“It’s unbearable.” Her mouth sulky, she returned her attention to her forearm. “The doctor said not to use a pencil or ruler to reach the right spot, but by God, I will make this infernal itching stopsomehow.”
Tap, tap, TAP.
He couldn’t stand it. Lunging forward, he claimed her busy fingers and lifted them away from her cast. “Stop that.”
Her brow beetled, she promised retribution with a fulminating glower.
But she didn’t remove her hand from his. And he didn’t let her go.
“As you say, you can’t stick anything inside the cast, because it might break the skin and cause an infection.” He’d done his research after their night in the emergency room, to understand better what she’d be experiencing in the coming weeks. “What are your other options for dealing with the itch?”
“Tapping.” Each syllable was crystalline and distinct, etched with ire.
Nevertheless, her hand didn’t so much as twitch in his, while he was suddenly floundering. For words, for purchase, as her spike-lashed stare and long-fingered grip dragged him to sea.
Eyes locked to his, she swayed closer. Closer still.
Her lips were parted again, full and soft, pink as the tide of color washing onto her round cheeks. Within his grip, her hand turned. Clasped his.
The slide of flesh against flesh, his fingers spearing through hers, opening them wide, all shadowed clefts and damp warmth…
The metaphor might be earthy and unbefitting, but it turned him hard.
“What else?” he whispered.
He’d tried for assurance, but instead produced the desperate gasp of a man sinking beneath the waves. It would be humiliating, if his mind could acknowledge anything but her.
“I can…” Her glare had metamorphosed into a different sort of heat, and her nostrils narrowed in a deep, deep inhalation. “I can blow cool air from a hair dryer around the cast’s edges.”
His eyelids had turned heavy. So heavy.
“No hair dryer here.”
Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”
Her lips puckered as she formed the word.
When he placed her hand back on his desk, her chin dropped to her chest. Only to snap upward again when he claimed her other hand instead.
He carefully, slowly sank his fingers between hers a second time. The cast covered most of her palm and crossed between her thumb and forefinger, but everything else was bare. Vulnerable. His.
He lifted their clasped hands. Rested them against his bristly cheek.
Then he blew into the edge of her cast. Cool air, where she couldn’t reach. Relief for her itch as his became agony. Again. Again.
Her hand trembled against his, and he rubbed his beard against that tangle of interlaced fingers. Abraded her skin to see the bob of her long, pale throat as she swallowed in silence.
“Better?” A murmured word against her thumb.
He could take the pad of that thumb between his teeth so easily.
Silently, she shook her head and rolled his chair closer, until her skirt brushed against his pants. Closer, until his knee was between hers, pinning that skirt tight to her long thighs.
He blew again, cool air against hot skin, and they both shook.
“It still itches.”
She’d whispered that, but he read it in the movements of her lips.
