I didn’t bother lying. “To get you back here.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.” Winona shook the thing again, nearly slicing me in the process. “You’re full of shit, Harrington. You—” she cut herself off, dropping the pipe.
My stomach plummeted as she gripped her wrist, a line of dark blood blooming on her palm. I grasped her injured hand in mine, eyes boring down on the cut. I couldn’t see how deep it was. I guided her over to the sink, turning on the tap.
“Don’t!” she exclaimed. “It’s going to go everywhere.”
Water gushed out around our ankles. “Doesn’t matter.” I held her hand under the stream.
She hissed in pain, but reached over and snapped the tapoff.
I inspected the cut as the blood returned. It didn’t look too deep. The anxiety spiking my heart rate ebbed just a tiny bit. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
Still, I’d done this.
“I’m fine,” Winona said, though she trembled slightly as she stared at the line of red returning to her skin. “I don’t love blood.”
I ripped a towel from a drawer and pressed it onto her palm.Idiot. Fucking asshole.
“Don’t look,” I said,the words gravel. “Look at me.”
I dipped my chin to find her gaze. But she wouldn’t look at me. She was staring at her hand. “Winona,” I urged.
I brought the hand not holding the towel to her jaw, gently guiding her gaze back to me.
That was a mistake. The moment her eyes locked on mine, fire ignited my insides.Not now.
Not ever.
“You’re okay,” I husked, lowering my hand. Trying to regain some semblance of control. I only made it as far as her clavicle. The warm softness of her skin against my fingers was nearly unbearable. “I just need to hold this here until the bleeding stops,” I said.
Winona swallowed, her throat bobbing. I couldn’t help it; my hand inched upward, my thumb on the pale pulsing softness at the side of her throat. My fingers grazed that mole.
“For how long?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Two minutes. More or less.”
Her pupils flared. She looked quickly toward her hand.
“Winona.”
“Mmm.”
“What did I say about looking at me?”
I drew my hand up until my palm was on her throat, my fingers controlling her jaw. I once again guidedher face back toward me. When her eyes met mine, every promise I made to myself succumbed to the magma coursing through my veins. I forgot all rational thought. All the control I said I would hang onto. Becausefuckshe was beautiful. Even more so like this. So vulnerable. So sweet and innocent, with her lips parting for me, that pin-up hair so soft as I slid my hand up her scalp, gripping enough to tip her face back for me.
My stomach tightened, my cock throbbing to fullness.
Winona sucked in a breath, her eyes fluttering. She could feel me. And she wasn’t kneeing me in the balls. The opposite. Her free hand tangled itself in my shirt, and she pulled me closer, grinding herself against my thigh.
I nearly choked, shifting to accommodate her.
She made that half-gasp, half-moan again, shuddering as she dropped onto the hard length of my leg.
