Text (Take It Off #4)(17)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I took his offering, ripped open the wrapper, and bit into the sweet food. I made a sound of appreciation when vanilla burst over my tongue.

“How long were you down there?” he asked, his voice strained.

“He took me this morning. I was out for a run on the trail.”

“So like fifteen hours,” he surmised.

“I guess,” I replied around a large bite of food. It had felt like forever.

As soon as the bar was finished, I crumpled the wrapper and stuck it the jacket pocket. A bottle of water appeared in my line of vision.

I took a small sip at first, the cool water slipping down my parched throat with ease.

“What did he do to you?” Nathan whispered. His voice was hoarse.

I paused my drinking and lowered the bottle against my chest. “It could have been worse.”

“You’re bleeding.”

I glanced down at my hand holding the bottle. I’d forgotten about the raw state of my knuckles. “I’ll be okay.”

He didn’t say anything but went back to rummaging through the center console. When he closed the lid, he held up a small white kit. “I’m coming back there.”

Before I could protest that there was no way we would both fit, he squeezed himself between the seats and mushed his wide frame beside me.

He smelled good. Like a fresh-cut Christmas tree.

He held up the tiny flashlight, which was surprisingly strong, and handed it to me. “Here, point this at your hands. Keep the light trained down.”

“What if he sees?” I worried, glancing out the very dark window. I could see nothing. The sound of the rain pounding against the ragtop was very loud, and the wind rocked the vehicle occasionally.

“If he comes here, I’ll shoot him.” There was no room for doubt in his words. In fact, his voice held a backbone of steel that made me a little nervous.

“It’s not that bad.” I tried. “I can wait.” Okay, so since he reminded me of my injuries, they hurt like hell. But I wasn’t going to admit that.

“Honor,” he said gently, all traces of the steel gone. He didn’t just say my name—he breathed it. It was like he inhaled it into his body, filled up his lungs, and then exhaled.

Something warm spread throughout me, like I was being warmed up from the inside out.

“There’s no reason to leave it like that when I can clean it up.”

He didn’t touch me. Maybe he knew I was still kind of in shock from everything that happened.

I was.

But damn, I wanted him to touch me.

He placed the small kit on his lap and popped it open, reminding me of an oversized kid with his lunchbox. “This is probably going to hurt like a bitch.”

I laughed. Thank God he wasn’t the kind of guy to say, “This might hurt a little,” when we all knew that it was going to hurt way more than that.

He was looking at me when I placed my hand between us. “What?” I said, my heart lodging in my throat and making it very hard to breathe.

“You have a good laugh.”

I didn’t say anything because my throat was still obstructed and now my stomach was doing all kinds of funny flips. I really hoped the bar I just inhaled didn’t make a reappearance. I turned on the light and shined it down low between us over the bloody mess that was my hand.

He used his teeth to rip open some kind of little wipe. “Ready?” he murmured, slipping a free hand beneath mine.

I nodded.

He was right. The process of cleaning my scraped and raw knuckles hurt. It hurt a lot. But the good thing was I barely registered the pain because I was too entranced by the feeling of his skin against mine.

Too entranced by sitting there in a tiny enclosed space with a very large man while he protectively curled his body close to mine and cupped my hand with his. The sound of falling rain splattering against the ragtop and sliding down the vinyl windows was so melodic that if I wasn’t in survival mode, I might have been lured to sleep.

The scent of pine wrapped around me, bringing me comfort as I stared at the top of his dark head bowed laboriously over my hand. If he noticed the way the flashlight shook in my hand, he didn’t comment.

Nothing had ever affected me this way. Not ever.

I tried to commit this feeling to memory, the exact sound of his breathing, the way our knees bumped together. It sort of felt like we were in a small cocoon, closed off from the world. Safe.

Feeling safe had become a real luxury.

I tried to tuck away every detail for later when I was able to sit down at the keyboard and write. Yes, I guess I was thinking about work. But when you do what you love, it isn’t work. And when every experience, every single aspect of life can be pulled on for inspiration… well, even my own kidnapping is fair game.

And so was Nathan.

He was far more interesting than any story I could ever write about myself.

“Almost done,” he spoke, bringing me out of my head and back in the moment with him.

I watched him gently spread some antibacterial cream over the worst of the scrapes and then individually wrap each of my four fingers in separate Band-Aids.

“That looks ridiculous.” I scoffed. “They probably won’t stay on.”

“They’ll stay,” he stated, smoothing the last one into place.

“How do you know?” Little tingles shot up my arm and into my elbow. It made me feel all squirmy inside.

He looked up, our eyes connecting in the dim light created by the flashlight. “Because I put it there.”

I would have called him on his arrogance… if I could’ve found the oxygen to speak.

The temperature in the Jeep rose about twenty degrees as we stared at each other silently. It was like there was some sort of pull between us, a special gravity that only he and I could feel. The air between us practically crackled with tension—but not the stressful kind, the good kind. The kind of tension that made me bite the inside of my lip and squeeze my thighs together.

After several charged moments, he broke eye contact. I was partially relieved, partially disappointed. Nathan ripped open yet another of those wipe thingies. The flash of his straight white teeth as he used them had me biting the inside of my lip even harder.

He shook out the mini towelette and looked up. Without warning, without a single word, he cupped the back of my head, his palm completely spanning the base of my skull. His warmth seeped into my scalp and sent little goose bumps racing over me. They multiplied so fast it almost felt like a million tiny ants rushed over my body.

I couldn’t hold back the shiver.