Falling for the Groomsman (Wedding Dare #1)(26)
Author: Diane Alberts

“Okay.”

He set her down and headed back the way he came. She glowered at the forest floor before forcing herself to take care of business. Once she finished, she moved as far away as her gimpy leg would let her and braced herself against a tree. This was so not how she’d envisioned this week going, thank you very much.

She was supposed to have fun and let loose with some men she’d never see again. Cross items off her list, and move on to the next one when she was finished. The thought of moving on from Tyler didn’t fill her with joy as it previously did, though.

Instead, it felt…wrong. Just wrong.

What if screwing him didn’t get him out of her system? What if it only let him worm in even deeper, and he never let go? What if she was never free? Even now, as she panicked over how strong of a hold he had over her…she wanted more. Wanted him.

He was like a drug, and she needed another hit.

She leaned against a tree and waited for him to come back. She felt ridiculous standing in the middle of the woods hugging a roll of toilet paper to her chest. And oh so vulnerable, too. What if a bear came at her? How would she protect herself? Throw a roll of toilet paper at it? Yeah. Because that would help.

The mental image of her pelting a bear in the nose with a roll of Charmin made her snort. A twig snapped behind her, and she jumped. She licked her lips. “Tyler?” she croaked, half expecting a gigantic beast to come out from the darkness instead of the man who plagued her thoughts nonstop. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.” He appeared from the shadows, and she wanted to fling herself at him and thank him for being there. But she didn’t. She’d already crossed too many lines. She wouldn’t cross another. She couldn’t allow any more contact that wasn’t strictly sexual. It wasn’t on her list. “Hold out your hands for me.”

“Um…okay.”

She adjusted the toilet paper and held her hands out. He squirted hand sanitizer on her hands and did the same to his. As they cleaned up, she watched him watch her. “How’s your back feeling?” he asked.

“A lot better than my ankle and my pride.” She rubbed her hands together some more, even though the sanitizer was dry. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“It’s ingrained in me.” He lifted a shoulder. “Scrapes like that should be cleaned out right away to stave off infection. You can never be too safe.”

“Well, you did your doctoral duty.” She swiped a stray hair out of her face. “I haven’t succumbed to malaria or typhoid or hay fever yet.”

He laughed, his eyes lighting up. He needed to do that more often. What would he be like it he didn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders? She kind of wanted to find out. “Hay fever? Seriously?”

“Sure. Why not?” She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them up and failing. “God. It’s not supposed to be this cold in June, is it?”

“At night? Yeah.” He tucked the sanitizer into his pocket, grabbed her hands, and blew his hot breath on them. His lips touched her wrist, placing a fleeting kiss over her pulse, and he looked up at her. “Better?”

“Y-Yes,” she said, her voice wobbling. She was scorching hot now, thanks to him. “What do we now?”

He didn’t drop her hands, but kept them pressed in between his. “Now you need to eat while I set a fire to keep you warm. Then you sleep.”

“And you?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I’m not worried about me.”

Typical. “I am.”

“Well, don’t be,” he said, bending down and sweeping her into his arms. “I’m not the injured one.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” She looked up into his bright-green eyes, wishing she could see the man behind the actions. He shouldn’t be so hard to read. “I think your injuries are just hidden better than mine.”

Where the heck had that come from? Since when did she care?

He averted his eyes and stared straight forward. His jaw worked, and his fingers flexed on her. “What makes you think I have injuries? I don’t.”

“We all do. It’s just a matter of what kind, and how deep they cut.”

He stared out into the woods, not moving a muscle. “Are you going all investigative journalist on me? Trying to figure me out?”

She fell silent, not sure if she should continue in this getting-to-know-you type of vein. It would only make walking away from him harder in the end. But there was so much she wanted to know about him. So much she needed to figure out still. Maybe, for one night, she could forget about everything else and just…be with him.

When he lowered her onto the sleeping bag, she slid inside it and met his eyes. “Maybe. I won’t lie, I want to know more about what makes you tick.”

“I don’t know why. I’m pretty simple to figure out.” He squatted at her feet, his eyes on her. “But go ahead. Ask me something if you want. I’ll answer.”

She swallowed hard, but didn’t drop her gaze. “What’s new with your life? Anything exciting going on?”

“That’s all you’ve got?” He blinked at her, the mockery clear in his voice. “I thought for sure you’d ask me something about my dark and stormy past to prove that your theory that I’m broken is correct.”

She shook her head. “I think we talked about the past enough, don’t you?”

“I suppose we have.” He cleared his throat. “I got a job in Portland. Now that I’ve been offered the position as chief, I’ll stay there for, well, maybe forever…if I can stand the domesticity of living in the good ol’ USA. I’ll still go overseas every once in a while, but I’ll be here more than there, if that makes sense.”

She pictured her favorite show, Grey’s Anatomy. If she were completely honest with herself, she’d admit she watched it because it reminded her of Tyler. But she didn’t like being honest with herself when it came to Tyler. It was too real. “Wow, that’s great. You must work crazy hours, huh? Like Dr. McDreamy and Meredith Grey, on Grey’s?”

“Yeah, it’s even worse than you see on TV.” His fingers flexed on his knees. “But we don’t have sex in the on-call rooms. We just snore, drool, and sleep.”

She bit down on her lip. Without even trying, she could totally picture him stripping some hot nurse’s scrubs off, and she kind of wanted to stab her eyes out. “My hours aren’t quite so hectic as all that.”