Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(25)

“I’m fine. The wall isn’t but I’ll patch it.”

“You hit the wall?”

I groan and shake my hand again. “Go to bed, Sloane.” I don’t feel like talking. And I’m tired of worrying. Right now Sloane is just one more thing I worry about.

Not only because she left her fiancé practically at the altar but that I’m deeply satisfied she did. Too satisfied. The last thing Sloane needs is me crossing that line.

She doesn’t make it easy though. Because she flat out ignores what I tell her to do and pads across my room, bare feet on smooth hardwood.

I wish she had ignored other assholes when they told her what to do. Marry some asshole to close a business deal. Leave her job—her passion—to plan a wedding.

It’s all such bullshit.

The wild girl I knew would’ve stuck her tongue out at them and carried on with her life. So I can’t help but be a little satisfied she walks to my en suite bathroom muttering something about “dumb boys” before returning with a warm, wet washcloth.

She comes back to stand right between my knees, still wearing my jersey.

My cock thickens at the sight. The silvery moonlight highlights the shimmer on the fabric, and my eyes snag on the hem that falls midthigh.

My fingers twitch like they’ve got a mind of their own. Like they’d enjoy exploring that hemline. Hike it up gently and see what’s beneath. Erasing and ruining years of friendship as they go.

Nonetheless, there’s the part of me who wants to erase everywhere that Woodcock asshole got to touch her. Got to have her.

He doesn’t deserve her.

“Hand out, Gervais.” Her voice is soft and soothing. Sleepy and resigned somehow. All it takes is one glance at the digital clock on my bedside table to know she just fell asleep.

If she fell asleep at all.

Jealousy and guilt swirl in my gut. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

She cocks a hip, making my jersey slip higher on that side. Really not helping my wandering eyes. My hand doesn’t even hurt anymore. All I can think about is reaching beneath the fabric and shaping the soft curve of her waist. Tracing the little dimple on either side of her spine just above her hips.

Every part of Sloane is toned and strong. Long and lean. She’s like a piece of pale marble that’s been sculpted to perfection for years.

“Hand. Now.”

I blink, leaning back slightly. I’m too worked up, and neither of us is wearing nearly enough clothing for this interaction. But the expression on her face hedges no room for debate. Grinding my molars, I hold my right hand up to her and hiss when the wet cloth presses against my knuckles.

“Idiot,” she mutters, dabbing carefully over every ridge of each finger and holding my wrist with a tenderness that feels unfamiliar in so many ways.

Because, while I do have sex with women, I keep it very private. Separate from every other part of my life. Work and family never cross over. And it’s not . . . personal. I’ve ensured that it’s not. Because getting attached hurts, and finding someone to get attached to that I can trust at this point in my career seems downright impossible.

“Wow. Very soothing. You should have become a nurse.”

I see a sliver of a smile on her lips as a curtain of blonde hair tumbles down over her face. “No, you should have. You were terrific at tending to my feet.”

Her feet.

My eyes trail down her legs to the floor, and I remember those days. The blisters. The redness. The swelling.

I kept coming back to help her even when she didn’t ask me to. Even though I was told not to. In retrospect it was one of those nights when I first saw Sloane as a woman, and not the little blonde girl on the ranch. A cousin. A friend.

It happened while I rubbed her sore feet and trailed a thumb up the arch of her foot. Her head fell back against the pillows on her plush, cream-colored couch, and the exposed column of her throat caught the warm glow of the floor lamp behind her in a way that transfixed me. Shadows played across her collarbones. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade.

The moan that spilled from her lips had me shifting uncomfortably in my jeans.

After that I stopped rubbing her feet.

I realized she wasn’t a little girl at all. And I wanted what I couldn’t have.

She was still young, though, and new to living on her own. She needed a friend. And before long, she had a boyfriend, and the ship had sailed. With our age difference, the close family relation, her dad . . . there were too many ties, too many complications.

Too much fear that I might lose her.

Not that I would have subjected her to me anyway. But now and then, I’d find myself dreaming. Or her face would pop into my mind while I showered, while my hand wrapped around—

“There. Now lie back and let it dry.”

Her palm lands in the middle of my chest and pushes me back into bed, her bare legs pressing against the inside of my knees as she does.

So many people eye me like I’m a Rubik’s cube they can’t solve. My colors are all jumbled and on the wrong sides, but Sloane doesn’t care that I’m messy. She’s never looked at me like I need fixing. She always looked like she does now. Tender and supportive.

When her eyes drop to my bare torso, tracing the outlines of my dark tattoos, the comfort of the moment turns intimate. Her exhale is harsh in the quiet room before her eyes snag on my boxers and drift to where her bare legs press against the inside of mine. My gaze latches onto her lips, watching them pop open in surprise. Like she was so busy tending to me she failed to notice our mutual state of undress.