that no one seemed to be privy to our little argument. The cut was bad enough, I didn’t need embarrassment piled on as well. I unlocked the door and slipped down the stairs, careful not to drip blood anywhere.
Thankfully the cabin was empty and I was able to find the bathroom just off the main room to the left. It was small, but functional. Dark cabinets hid toiletries and towels. Beneath that, I found a small first aid sack.
I reached to unzip it just as a hand wrapped around mine, halting my movements. I jerked around to see Julian hovering over me with clear intent.
“I’ve got it. I don’t need your help.”
“Stop,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re being ridiculous. Take a seat on the sink and let me help you,” he said, jerking the first aid kit out of my hand before I could protest. My blood was still boiling. Who did he think he was? He’d caused the damn cut and now he had the audacity to boss me around like a child?
I opened my mouth, ready to argue, but something in his stare warned me against it. I took a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and then I pushed up onto the sink and crossed my arms.
I’d let him clean my cut and then I’d get the hell out of there. I’d rather sit up on the sundeck by myself than deal with his brooding crap.
He knelt down on the floor and slid my foot out of my sandal. I stared at the wall behind his head as he cleaned the wound and rifled through the first aid kit.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” he said as he tore open a Band-Aid.
I tightened my arms across my chest and ignored him. Instead, my mind ran through what had just happened a few minutes earlier.
“What’s gotten into me? You.”
You.
The tight ball of tension in my stomach uncoiled and then wound into something darker, sexier, needier. Julian wanted me. He’d just admitted it.
I nibbled on my bottom lip as he wound the Band-Aid around my toe. He tossed the wrapper into the garbage, zipped up the first aid kit, and tossed it into the sink beside me.
When he finally stood, he interrupted my view of the wall so that I was instead forced to stare at his chest. It rose and fell with that same wild rhythm as before.
My mouth opened, but no words slipped out.
It was a matter of seconds, milliseconds, nothing-seconds before he slammed the door, confining us both in the small space. There had hardly been room to move before he’d stepped inside, and now I was stuck. Stuck sitting on the sink as Julian blocked my only escape route.
I fought to breathe, fought to see past the next few moments. It was impossible; I couldn’t see beyond those four walls. I couldn’t see beyond that eight square feet of space.
I turned to reach for the door handle, to push it open and get some fresh air, but Julian was faster. He caught my hand in his and held it down against the sink. I couldn’t move my fingers beneath the weight of his grip.
“Julian—”
You’re drunk.
You’re my boss.
You’re too sexy, too old, too everything.
Every possible ending to my sentence fell short as I met his eyes and found a look of such burning desire that I was rendered speechless.
“Tell me to leave, Jo,” he insisted.
I couldn’t.
“I’ll leave and then you can go right back to flirting with those guys upstairs,” he said, leaning forward and gripping my waist.
“They all think you’re so sexy. They think they could be the one to have you.”
His fingers tightened around my waist and I clenched my teeth together. There was a tipping scale inside of me. On one side, my anger boiled over, so ready to snap at him for acting like he owned me. On the other side—the side that I knew was about to tip—was my desire to finally know what it felt like to succumb to Julian.
One second we were two people with separate lives and separate desires, and the next we were together, so achingly in need of one another that I thought I’d scream until my voice gave way. He picked me up off the bathroom sink and we collided into the bathroom wall. I gasped, scared that every single person above could hear the ruckus we were making.
His fingers dug into my hip, scraping my skin and making me cry