Chapter 3

He had found a clearing at the back of the crowd. “Sit down.” His voice was strangely authoritative as he tugged me by the arm. His fingers still gripped my arm as he pushed me down.

I slid down, my back against a wall, as his hands guided my shoulders. My face slid against his body, faintly grazing the bulge in his pants as my bottom bumped against the ground. Ding Ding Ding!

“Uh, thank you,” I said awkwardly, but he seemed to ignore me.

“You need to sit and keep still,” he said from above me. I looked up. His head shielded the hot, San Francisco sun’s glare and a halo-like effect encircled his face. His eyes were narrowed and focused on my injury. His brows were crinkled. I felt like a child looking up at an adult.

“I need to get back up and protest my cause,” I told him weakly.

The man shook his head, and for the first time, I saw him smile. That beautiful mouth tilted and the smile even reached his piercing blue eyes. His teeth were bright white and very straight. Again, perfection.

“You can protest again when we’ve fixed you up,” he said, and then bent down in front of me so that our faces were now aligned.

Even through my bleeding nose, I could smell him. He smelled of expensive cologne, musk, oak, chocolate, and everything else that was nice on this planet. I tried to keep myself from smiling.

“Your face is covered in glitter,” he said, his smile widening.

“It’s from my poster. It tore when I got hit.” I don’t know why I was explaining this to him. He was studying my face closely, tracing the deposits of glitter on my nose and chin.

“A protest sign made in glitter? Someone should have told you this isn’t the ‘70s anymore,” he said, resting one of his hands on a bended knee and regarding me with interest. His ‘70s comment was about more than just the glitter on my sign. I knew he’d taken in the conch shell earrings, the beads around my neck, and my unruly auburn hair, which I didn’t blow dry ever as a matter of principle.

“Someone should have told you to not manhandle women,” I snapped, my eyes narrowing. I wasn’t about to blush and giggle and demonstrate how long I had been admiring his physique. He didn’t need to know that.

“Besides the glitter, your face is also caked in the blood dripping down your nose. I had to do something. You’re welcome,” he said, keeping his back straight and his eyes keenly focused on me. The smile still lingered on his face, which was now beginning to annoy me a little. We were in the middle of a war, and he was congratulating himself for pulling me out of it. The nerve!

“You’re clearly not an experienced protestor, then,” I said proudly, thrusting my chin up at him.

His smile grew. “Don’t judge me for doing a good deed,” he said, and I was suddenly aware of the polished timbre in his voice. He had certainly grown up in a household where they all spoke in hushed tones and sat together in neatly-pressed dress clothes at the dinner table. He was right; I was judging him.

“I don’t have time to have a chat. Find someone else to pat your back,” I said, trying to stand back up again. He pushed me back down, his hands on my shoulders – another electric shock down my spine. Why did this man have this effect on me? I was like putty in his hands.

“Let me have a look at you,” he said softly, and before I could stop it, he wound himself around me to have a closer look at the back of my head. Our bodies were crouched on the ground and barely an inch apart. I could feel his breath on my hair, and some of my curls blew around my face as a result. For a few moments, everything came to a standstill around me as he tenderly examined the back of my skull.

“It’s only a superficial wound. Just needs some antiseptic and you’ll be fine,” he said, bringing his face back level with mine. I could breathe.

“Yes, I know,” I snapped at him, trying my hardest to hide the discomfort I felt by our proximity.

“Now, your nose. Let me see,” he said, and he wasn’t asking. With his forefinger, he tipped my head up. His eyes that were both gray and blue at once were trained up my nose as he held me like that for several moments. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped him because my limbs had all lost their locomotive capabilities. I was jelly in his hands again.

“We need to stem the flow,” he said, in a serious voice. He let my face go.

“Stem the flow? No, we don’t. I’ll do it later,” I said briskly, but I didn’t dare stand up again, because I didn’t want to feel the jerking reaction of having his hands on me.

“You’re wobbly on your feet,” he said with that same smile. It was almost like he was enjoying watching me incapacitated like this.

“Stop calling me that. My name is Lily Fitz. You may call me Lily,” I said, jumbling up my words a little out of nervousness. But I wanted to continue to create the impression that I wasn’t really enjoying his company or appreciating being held back from my task.

“All right, Lily. My name is Casper,” he said with a laugh in his voice. Why did he find everything funny? What was so funny about my name? “Now what do we have to stem the flow?” he added, and I watched as he rummaged around in his pockets.

I lifted an eyebrow, mocking him as he searched for something to put in my nose. He clearly hadn’t come prepared, which in some small way seemed to be a point of victory for me, even though I was the one sitting on the ground bleeding through my nose.

“What do you have in your bag?” he asked. Without asking for permission, he reached for the cross-body cloth bag hanging on the side of my hip.

“What are you doing?” I squealed when he popped open the button holding it together.

“Looking for something that might help stop the bleeding,” he said in a thoughtful voice. I couldn’t do anything but slap his hands, but it was too late. He extracted two tampons out of my bag and waved them in the air in front of my face.

“These should get the job done, don’t you think, Lily?” He said my name like he wasn’t sure how to pronounce it, and yet he had that sparkling look in his eyes. My cheeks burned, and I gulped.

“You want me to walk around with two tampons sticking out from my nose?” I asked, after staring at him for a few moments.

Casper said nothing, only nodded, and then shrugged his shoulders. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point.

“Fine, whatever. If you’ll let me go now,” I said, and grabbed the tampons out of his hands.

Casper watched me with his lips turned to an almost-smile. His unbelievably perfect bronze skin glistened in the sun, his golden hair catching the light as well while I sat in front of him, ripping open the packaging of the two tampons in my hands.

He didn’t know, but usually I was a fully functioning, straight-thinking adult. But for some reason, I inserted the two tampons up my nose without another question. The strings dangled from my nostrils as I stared at him, my face frozen. I wanted to kill him.

“I wish I knew some of your friends so I could tell them about this,” he said, suddenly grabbing his belly with both his hands as he burst out laughing. I watched as he threw his head back and laughed loudly, how his shoulders shook, how his neck stretched, the shape of his large, sturdy fingers.

“Something tells me that you and my friends would never get along,” I said when he was catching his breath from all that laughter. The tampons were still stuck up my nostrils. I knew I looked stupid. I knew I was nowhere close to being as presentable as I should have been in the company of a man who looked like him, but I was already down the rabbit hole, and there was no point trying to deny it.

“You’re judging me again, Lily,” he said, clearing his throat.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him just as keenly as he was looking at me. “Why shouldn’t I? You appeared out of nowhere and dragged me away from my group, and now you’ve made me stick tampons up my nose,” I said, noticing the way the strings of the tampons shook with every movement of my head.

My cheeks flamed, because I was reminded again of how ridiculous I probably looked, and how Casper was looking at me.

“You would have been trampled on if it wasn’t for me,” he said, a little more seriously this time.

“You keep saying that. But what really needs saving right now are the Green Gleneagles, and you’re keeping me from them,” I said, my voice rising with my fury. I was gladly returning to my old self again. The throbbing ache at the back of my head had all but disappeared, and the bleeding had stopped, too. The tampons were working.

“Now, why would I do such a thing?” he asked, and I noticed how his gaze fell to the neck of my peasant blouse. He was openly staring at my cleavage!

“Because you clearly have an agenda,” I said, too brashly, and this time I pushed to my feet. I had regained most of my strength by now, and I had done it too quickly for him to be able to stop me in time. He followed me up, straightening himself. But even when we were standing, he towered over me. He had to bend his neck low to be able to look at me directly. I felt that electrical surge down my spine again, as I had a quick image of how sexy it would be to have him lift me up in his arms.

“You’re clearly concussed. You’re beginning to imagine things even though I just saved your life,” he said with a smirk on his face, and now I was even doubly sure of myself. I wasn’t concussed. In fact, I had never thought this clearly before. This man was definitely not the good-natured Samaritan I had thought.

I crossed my arms over my breasts, just like the policemen had earlier. His gaze dropped. He was looking at my cleavage again with a knowing smile on his face. Were my nipples still erect? Could he see them through the fabric of my blouse? I pushed those thoughts out of my head.

“Are you even here as a protester?” I asked.