“I need a shower,” I said, taking one hobbling step toward the house.

“Wait.” Rob closed the door behind me, scooping up the plastic bag with my purse and other belongings inside it. “I’ll—”

“I’ve got it.”

Another step. Fuck monkeys, it hurt.

“Let me—”

“I’ve got it,” I snapped. “I’m not weak.”

“I never said you were.” But Rob didn’t argue further, just walked past me and into the house.

I took one more step, nearly crying with the pain, and wondering why in the heck I was insisting on playing the martyr. Not that it mattered, I thought. Rob was gone again. I leaned against the hood of the car, tentatively placed my right foot forward. Red-hot pain sliced through me. “Son of a—”

Maybe crawling would be better.

The door leading into the house was wrenched open, a stool holding the plank of wood back.

Rob marched out, fury in his eyes. His cheeks flushed, his hair a mess. He had the look of a man who’d been pushed too far.

I’d pushed him too far.

My lips parted. A tendril of heat tightened in my stomach. My fingers curled, seeking purchase on the smooth metal of the car.

What the hell, body? This was not the time.

He didn’t say anything. Not a single word. Not one sound came from his throat.

Instead, he closed the space between us in a matter of heartbeats. His mouth was very close to mine, hot breath puffed on my cheek, my lips. It smelled of the cinnamon gum Rob liked, glazing my tongue, making me yearn for more of the spice against my mouth.

I remembered the first time Rob kissed me. We were all fumbling hands, heat, and teenage desire.

And he had chewed that cinnamon gum.

I’d inhaled the scent, let it soak deep inside me.

Then, just like now, that piece of wholly, intrinsically Rob centered me.

“I . . .”

“Not. One. More. Word.” One arm snaked behind my shoulders, the other slipped behind my knees.

He lifted.

One second I was using the car as a crutch, the next I was in his arms, cuddled close to his chest.

Rob had the best chest for cuddling, firm and muscular but not too hard. I didn’t want to snuggle with granite. I wanted give. I wanted a mix of soft and rigid . . .

Well, at least on his chest I did. Elsewhere I preferred hard all the way.

The absurd thought made me laugh.

I clamped a hand over my mouth when Rob glared down at me.

“What is it?” he gritted out.

“Nothing,” I said, but in his arms I felt as though I were floating through a fluffy cloud.

Or maybe being carried on the back of a swan. Flap. Flap. Flap. We went up the stairs.

“I want a shower,” I said when he set me on the bed.

“It’s already warming up.”

“Mmm,” I said and grabbed for the hem of my shirt, yanking it up and over my head. Rob had seen it all anyway. My sweats were next. I shoved them down, only slowing when I inched them over my feet so as to not disturb the bandages wrapped around them. My underwear and bra were the last to hit the floor.

I frowned down at my feet. “I’m not supposed to get them wet, am I?”

He cleared his throat, eyes drifting down my body in a way that I might have thought was desire, if he wasn’t seemingly interested in a woman like Celeste. A woman who was supposedly all curves and sex appeal and red lipstick and—

“No,” he said. “The doctor recommended forty-eight hours. I’ll grab a bag. We can wrap your feet in it and top it with a towel. Should be good enough for a quick rinse.”

I laid back on the bed, hardly noticing when Rob left. It was hard to concentrate on anything when I was so comfortable. The bed felt like clouds.

More clouds.

I frowned.

I don’t think I’d ever compared a surface to clouds and now I’d done it twice in as many minutes.

“Got some,” Rob said, coming back into the room with two zip-top bags and a handful of rubber bands.

“Mmm,” I said and spread my arms on the duvet. “This is like silk. No.” I giggled. “Like clouds.”

Rob shook his head. “You’d make a terrible drug addict. They gave you a half tablet of oxycodone and you’re high.”

“I’m not high,” I said, brows pulling down. “This really is as soft as clouds.”

“How many times have you thought about clouds in the last five minutes?”

I frowned, and he laughed.

“I guarantee it’s been at least five.” He circled my ankle and tugged me toward the end of the bed. “You always fixate on one word when you’re drunk—though it’s not usually clouds, that must be a perk of the good drugs.”

“I don’t fixate on words—”

“Awesome-sauce? Spectacular? Ginormous?” He raised a brow. “Any of those strike up a memory in that pretty mind of yours?”

I crossed my arms. “No.”

“Oh, Miss, you’re unbelievable.” He wrapped the bags and rubber bands around my feet then lifted me from the bed. “You’re also the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

My breath caught. Clouds were pushed from my mind.

“What did you say?” I asked, hesitant. Surely I’d heard wrong. He hadn’t—

Rob didn’t use words like beautiful. Not to describe me.

“Feet out,” he said instead of answering, setting me on the shower floor and adjusting the spray so that warm water splashed down my back. My feet remained outside the door. “Here.” Gentle hands tucked a towel around my legs. “I know it isn’t the warmest shower, but it’s better than nothing, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said softly, knowing in my heart of hearts I wasn’t talking about the shower.

“Hair?”

I nodded.

He reached up for the bottles of shampoo and conditioner then helped me wet my hair and wash it. Surreal was the only way to describe this scenario. My head felt full of clouds, and that wasn’t the drugs talking. Any side effect of the oxycodone had disappeared at Rob’s words.

His hands massaged my hair and shielded my eyes from the suds as he rinsed it clean.

I’d never felt so taken care of. I’d never felt so cherished.

How was that possible when everything was so broken?

He helped me from the shower and to the stool at my vanity. I hated going to bed with my hair wet, and apparently Rob remembered that since he grabbed my blow dryer and comb from the cabinet.

Gentle strokes unknotted the tangles before he stood and gestured to the blow dryer. “I’m helpless with that thing, but I’ll grab you some pajamas.”

“Rob?” I asked as he moved to the closet.

He turned back. “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”

Silence. Nothing except his eyes on mine, fathomless, his expression incomprehensible.

After a long minute, my eyes dropped to the blow dryer, and I flipped the switch, filling the room with the whooshing noise of air.

But I could have sworn Rob said something, and it sounded an awful lot like, “Yes, Miss. I really do.”