I didn’t know what possessed him to announce that he was taking me home. He had to know I wasn’t going anywhere with him. Still, I was going to let the doctors think I was because it was my fastest way out of here.
I’m just part of his job, I reminded myself. The only reason he’s been coming here is because he’s a firefighter—a man who cares about the wellbeing of others.
I fell asleep for what could have been hours or minutes and was awakened by the soft weight of something settling on the end of the bed.
It was a bag. A shopping bag with the mall’s logo on the side. I yawned and sat up a little straighter, eyeing the bag.
“I thought you might want something to wear that didn’t smell like smoke and had a little more… coverage.”
I remembered the boxers I was wearing when he pulled me out of the house and blushed. I divided my glance between the bag and the man who brought it. He must never shave. Either that or he was secretly a werewolf who grew facial hair at the speed of light. “You brought me clothes?”
“It’s just a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I didn’t know what size you wear, so I had to guess.”
He brought me clothes. It was a small gesture, but it proved that he thought about me even after he left this room. “Thank you.” I smiled. “I really wasn’t looking forward to putting on those smelly boxers.”
He grinned. “The nurses out in the hallway said you were all ready to go.”
I pushed back the covers and swung my legs over the bed. “Yes, the doctor cleared me to leave. I’ll just get dressed and then we can go.”
His warm hand wrapped around my upper arm and I climbed out of the bed. “Feeling okay?” The deep timber of his voice made tiny shivers race over my nerve endings.
I could only nod, not trusting my voice when he was this close to me. Thankfully, he released my arm and reached into the bag to pull out a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. “Like I said, it’s pretty basic stuff.”
“It’s perfect,” I replied, looking over the soft-looking materials. I don’t know why, but emotion clogged my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had done anything for me. I hadn’t even gotten a gift in years. And even though the clothes were necessities and not really a gift, I doubted he would ever know how much it meant to me.
I cleared my throat and looked up at him. “I’ll just get dressed and meet you in the hall.”
He nodded. “I’ll have the nurse ready your chariot.”
“My chariot?”
He shrugged sheepishly. “I thought that sounded better than wheelchair.”
I grinned. “Totally better.”
Getting dressed proved more difficult than I imagined. My body was stiff and sore. My muscles groaned at just about every move I made, and the bruise on my shoulder screamed at me that it wasn’t nearly healed enough to lift my arms and put on a T-shirt.
I tossed down the white cotton and picked up the jeans. Propping myself against the bed, I very slowly stuffed my feet into the pants. Every time the rough material brushed against the sensitive skin of my hands, I winced, but I continued on. I wasn’t about to board my chariot with my bum flapping in the wind.
I must have taken a lot longer than I thought because Holt came back through the door a few minutes later. He stopped short when he saw me still not dressed and standing beside the bed.
“I seem to be having some trouble,” I admitted.
He strode into the room, his boots moving soundlessly over the cold tile floor. “I should have gotten something easier to put on. I didn’t think about the use of your hands being so limited.”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? You don’t even have to be here right now. This isn’t your fault.”
He kneeled down in front of me, gently brushing away my arms and grasping the jeans by the waist. He moved slow, inching the jeans up my legs. When they brushed my thighs, he rose upward, his face slowly sliding up the front of me until they met mine. My body jerked slightly when his knuckles brushed against the smooth silkiness of my thigh.
“Sorry,” he rasped, his voice a rough whisper as he continued to tug the fabric up around my waist. The jeans were low riders, the waistband skimming my hipbones and dipping below my belly button.
His nimble fingers slid along the top edge, brushing against the fabric and my flat stomach (which was jumping with excitement) until he stopped in the center, just inches above the most feminine place on my body, and gently fastened the button. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and his eyes seemed heavy-lidded when he reached for the zipper and slowly, achingly slid it upward.
My knees actually started to shake.
What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t even act like this when I discovered that boys existed and didn’t actually have cooties like I thought. I didn’t even act like this when the most popular guy in school smiled at me from across the hallway and winked before turning around to hang with his buddies.
Of course, I wasn’t fifteen now. And the man standing before me, the man with his touch lingering on my stomach, was not a boy. He was all man. A living, breathing total package.
When his pointer finger trailed toward my belly button, I jumped and stepped back. I was so close to the bed that my legs folded and I ended up falling onto the mattress. My shoulder screamed in protest, and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out.
“I—uh…” he said, stumbling over his words, his cheeks turning slightly pink.
I pushed up onto one elbow. “Sorry for feeling me up?” I finished for him.
He grinned. “That wasn’t feeling you up. When I feel you up, you’ll know it.”
When he feels me up…
I didn’t know what to make of that statement, so I stuck my foot in his face. “I need my shoes.”
He yanked off the tags from a pair black flip-flops. In the center of the straps was a cluster of sparkly gems. They were pretty, and he slid them onto my feet.
He picked up my shirt and looked at me.
I wasn’t wearing a bra.
After my reaction to him pulling my pants up underneath my hospital gown, I was positive if I took off this gown I would embarrass myself. Besides, I didn’t know him. I wasn’t about to go Girls Gone Wild and flash him.
“I’ll just wear this.”
He frowned. “Are you in that much pain?”
I shook my head. “I’m just sore from lying in this bed for so long. And my shoulder is a little banged up from falling.”
“You fell?”
I nodded. “In the chair. I was trying to stand and I knocked myself over.”
His eyes darkened to the color of storm clouds. “I wish I had gotten there sooner.”
Something inside me softened at the regret in his tone. “I think your timing was perfect.” I stood up and gave him a playful shove backward. “But I could have done without being thrown in the pool.”
“You sank really fast.”
“Ha-ha.” I gathered up my items, which consisted of my ruined pajamas and the shirt he brought me, shoved it all in the bag he brought, and then headed to the door. I tried to ignore the draft at my back and the way the oversized gown flapped in the wind.
He made a sound in the back of his throat and I turned, looking over my shoulder at him. “What?”
He was stripping off the slate-colored button-up he was wearing over a navy-blue T-shirt with the letters WFD (Wilmington Fire Department) on the front. “You can’t wear that.”
“I’m covered,” I protested.
“Barely,” he muttered and came closer, holding the button-up out like it was a coat and we were at some fancy event where the gentleman always helped the ladies with their evening attire.
He held it low enough that I was able to just slip both my arms inside, successfully managing not to bump my bandaged wrists, and then he slipped it up around me, his hands not touching me once.
Thankfully.
Okay, I was a little disappointed. It seemed
my body liked his touch. In fact, my body practically hummed whenever he was around. It was beyond strange.
He made short work of the buttons, closing the shirt up around me in record time (making me think he purposefully took forever on that one button on my jeans), and then stepped back to admire his work.
The shirt hung to my knees.
He smirked. “You are tiny.”
I stuck out my tongue at him. “You’re just huge.”
He winked.
Heat flooded my cheeks because suddenly commenting on his size took on a whole new meaning.
Thankfully, the nurse pushed open the door and wheeled in my ride. I sank down into the wheelchair and positioned all my belongings in my lap, taking a moment to mourn the fact that everything I owned fit in a single shopping bag.
Down at the entrance of the hospital, Holt disappeared for a few minutes only to return in a truck that I was pretty sure I would need a ladder to get into.
It was huge. It was also cherry-red with not one spec of dirt on it. The rims on the giant tires were chrome, and I actually caught a reflection of myself in the front tire. The side of the truck said HEMI and by the sound of it, it had two mufflers on the back.
When he came around the hood, he laughed at me and the nurse. “You should see your faces.”
“You want me to get in that?” I asked dubiously.
The nurse leaned over the back of my chair and whispered in my ear. “Go for it, honey.” I glanced over my shoulder at her, but she was staring at Holt.
I wondered if she was telling me to go for a ride in the truck… or with the man driving it.
Holt held out his hand and gave me a look that dared me not to get up. Of course I had to take the challenge. I might be getting released from the hospital, but I was no wimp. I survived being tied up in a fire and tossed into a pool.
Holt splayed his hands around my waist, once again murmuring about my slight size, and lifted me into the cab of the truck like I weighed nothing more than a bag of Skittles.
Mmm. Skittles sounded good.
“Let me help you with that,” he said, pulling the seatbelt around me and clipping it in place over my lap. Then he adjusted it across my chest before pulling back to look at my face.
“You ready?”
It was a simple question.
Yet the weight behind it seemed to catch my breath and make me wary. I don’t know what kind of emotion came through my face, but he chuckled and shut the door to go around and get into the driver’s seat. When he pulled away from the curb, I spoke up.
“You can just take me to the motel that’s down near the library.”
The truck jerked to a halt and I went forward. Holt reached out casually and splayed his hand over my chest, keeping me from going forward any farther. Then he snatched his hand back and looked at me. “Motel?”
My eyes widened at the hardness in his tone. “I appreciate you telling the doctor you would look out for me, but you didn’t really think I would stay with you, did you?”
“I gave the doctor my word.”
I gaped at him. Was he serious? He couldn’t possibly want me at his house any more than I wanted to be there. “I won’t tell him you took me to a motel.”
“I’m not taking you to a motel,” he growled.
“Yes. You are.”
He completely ignored the fact that he was sitting in the center of the road and crossed his arms over his chest and regarded me with raised eyebrows. “How do you plan to pay for the room?”
“I have a bank account,” I snapped, but then I realized my bankcards, checkbook, and driver’s license burned in the fire. “Oh.”
He smirked.
“Was my car damaged?”
“I don’t think so.”
I blew out a breath. “I have my library ID for work in my glove compartment. I can use that at the bank.” Thank God I kept it there. I also kept a twenty in there with it because once I left my wallet at home and starved the entire day because I had no money to buy lunch.
“It’s after five,” he said, pointing at the clock on the dash. “Banks are closed.”
I leaned my head back against the seat. It was starting to hurt. “Look. No offense. I am grateful to you for saving my life. For checking on me in the hospital and for bringing me these really cute flip-flops, but I don’t know you. I can’t just come to your house.”
“You’re scared of me.” He said it like the words left a bad taste in his mouth.
“No.” I protested. I really wasn’t. He made me feel… safe. But that was the problem. I wasn’t safe. Someone tried to kill me. I couldn’t just go home with some stranger because I didn’t want to be alone.
“Someone tried to kill you.”
“I know.” I held up my wrist.
“I’m not taking you to a motel.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“I’m the one driving.”
“You’re stupid!” I yelled.
He laughed. A real laugh that started in his belly and burst out of his chest. I giggled. I just called him stupid like I was twelve.
A car sitting behind the truck beeped their horn loudly, then sped out around us, the driver sticking his very unfriendly finger out the window and waiving it wildly around.
“Well, I guess he told me,” Holt said and flashed his teeth.
I giggled some more.
He put the truck in drive and pulled away. His face turned serious. “Do you really have no one?”
I sighed. “I can take care of myself.”
“How is it that someone like you ended up all alone?”
His words caused a hollow feeling inside me. It kind of felt like a giant pocket of air that kept expanding until there was nothing left but the pressure of emptiness inside me. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
“I’m tired,” I said. I leaned farther into the seat and looked out my window at the passing buildings. The sun was low in the sky and I knew in just a few hours, darkness would blanket the town, covering up all traces of sunlight. I wasn’t sure I was ready for the darkness.
The last time I went to sleep in the dark, I woke up tied to a chair in the middle of a raging fire.
“Look. Let me take you to my place tonight. In the morning, I can take you to the bank and to whatever motel you want. It’s only one night.”
I felt myself beginning to succumb to his words. I knew I would sleep better if he were close by. I tried not to think about that too much because I didn’t like it. I really was tired. My body was sore and all I really wanted was to take some pain meds and curl up beneath a blanket. A soft one.
“Fine. I’ll stay.”
He smiled like a cat that ate a canary.
“But if you try to kill me in my sleep, I will come back as a ghost and make your life a living hell.”
He did that immediate brake thing again, using his arm to keep me from flying forward. I let out an exasperated sigh. “You are a terrible driver.”
“Katie, look at me.”
The command in his voice was undeniable.
I looked up.
He regarded me with somber eyes. “I swear to you I will never hurt you.”
Deep down I knew it. It was almost like an instinct. Like when you meet someone and right away you know they are a liar. Or that right away they give you the creeps. Well, with Holt—the minute I saw him, I knew. I knew he was a good guy. My subconscious called him a superhero. He wasn’t a liar or a creep—I would sense it if he were. Wouldn’t I?
You didn’t know someone was trying to kill you, an evil voice in the back of my head whispered.
I told it to shut up.
I glanced back at him again. He was rubbing his stubbly chin with his hand, regarding me in a way that showed the doubt in his eyes. He was nervous. It was kind of cute.
“If you slam on the brakes one more time, I’m going to insist on driving.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “No wo
men are allowed to drive this truck.”
I lifted a single eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Damn straight.”
And just like that, I was going home with a hot fireman stranger.
5
I didn’t realize the enormity of going home with him until he pulled in the concrete driveway beside his single-story home. It was a cute place—with a front porch that cried out for rocking chairs and extended the entire length of the front of the home. It was a newer built home, the siding a blue-gray color with wooden shaker-style shutters on each side of the window in a deep-brown shade.
Torch (Take It Off) Page 4