to do that,” she protested when Braden dropped to one knee to untie her boots.
“I know.” He didn’t look up as he continued to work on the laces. “But you’re too proud to ask, so I’m doing it anyway.”
In the end, Dreya was glad he helped. She would have had a hard time squatting to get the laces undone. Still, she did most of the work kicking off the boots, but even with that, she needed to steady herself with a hand on Braden’s shoulder, or she would have fallen on her butt. Again.
“You good from here?” he asked when he rose to his feet.
She was tempted to tell him yes, that she could get her T-shirt and pants off all on her own. She was a frigging adult after all. But then she thought about how hard it had been to get her arms up, and the idea of pulling her black T-shirt over her head suddenly didn’t seem so thrilling.
Braden must have seen the look of capitulation in her eyes, because his mouth curved into a smile. “Word of this will never pass my lips,” he promised as he caught the hem of her black T-shirt and eased it out of her pants. “Your street cred will remain totally intact.”
His fingers grazed her stomach as he slowly lifted her shirt, making her catch her breath. She was so caught up in the moment of being inches from a hot guy as he pulled off her clothes that she nearly forgot how sore she was, even when he pulled the shirt over her head. That left her standing there wearing nothing but a sports bra and a pair of cargo pants.
Dreya couldn’t miss the way Braden’s pulse sped up as his gaze casually skimmed her body. She couldn’t ignore the sudden scent of sexual arousal suddenly coming off him, either. She inhaled deeply through her nose, her inner shifter practically drooling at how delicious he smelled right then.
All at once, her gums and fingernails started to tingle, like she was about to go full-on fangs and claws. She’d never felt the animal inside her react to a guy like this before. It took everything she had to clamp down on the urge to shift right there in front of him. If she didn’t get him out of the bathroom soon, she might not be responsible for what happened.
His gaze holding hers captive, Braden unbuckled her belt. She didn’t remember asking for help getting her pants off, but for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with any reason at the moment to not accept his assistance.
Could he tell how turned on she was getting? She thought it likely he could, because his dark eyes had one hell of a smolder right then.
Dreya trembled as he hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of her pants and carefully pushed them over her hips. The feel of his warm hands on her skin was almost enough to make her lose the already tenuous control she had over her inner shifter, and she curled her fingers in case the tips of her claws started peeking out.
When her pants finally hit the floor, she automatically stepped out of them and kicked them. They were standing so close now, she could feel the heat coming off him.
She didn’t know if it was feminine or feline intuition that told her Braden was going to kiss her. And she was going to let him. Let him? Hell, she was on the verge of jumping him, claws and fangs be damned.
But even though she could hear his heart beating a hundred miles an hour, could smell the hunger pouring off him, the kiss never came. Instead, he took a step back and smiled at her.
“I’m guessing you’re good from here?” he asked.
It was then that Dreya realized she really was standing in front of a fully clothed guy, wearing nothing but a black sports bra and a matching pair of panties. She should have been embarrassed, not only by the lack of clothes, but by the fact that she’d been on the verge of kissing a man she had absolutely no reason to even like.
The funny thing was, even now after the wild urge to kiss him had passed, she still felt more comfortable being nearly naked in front of him than she’d ever been with another guy.
