“I was asleep.” I run a hand over my face and find it damp with sweat. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine. But the tray might take exception to being whacked.” She shoots me a glare, and I brace for another rebuke, but her stiff expression eases. “You were having a nightmare, weren’t you?”
“Just got disoriented. The painkillers make me loopy.”
Delilah’s hard stance softens. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you without checking to see if you were awake. Daddy always said it was dangerous to jar people out of a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare.” The lie comes out snappish. Probably because I’m lying. But damn if I want to see that pity in her eyes. “Although I agree, you shouldn’t go around grabbing people while they’re sleeping. Kind of rude, regardless.” God, shut up, Macon. You’re the rude ass. But I can’t seem to help myself around this girl.
Her nose wrinkles. “I guess that bug up your butt is a permanent condition.”
“Bringing up my butt again.” I force a smile. “You think about it a lot, do you?”
Her answering smile is all sharp edges and bite. “I think about kicking it nearly every time we’re in the same room together.”
A laugh breaks free, pushing at my aching ribs. “That I can believe. Here, let me help you.” Without thinking, I bend forward to help her and immediately regret the action when a shard of pain punches into my side. She hears me hiss and sees the way I shoot back into my seat.
“Macon, when are you going to admit you’re in pain?” She rises to help.
A shudder runs down my back. The thought of her touching me in pity turns my skin cold. “Don’t,” I snap. My mind yells that I’m making things worse, but my mouth can’t keep closed. “Don’t touch me.”
She halts, her hand still stretched toward me. She has slim fingers, short-trimmed nails with numerous scars and calluses marring her skin. Chef’s hands. Her capable, abused fingers curl into a fist. “Don’t touch you?” she repeats dully, but the hurt and outrage is still there. “Seriously?”
Heat swarms around my neck. I don’t know how to explain to her why I cannot have her touching me right now. “I don’t need help.”
For a second, she stares. Shame washes over me. I haven’t felt that particular emotion in so long I’m choking on it.
This is what she does; she exposes me—lays bare all the parts I want to hide, need to hide.
Hot in the face, I try to back up. My wheels run over the fallen tray with a crunch. “Shit.”
“Here, let me—” She reaches up, but I back away.
And hit the corner of the desk with my bad side. “Shit!”
Delilah stands and attempts to help. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m not . . .”
Suddenly we’re stuck in this farce of a dance, me smashing at the controls of my chair and whacking into everything, Delilah hopping around so she won’t get her toes crushed while yelling at me to let her help.
“I’ve got it,” I snap. “If you’d just back off.”
Her cheeks flush dark red. “You’re zooming around like an angry bee! Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to—” The lamp falls off the desk with a crash. “God damn it,” I finally shout. “Leave it be, Delilah!”
The force behind my order lashes out with the efficiency of a whip, and Delilah flinches. It’s enough to make us both pause. Breath coming out in hard pants, I stare at her for one awful second. Her eyes are round, lips parted with her agitated breathing. Then a glint, a rage I’m familiar with but haven’t seen in ten years, forms.
“What the actual hell is wrong with you?” she cries, her arms akimbo.
She stands over me like a teacher ready to give a lecture. The band around my chest won’t abate. “Nothing a good dose of privacy wouldn’t fix.”
Delilah snorts long and loud. “That’s not what you need a dose of. For crying out loud, Macon. You hire me in part to help you while you’re convalescing, but the second I try to offer a hand, you have a temper tantrum.”
Temper tantrum? My back teeth click together.
“I didn’t hire you. You came to me.” My thumb hits my chest for emphasis. “And part of that bargain was that you obeyed my orders without question.”
I can see her struggling to keep her cool. She takes a deep breath, her breasts lifting high. I don’t want to notice. I