Blood Kiss, стр. 27
Why the guy didn’t just stay in—
This time, when Peyton poked his head through the door, there was some conversation. Then he went in and shut the door solidly. When the male came back out after a little while, he went over to the Anslam guy and whispered something. Whatever it was, Anslam agreed with a shrug and a nod.
And then Peyton went back to sitting in the middle of the room.
Not long thereafter, Paradise came out— and the instant she was through the doorway, everyone looked over at her, the conversating about Tosh.0 stopping.
Craeg turned away from her, mostly because he resented like hell the fact that his blood pressure rose and his heart rate increased just at the sight of the female.
Damn it, none of these people were his business. Especially not her.
“Lady and gentlemales,” Peyton said. “We have our Primus.”
“Don’t call me that,” she gritted before any kind of applause could happen. “Ever.”
“Why?” Novo challenged. “You beat all of us. You lasted the longest. You should be fucking proud of it.”
Okay, now there was the female he should have been going for—not that he was interested in anything sexual from anybody at the moment. Still, Novo was his kind of “lady”—one who knew her way around an obstacle course and was clearly the type to clock an offender first and ask questions only after the jaw she’d broken had been reset.
Novo also looked damned good in that loose Hanes T-shirt and those surgical scrubs she’d traded her trashed clothes in for.
He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, either. Anslam, Axe, and even that Peyton fucker had been checking her out surreptitiously—not that she’d seemed to care, or even notice.
The receptionist, on the other hand, was no doubt very used to everyone looking at her. Blondes like her never failed to get attention.
It could make them targets, too.
And yeah, that was what he’d been thinking when he’d stood over her desk and suggested she enter the program. Sure, a female such as herself was protected by the males in her family, but that didn’t always work, did it.
His own sister would have been alive today if that had been true.
“…with us?”
Craeg looked up at Novo. “What?”
“We’re going to go find someone to get us more to eat. We’ve finished everything in the fridge and the cupboards here. You want to come?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll get more of those double-stuffed Oreos for you. You ate them all.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” she said as she turned away.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he winced as he shoved his ass further down in the chair and kicked out his legs. Shut-eye. That was what he needed—and as he heard the door close, he exhaled.
“You aren’t hungry?”
His lids popped open and he shifted his head. Paradise was still by the door of the bunk room, and she looked about as relaxed as he no longer felt, standing there with her arms around her middle and her robe lapels tight to her throat.
“No,” he snapped.
Shit, there was no reason to bite her head off.
“I mean … no.” Great, he sounded like a total idiot.
“How are your feet?”
“Fine.” There was a pause, as if she were waiting for him to ask the same of her. “Look, why don’t you go with the others—”
“You can’t kick me out of here, you know.”
He lowered his lids. “You’ve got to get over this thing about trying to talk to me.”
“Why? What did I ever do to—”
Craeg sprang up out of his chair and crossed the distance between them. Getting all into her space, he made sure she had plenty of time to measure exactly how big he was.
“You were saying?” he said in a low voice. “Or are you leaving.”
Her blue eyes stretched wide. “Are you threatening me?”
“Just suggesting a relocation that will be better for both of us.”
“Why don’t you leave?”
“I got here first.”
“Because you failed … riiiiiight. You lost to a girl … riiiiiiiiiiiight.”
Craeg ground his molars. “Don’t push me, okay. I’ve had as long a night as you have.”
“You were the one who came over here like a charging bull. And I would leave—because I really don’t like you as much as I thought I would. The truth is, though, my feet hurt so badly I can’t really walk, and I have too much pride to ask for a wheelchair.”
Total.
Fucking.
Asshole.
Yeah, that was pretty much how he felt as he dropped his stare further and saw her shoeless, sockless feet in all their gory non-glory: Angry red welts had sprung up on the sides and across the tops, and the right one was so swollen, it looked like it didn’t belong at the end of her slender ankle.
He closed his lids for a moment. Walk away. Just go back to your little chair, buddy, sit down again, and let her limp on over to the sofa and stretch out or … head back into the bunk room … or sprout wings and fly away from your sorry, nasty ass.
Instead, he found himself sinking to the floor. Both of his knees cracked so loudly, it was like snapping a pair of branches in the quiet room, and his thighs and calves screamed at the change in position.
“They look really bad,” he said softly.
He didn’t mean to reach out and touch her skin. He really didn’t. But somehow his hand went forward and he brushed the top of the left one—on what was the only stretch of non-red skin.
Above him, he heard her inhale sharply, and for some reason, he didn’t trust himself to look up at her. “Did I hurt you?”
It was a while before she answered in a breathless voice, “No.”
He ran his fore-and middle fingers so lightly across the top of her foot that he could only sense the warmth in her skin.
Craeg’s own body shuddered. And his voice wasn’t steady as he said, “I hate to see these marks.”
She probably had them elsewhere, too. Contusions, bruises, scrapes, places that were rubbed raw. He wanted to touch all of them.
Touch other parts of her, too.
This was bad, he thought. Dear God, this was very bad …
His sex drive had been asleep for a long time and the last thing he needed right now was for it to wake up, especially under these conditions. Especially with a female like her.
You didn’t have to be an aristocrat to be a lady. Even commoners who were working girls could have standards and appropriately save themselves for a proper mating.
Which would not be to an orphaned floor layer’s son.
Oh, and she was very, very clearly a virgin.
The way she held herself told him that. The way Peyton, who was clearly a player, respected her space told him that.
But mostly he knew it because of that inhale, that whispered no.
This was realllllly bad.
Chapter Fourteen
Paradise’s heart was like something out of a drum section, and the surges of heat crashing through her body were as bold and bright as a set of cymbals.
Craeg was down on the floor in front of her, his huge body folded into some kind of awkward sitting position, the muscles of his shoulders straining the thin white T-shirt he was wearing, his dark head bent as he carefully ran his fingertips over the top of her foot.
Even though she was exhausted, she felt every nuance of his touch—and also became achingly aware that she was naked under the robe and the johnny.
Man … forget about the aches and pains. What agony?
The only thing that registered from her body was some great, undefined potential she didn’t fully understand, but wasn’t completely ignorant of, either.
This was … sexual attraction. Lust. Desire.
Right here, right now.
Unrepentant, unforgiving, uncompromising chemical attraction.
“I shouldn’t be touching you like this,” he said softly.
No, she thought. He shouldn’t. “Don’t stop.”
His head angled up, and his eyes met hers. “This is not a good idea.”