“How much am I going to hate this walk back?” I asked.
“You lucked out. At some point, you swung back toward the cabin. See?” he asked, holding out an arm.
Sure enough, I could see a light coming from a break in the trees.
“Oh, thank God,” I said, exhaling hard, and starting to walk.
My flip-flop was broken and I was clinging to it with my toes on the slow walk back to the rear door of the cabin.
It wasn’t until I was throwing them away that Caymen’s voice cut through the quiet space.
“Noa.”
There was something sharp in his tone that had my heartbeat fluttering, worried there was some kind of trap I’d walked right into.
But even as I turned, I found him beelining for me, not reaching for any kind of weapon.
“What are—”
“You’re bleeding,” he said. He gently grabbed my forearm, just under where I was starting to feel the sting of the cuts on my elbow. I’d been a little distracted by the ones on my knees, burning with each step I took. “Why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding?”
There was something soft in his voice, as if it pained him to think I’d suffered in silence. In reality, I’d been distracted enough to temporarily forget all about it.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. What happened?”
“I fell.”
His brows pinched as he inspected one elbow, then reached for the other.
Then he lowered down in front of me, scrunching up my skirt to inspect my knees.
“Why’d you keep running?” he asked, running the pad of his finger down the outside of my knee. I swear I felt the same sensation slide down my spine.
“You weren’t going to catch me that easily.”
“You’re not supposed to get hurt.” He slowly got back to his feet.
“I’m fine. Really.”
He made some grunt at that, then reached out and scooped me into his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you cleaned up.”
“Caymen, we’re not both going to fit in that bathroom.”
To that I got another grunt.
It turned out we could. Just barely. And only once he’d set me in the shower enclosure.
He reached for my dress, pulling it up, careful not to snag it on my elbows, before tossing it to the side.
He turned on the water, waited until it was warm, then gently pressed me under the spray.
Then, I kid you not, this man moved close… and washed me.
