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I sucked in a breath, then put my hands to my belly. The baby. I thought about the force of my fall and hoped with everything I had that the baby was unharmed. My leg was throbbing, but it didn’t feel like anything serious was wrong with it. I could still move it around as long as I didn’t mind little jabs of pain.
“Kenzie?”
I looked up toward the path. I’d actually fallen a solid five feet or so, to my surprise. My body realized it wasn’t complaining enough at that moment and my leg started cramping heavily.
“Sebastian?” I asked, craning my neck up toward the path.
There was a brief delay, then I saw his head stick out over the edge above me. “What the hell are you doing down there? I thought I heard a dying animal.”
“Well, I was trying to fall to my death, but this tree got in my way,” I said lightly, except I couldn’t help wincing and clutching my leg.
“You’re hurt,” he said. He disappeared from my view.
I threw my hands up. Yes, Captain Obvious. I’m hurt. So you’re running away? Going to go find some mountain predator to finish me off while I’m weakened? Maybe a jar and some vinegar to preserve me before I rot?
But he re-appeared a few seconds later. He was facing backwards and he started to climb down the nearly vertical hillside. There were enough roots and random chunks of dirt that he seemed to make an easy time of it. He hopped down the last foot or two and landed, dusting off his hands.
Sebastian knelt in front of me, touching the place where my leggings had torn from my impact with the tree. My skin was a little scraped up there, but not bleeding freely. “Why are you so sweaty?” he asked.
“Really?” I said, folding my arms. “Shouldn’t you be saying something more gallant? Like… Don’t worry, pretty lady. I’ll get you out of here!”
He looked up at me. “I am going to get you out of here.”
I saw Sebastian wasn’t sweaty, despite being gone for two or three hours. Apparently he hadn’t been running like some kind of maniac. That, or the man was superhuman and didn’t sweat when he ran. I wasn’t quite willing to rule that out at this point.
“What were you doing?” I asked. “You were gone forever.”
“You were keeping track?” he asked.
“Ow,” I said, sucking in a breath. He’d been carefully moving his hands around my leg and it already felt like the world’s worst bruise there.
“We need to take you into town to get this looked at.”
“Maybe you could call your girl Dr. Willows.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that jealousy? Is this really the time?”
I shrugged. “Just thought it was kind of weird for you to have a pretty doctor friend who is on call to treat people in your house.”
“I paid her very well for her time.”
“Oh, so she’s your pretty prostitute friend?” Dr. Willows was nice, and I felt a little guilty for the comment, but I was cranky, in pain, and honestly a little worried about the tiny life trying to grow in my stomach at the moment.
Sebastian stood, meaning he had to bend his neck to look down at me. “We can do this later, if you really insist.”
“What are we doing?”
“It sounds like you’re once again trying to act like we didn’t specifically agree there would be no strings attached to what we did.”
“Oh, you mean that thing we had a blow-up argument about yesterday?”
He didn’t look amused. “Come on. You’re going to ride me.” He turned and bent his knees slightly.
I raised my eyebrows. “Sebastian. I didn’t know you were into pegging, but I don’t have any equipment with me and this is hardly the time.”
He looked over his shoulder, still not amused in the slightest. “Climb on my back. I’m going to get you up to the trail.”
“You’re going to be my man horse? Should I tell you I’ve always kind of fantasized about this before we do it or after?”
“Neither, preferably,” he said.
I shrugged and shimmied my way up his back with as much dignity as I could manage. I wrapped my arms under his armpits with my hands on his shoulders for support and scissored my legs around his waist. I was relieved to find that while my thigh hurt to the touch, it didn’t really bother me to latch onto his back. I felt like a baby monkey clinging to… well, like a baby monkey clinging to a really hot guy I still couldn’t get within five feet of without having dirty thoughts.
Sebastian took one leap toward the wall and caught hold of a root. He started climbing as if I wasn’t even on his back. It was kind of fun. “We should do this more often. It’s like I’m exercising but without the work part,” I said.
