AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She must have said something wrong. He laid down the knife and picked up a roll of paper, his brows drawn together.
“You have an interesting view of our lifestyle on tour.”
“Come on. Tinker always had heaps of stories…” She trailed off at his closed expression. “I’m sorry. You must miss him.”
“I miss the person he used to be.”
She stared at the way he was holding the scrunched-up paper towel, a bloom of red spreading over the white. “You’ve cut yourself.”
“It’s nothing. I’ve had worse paper cuts.”
He uncovered it and she leaned forward to examine the small nick on the side of his forefinger. “Come over to the first aid station and I’ll clean it up and put a dressing on it.” She peeled off her food-safe gloves and disposed of them in the pedal bin.
She wished the alcove was larger. It only took a few minutes to clean up the shallow cut and put on a regular Band-Aid. He wouldn’t appreciate the bright blue ones they used in the kitchen. In those minutes, she could almost taste the scent of him, soap and male, clean and wholesome with a tiny tang of copper from the blood. Even that would go now it was safely covered.
“Aren’t you going to kiss it better?”
His hand rested in hers and she raised it to her lips, brushing them over the flesh-coloured dressing and releasing it. “Will it affect your playing?”
“Nah. It’s my left hand anyway. The Band-Aid makes it a bit stiff, but I’ll probably only need it for a day or so until the cut heals enough not to break open. I’ll skip practice.”
“Bad boy.”
“Am I?”
Somehow, he’d shifted closer in the confined space. “How about my emotional trauma? I barely escaped a career-ending injury. Are you going to kiss me better?”
His mouth hovered a finger’s length away, his breath a caress on her skin, tasting of the coffee he’d been drinking while he prepped the vegetables.
It took only a slight movement to bring her lips to his. This time they were warm and soft. She could feel him smiling under the light touch. “Stop grinning like a self-satisfied cat.”
He scooped her close. “I intend to be very satisfied.” His tongue probed gently, asking rather than demanding. She said yes with the parting of her lips, the softening of her body against him. His hands explored her back, one seeking the nape of her neck and burying his long fingers in her hair, loosening the plaits pinned into a tight bun. She didn’t care. This was magic. He was magic.
His mouth traced the line of her cheek, left fairy kisses on her closed lids and travelled the rest of the way down to her parted lips. His other hand slid down to cup her bottom, shifting her against his body.
With a groan he lifted his head and put her away from him. “You really don’t want me this close, do you?”
His fingers traced her waistband under the apron and found the pump, clipped to one side. “What the hell is this thing?”
She took a few steps out of the alcove and removed the apron. It was time to tell the truth and be damned. “It’s an insulin pump.” It took a moment, and a big gulp of courage, to lift her T-shirt and show him the thin tubing that linked to the patch on her stomach.
He blinked at it; his smile long gone. “Insulin? You’re diabetic?”
“Type 1. So, it’s kind of necessary.”
“How long have you had it?”
“I’ve had the pump for four years. I was diagnosed as a teenager. At sixteen.”
“After I left?”
“You were in Sydney.”
“Were you ever going to tell me? How did I not know this?”
“I don’t do the glucose testing and injections in public. Why would you know?”
“I thought we were friends.”
