10
“You’re alive,” she said to him when he opened his eyes. This was the first time she’d had a clear look at his eyes, and goddamn they were green. Like emeralds. In the sun. Looking right up at her, from her own damned bed! What was that promise she’d made again? The next man you fancy? Or the next man you see? Are they the same man now?
Irene wouldn’t have even seen him if Beauty hadn’t reared up and stopped just in time to avoid putting two hooves into the man’s broad chest. He’d been standing there in the dark woods, shirtless and bleeding, like he was just waiting there for something—or someone. She’d caught a full glimpse of him when the lightning struck, and she’d gasped when she saw the rippling muscles of his torso lit up in white light and shadow, the thick veins running down his tree-trunk sized arms, crisscrossing his chest. She didn’t have her phone on her—not that she’d have been able to use it in that storm—and so really there were only two options: leave him there, or take him home.
They'd raced through the woods together, Beauty straining as she carried them back to safety and warmth, the man's heavy, half-naked body leaning against Irene as he slipped in and out of consciousness, somehow holding on to her. And now here he was, three hours later, in her bed, under her warm flannel sheets, green eyes looking up at her. Oh, and he was naked under those sheets. Yup.
“Is that a statement or a question?” he said, his voice coming out deep but slightly slurred. He blinked hard, confusion in his eyes. “Why am I finding it hard to speak properly? And bloody hell, am I naked?”
Irene took a quick breath and looked away for a moment, trying to push away the vivid image of how magnificent this man looked when she’d pulled off his cold, wet clothes. She’d felt a bit guilty at pausing for a long moment and staring at his naked form when he was passed out, but she couldn’t help herself. The man was a specimen, and she’d been mesmerized by the sight of his rock-hard lower abs, his smooth brown skin, his muscular pelvis, his thick, heavy, long, beautiful—
The man hiccuped now, a puzzled expression emerging on his handsome face. Then his eyes went wide, suddenly narrowing in a way that almost scared her. Almost—because she knew it wasn’t just fear that made that electricity shoot through her body.
“Ya Allah,” he slurred. “What is that smell, that taste? Have you given me alcohol, woman?!”
Irene blinked and stood up straight by the queen-sized bed, hands on her wide hips, brown eyes firmly staring down at this ungrateful naked man in her bed. “Well, I had to give you something while I cleaned your wound and stitched you up. I don’t keep any painkillers or sleeping pills, and so I poured a couple of shots of Kentucky’s finest down your throat. And you’re welcome, by the way.”
“Welcome for what?” he muttered, and she could see him running his hands over himself under the sheets as if to make sure he really was naked. She felt her breath catch when she glanced down at the way the sheets were bunched around his heavy crotch, and now that image of his monstrously large, beautifully thick, breathtakingly heavy—
“The bullet went through me?” he said finally, grunting as he touched his left arm and felt the dressing. “You have patched me on two sides, so there is an exit wound.”
“Yes,” Irene said, trying not to think about how stupidly risky it was to bring a stranger with a bullet wound into your house in the middle of the night—in the middle of a thunderstorm, no less! But that’s how things used to be on the frontier, right? No hospitals or emergency services for the folks brave enough to strike out west. You relied on the people around you for help, for safety, for shelter. She had no choice. She couldn’t have walked away if she’d wanted. It wasn’t done.
He licked his thick, smooth red lips and frowned as he tasted the whiskey. Those green eyes narrowed again, but his sharp features weren’t twisted now. There was something else in his eyes, and she couldn’t hold the eye contact long enough to read it. She was petrified that he’d see how attracted she was to him, see how her entire body had tingled while she tenderly worked on his wound as he lay there helpless and naked, a brown beast of a man in her bed that had been empty so long.
“Well, thank you for treating my wound, but I still think it was bloody unnecessary to get me drunk first,” he said gruffly.
“Get you drunk?!” Irene said, her mouth opening wide as she leaned over him and tried to stare him down without much success. “Three little shots ain’t getting anyone drunk!”
“Three!” the man roared. “You said two!”
“I said a couple. That’s two or three or maybe four.”
“A couple means two,” he said, trying to speak firmly but slurring the last word, his deep voice making the slurring sound ridiculous. “A couple is always two. Two people, two drinks, two of goddamn anything. So not only have you gotten me drunk and brought the wrath of Allah upon me, but you have also lied to me. Please apologize.”
Irene almost fell over on top of him as she doubled over, her mouth wide open. “Me, apologize to you? Oh, my Lord. I cannot even . . . oh, I cannot even begin to—”
Now the man sniffed the air like an animal, and before Irene could stop him he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her face down towards his.
Irene shrieked and slammed her hand down onto his chest to push herself away. But he was too strong, and he pulled her close, closer, so damned close . . .
And then he sniffed her breath.
“You smell like whiskey too,” he said accusingly, and she saw a sparkle in his green eyes, like he was enjoying this. “Do you mean to tell me that you performed minor surgery on me while you yourself was under the influence of alcohol?! By Allah, are there no limits to your transgressions?”
Irene laughed and tried to pull herself away from his face even though she felt herself being pulled in—not by his arm, but by something within her. A need. A yearning. A . . . promise?
She looked down into his eyes, and this time she couldn’t look away. His hand was still on her neck, but he wasn’t holding her anymore. He was caressing the back of her neck, his strong fingers driving through the thick tresses of her brown hair, massaging her throbbing head as she felt herself lean in, closer, closer now, ohgod so close . . .
“No,” he whispered. “I cannot do this.”
The words barely registered because her head was buzzing like a hive in the springtime, and the feeling of his fingers in her hair, the magic of the look in his eyes, the scent of his naked body . . . all of it was saying yes, yes, oh hell yes.
“Cannot do what,” she whispered as she put her right knee on the bed, her left hand on the pillow. His grip slowly tightened in her hair, and now she could see movement under the sheets, the rise of his need, the call of his seed.
With a trembling hand she reached down and placed her soft palm right there, and immediately he went full hard, so quick she gasped, her mouth opening wide as she saw the arousal rip across his face.
Suddenly his fist clamped tight in her hair, and he pulled her down on top of him. And as her fingers tightened hard around his cock through the sheets, he kissed her. By God, he kissed her.