“I might have something for that,” she said, backtracking into the kitchen. In the powder room beyond it, she opened the mirrored cabinet and gathered her essential oils. In a small medicine cup, she mixed an ounce of jojoba, a carrier oil that could be applied directly to the skin, with fifteen drops of ginger.
Rogue twined around her ankles, meowing irritably from the back of her throat.
Sassy glanced into the hallway and found Riot hovering, ears forward, tail milling. She let out a laugh. “He just wants to play,” she told the cat. “Go. Be social.”
Rogue sat on the bathmat, staring up at her with insouciant eyes as she wound her tail around her paws.
“You’re going to have to get used to him,” Sassy lectured. “And look at him. He’s clearly harmless.”
The noise Rogue made could only be classified as a growl of discontentment.
“Be nice,” Sassy said, stepping around her. She went back to the dining room, pulling up a chair next to Nick’s.
“What’s that?” he asked, frowning at the medicine cup.
Pleased to see his plate half-empty, she answered, “Massage oil. May I?”
He nodded when she indicated removing his ACE wrap.
She did so with the utmost care. Laying his arm palm up on the tabletop, she performed gentle swipes with her thumbs across the swollen area. “Does that hurt?”
Despite a mouthful of food, his eyelids were at half-mast. “I can’t really feel anything right now.”
“Okay. I’m going to dab a little bit of oil near the inside of your elbow to make sure you don’t have a skin reaction.”
He watched as she rubbed the liquid in a small circle over his skin with the pad of her forefinger. She waited while he finished eating. When a rash didn’t occur, she felt confident enough to go forward with the massage. “Hold still,” she told him. “I don’t want to jostle your wrist, even if you can’t feel anything.”
His lips twitched. “I thought I was the one with med training.”
“I learned a thing or two in the House of Bly,” she reminded him, referring to her artful, holistic mother. “Close your eyes. Try to relax.”
“Any laxer and I’ll be drooling on myself,” he said but shut his eyes in easy obedience.
Careful not to put too much pressure on the injured area, she used both thumbs to sweep the oil across the swollen surface, rubbing it in generously. She didn’t know if it would work, but she had to dosomethingother than watch him suffer.
His chin drooped toward his chest and his respirations slowed. His shoulders lowered not in defeat but in relief. The smell of the ginger mingled with the scent of hardworking man. The musk of clean sweat and earth didn’t always come from swinging a hammer. Sometimes it came in the form of a sweet-faced paramedic who didn’t quit. Quitting wasn’t in Nick’s vocabulary. He gave one hundred percent to those around him each and every day, even if it drained him. Even if he had nothing left when he returned home.
His head came to rest on her shoulder. Though the oil had already been absorbed into his skin, she didn’t stop the movement of her thumbs as she worked them down his forearm, over the heel of his hand and back up.
He groaned deep in his throat. “Feels amazing,” he whispered. Then he did something that made her thumbs stop working and her heart wobble.
He turned his nose into her hair. There, he buried it and carried a long inhale deep into his lungs.
He was smelling her hair.
“You smell so good,” he breathed.
Her mouth dropped. “L-like paint?”
“Mmm. And wood stain.” He sniffed again, like she was in heat and they were both wolves living wild in the canyons. “And pomegranates.”
His voice had dropped to a low rasp. “Oh,” she said, unable to form anything more intelligible than that.
He nuzzled his nose through her hair and found the line of her throat. Then she felt his mouth against her skin and nearly lost her senses. Her blood rushed to a boil, her heart thrummed and her belly ached with what she feared was longing. “Nick…”
He stiffened. A moment later, he cursed and pulled back, lifting his head. “Goddamn it, Sassy,” he said, not meeting her eye. “I’m sorry.”
She saw the color in his cheeks and mustered a reassuring smile. “You’re high on muscle relaxants,” she said, trying desperately to make light of what he’d done…what she felt. “I think I can forgive you.” Still, she carefully lifted her touch from his wrist and helped him back into his ACE wrap. “You should probably rest now.”
