Always Loving You (Danvers #6)(16)
She choked back a hysterical laugh before trying to pull herself up. “Where doesn’t it hurt would be a better question,” she muttered before her feet flew out from under her and again she landed backward on her sore ass. “Shit, that hurt.”
He put a hand on her stomach, holding her down. “Avie, let me take these damn skates off before you kill yourself. What in the world were you thinking?”
She looked at the crowd still standing around them. “Can we please save the lecture for when we’re alone? Just get me out of here.”
At that, Mac looked around, seeming to finally realize that they were creating quite a spectacle. He quickly removed her skates before leaning down to scoop her up effortlessly into his arms. “Wha . . . what are you doing?”
She sputtered as he ignored her protests. He carried her to his Tahoe as if she weighed nothing. “Mac, my car is right over there. Just let me down.”
He continued to ignore her, shifting her weight on his hip to free his hand for opening the door. He settled her on the seat, slamming the door on her complaints. He stalked back through the crowd, picking up the skates and throwing them in the backseat before getting in the driver’s side. He turned the big SUV back toward his house before punching a button on his hands-free phone mounted on the dash. When Ava heard his mother’s voice come through the speaker, she slunk down farther in her seat, hoping Mac wouldn’t tell her what had happened. Luckily, he just said that something had come up and he’d call her later.
They parked in front of his two-story beach house. “Stay where you are,” Mac ordered as he left his seat before coming around to her side of the car. One look at his tight face was enough for her to keep her mouth shut and let him carry her again. Normally, she would have taken a moment to appreciate the beauty of the rustic house with cedar siding that Mac had so painstakingly restored, but today it passed by in a blur. He refused to put her down while he struggled to get the key in the front door and disable the security alarm.
Finally, they made it into the spacious living room, where he sat her down gently on the couch. He left the room, coming back a few moments later with a first aid kit and the same scowl sitting heavily on his handsome face. Wow, he looked seriously pissed. He lowered his large form to the coffee table in front of the couch and barked out, “Take your shirt off.”
Now, that got her attention. “Um . . . do what?” Surely, she had heard him wrong.
“Take your shirt off. I need to see if you have any damage to your back or your stomach. It looked like you damn near fell on every single inch of your body.”
Ava sat silently for a moment, feeling the old familiar panic set in. Damn it, if she couldn’t even take her shirt off in front of the man she was supposed to love, then how would she ever convince him that she was ready for a real relationship with him? She was so tired of being scared all the time. Taking a deep breath, she silently cursed the fact that she had worn a plain white cotton bra this morning. She dearly hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremble of her hands as she gripped the edge of her top and slowly pulled it over her head. He removed the shirt from her nerveless fingers, dropping it to the floor. His gaze seemed to zero in on the creamy swells of her breasts exposed by her no-frills bra, and she was horrified to feel her nipples hardening under his attention.
After a moment, he put his hands on her shoulders, and she groaned inwardly as she did a full-body shiver. Something about the feel of his warm hands on her bare skin was causing her pulse to rocket. The moment was broken, though, when he started mumbling under his breath before touching an area of her upper back that felt as if it were on fire. “Ouch!” Was he . . . ? Alarmed, she asked, “What are you doing with my bra?”
With obvious strain in his voice, Mac said, “Relax, Avie; I need your bra strap out of the way. You’ve got a nasty laceration back here. The asphalt ripped a hole in your shirt. You must have hit the ground even harder than I thought. You’re damn lucky you didn’t break anything.” Suddenly, his face was back in front of hers, looking her face over anxiously. “I didn’t see you hit your head.” His hands started roaming over her scalp, looking for signs of injury. “Shit, tell me you didn’t. I can’t feel anything. If there is any possibility of a head injury, we need to go to a hospital and have it checked out. I should have checked for that before I moved you. I just . . . panicked.”
Ava grabbed his forearm, pulling his hand back down. “Mac, my head is fine. I think most of the damage was to my butt and my pride.” When he looked down at her shorts, she knew what was coming next, and her cheeks were already coloring in response.
“Er . . . take your shorts off, then. I need to see what we’re dealing with.”
“No! I’m not taking my shorts off. I’m perfectly capable of looking at my own . . . butt later.” She might have caved to pressure to remove her top because truthfully the feel of the fabric against the scrapes on her back was painful. But there was no way she was removing her bottoms. She had worn her granny panties, and it’d be over her dead body that he would get a look at them. When she finally worked up the nerve to disrobe completely for Mac, she would be wearing something sexier than one hundred percent cotton. He looked ready to argue with her, so she shifted his attention back to her upper body by wincing and moving her shoulder. “Could you put a Band-Aid or something there? It hurts like the devil.” Now that she’d mentioned the pain, it seemed to be all around her. As her adrenaline dropped, her body started throbbing. Running into a parked car was damn painful. “Ouch!”