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He moved to open the front door, left unlocked, and pushed inside. He said nothing, but then again, he rarely did, so I followed behind. The inside of his cabin was a loft floor plan with a straight, small kitchen against the wall to the left with a small dining table. There was a worn leather chair against the back wall, a end table beside it stacked with magazines and a massive TV attached to the wall beside the front door. To the right was a giant bed with plush red and black flannel comforter; true mountain man style. There were two doors which I imagined led to a bathroom and a closet. That was it. That was all there was to his place.
I mean I guess I was judging a little harshly given that I had spent the last eight years living at Hailstorm, a survivalist camp/ lawless military compound that was made out of shipping containers with no windows where I slept in a barracks-style room with a bunch of men and women. But if you were going to have a sanctuary in the woods, why not go whole-hog and make it more, well, sanctuary-ish.
Still, it was cozy. The log walls, the wood floors, the curtain-less windows, the braided rugs here and there. It screamed 'home' to someone who all but forgot what home felt like. If it had some massive built-in bookshelves and a killer wifi connection, I could be comfortable there.
I felt my good wrist tagged in his giant hand and looked up as he started pulling me forward toward the door beside the bed.
"Quit pawing at me," I grumbled, uselessly trying to pry my arm from his grip. He opened the door and reached inside to flick on the light then dragged me inside, slamming the door to give us more standing area in the small space with a square sink vanity and mirror, shower stall, and toilet. That was it. No medicine cabinet. No linen cabinet. God, his whole place screamed 'I'm a man and don't need all that useless shit like a guest towel or bath mats'. I was suddenly turned, my stomach pressed against the sink cabinet, crushed there by Wolf's solid frame at my back. He reached around my body, turning on the tap and putting the stopper in the sink. "What are you..." I started, then found my burned forearm submerged in the cool water, pressed and held there by his hand wrapped around mine. I repeat: his hand was holding mine. I'd never had a man hold my hand. As in... ever. And here it was happening for the first time with my well-intentioned kidnapper who meant it as nothing else but a silent instruction to keep my arm under the water.
I focused all my intention on keeping my fingers still under his, not wanting him to think I was making as big a deal of it as I was. His free arm pulled open a drawer by my thigh, dragging items out and putting them on the counter beside my arm: factory-wrapped gauze, tape, and a huge white tub with a prescription label.
"What is that?" I asked, reaching for it with my good arm and holding it up to read the label. "Silver Sulfadiazine," I read, turning my neck to try to give him a questioning look.
"Burn cream," he answered, taking it from my hand and putting it back on the counter. That was the end of that. He wasn't going to explain. I mean not that I really expected him to. That wasn't who he was. He wasn't a talker, a conversationalist. Which, given that I almost never shut up, kind of bothered me. I couldn't just keep talking with no comment from anyone else. I mean, I could, but I would look crazy. And, suddenly, I found myself not wanting to look crazy. Normally I didn't give a good god damn what anyone thought of me. But for reasons I was choosing not to analyze, I didn't want Wolf to think I was off my rocker.
So I stood there silently, looking down at my arm under the cool water. Actually, I wasn't looking at my arm at all; I was looking at Wolf's hand wrapped around mine. Like the rest of him, it was massive, but in that large knuckle, tendon, and vein way that only large men seemed to possess. Like they could handle anything, like they could hold on forever and never tire, like they could take any burden and lift it.
Jesus Christ.
I was starting to think like Lo, all wishy-washy from reading all her silly love stories all the time.
That wasn't the kind of woman I was. I didn't romanticize things. I certainly didn't think of poetic ways to describe a man's freaking hands. What was wrong with me?
As I was thinking that, my hand was finally released and I watched my fingers instinctively flex and reach outward, like they were seeking the contact again. Mortified, my head swung around to look at Wolf. His gaze wasn't on me or my hand though. He was reaching behind the door for a white towel and moving it to rest on the sink counter. He pulled my arm out of the water and rested it there. I reached for the edge of the material that was so stiff I knew that, among not believing in bath mats, he also had some kind of aversion to fabric softener, and moved to blot the water off my arm.
"Don't," he growled, swatting my hand away and giving me a hard look that I guess was supposed to impart some kind of information, but it was completely lost on me before he turned away to focus on the gauze. I watched as he carefully laid out strips of the gauze then used some sort of sealed stick to glob the burn cream onto the soft material. "Dry?" he asked, turning to look at me.
"Um... yeah," I guessed, not having the damndest clue. I was too focused watching him, watching the way his powerful frame seemed capable of the smallest, delicate tasks in a way that seemed unnatural. He reached for my wrist, pulling it up and letting go of it in mid-air. It was another silent instruction: keep your arm like this, it said. It was amazing how much he was able to communicate silently. Then I stood stiff as a board and watched as he picked up the coated gauze and carefully wrapped up my burns. He did it so lightly I barely felt it and it seemed wrong for such a big man to be able to be so gentle. Finished with the wet gauze, he wrapped me in about ten coats of dry gauze then attached the medical tape and put the remainder down on the counter.
