very own pony.
- there was this undeniable, absolutely exciting reaction she had to this man.
He sat beside her on the couch, and heat crawled up her arm as he took the wine from her fingers and set it on the small side table. He turned over her freed hand to expose her palm, and then she realized he had with him a cool, damp cloth. He used it to bathe the abraded flesh on the heel of one hand, and then on the other.
She stared at the varied strands of blond in his hair - sand, honey, gold - fascinated by the colors and his gentle touch. Back at the bar his concern over her minor wounds had evaporated the last of her doubts about him.
It seemed to her that Duncan had never cared as much about her feelings.
But she wasn't going to think about Duncan. She couldn't hate him even if she wanted to. And anyway, to night was about Hannah. The Hannah who had come to Coronado for so many reasons - this New Year's Eve fling apparently being one of them.
"It's antiseptic," her stranger said, but she didn't feel any sting, nor could she manage to make a word in response.
His eyes flicked toward her face, and a half smile quirked the corners of his mouth. "Breathe, sweetheart."
Hannah tried it once. Her throat was so tight that the air wheezed in, then caught in her chest.
Her stranger looked up again. Maybe this gunslinging surfer had X-ray vision too, because his gaze focused on the place where all that oxygen was trapped. Hannah's breasts swelled and she squirmed in her seat at the idea that he could tell.
His mouth compressing to a tight line, he tossed the cloth away and dropped to his knees at her feet.
She squeaked. "Wh-What are you doing?"
His gaze lifted to hers. The lights were dim in the room, but she knew they were a cool blue. Laugh lines etched the corners, fanning from his high cheekbones and lifting toward his sandy brows. Remembering his lonely seat at the bar, though, she wondered if he hadn't found much to laugh about recently.
That would make two of them.
His long fingers settled on her bare ankle, just beneath the bottom of her black jeans. Then his thumb stroked over the top of her foot. "On our short walk over here you said your knees were sore from your falls." He began to roll up her right hem. "I want to see."
Oh. Okay. She swallowed. More first aid.
He folded one pants leg above her kneecap and then went to work on the other. In moments her calves were bared, her skin looking very pale in contrast to the dark denim of her jeans and the black leather of her high heels.
He scooted between her feet and she had to widen her legs to make room for him. Was she the only one who thought it looked a little...kinky with her thighs splayed and her feet still wearing those seduce-me shoes?
His warm hand squeezed her ankle, and her gaze jolted to meet his. His cool eyes looked hot now, and his nostrils flared again as his palm slid up the back of her calf. "Pretty shoes. Pretty girl."
His hand moved slowly back down to her ankle and then he cupped it to lift and straighten her leg. Looking away from her face to focus on her knee, he watched it move as he tested the joint in a clinical fashion.
"We're going to be good together," he suddenly said.
Hannah jumped. Could he mean...?
He moved to check her other knee without looking up at her. "I'm talking about the sex. You know the sex is going to be explosive between us, right?"
Explosive? Suddenly she worried that he was setting himself up for disappointment. Both of them. It had been almost four years for her, and she could barely remember what the act was like. Surely it had never been explosive. "Um...uh...how can you be so, um, sure?"
He bent closer to inspect her bare knee, his thumb brushing against a bruise beginning to darken. The ends of his hair tickled her skin. "It's been a long time for me too."
"Oh. Well." But really, how long could a "long time" be for a man who looked like this? And still...she didn't know if she had "explosive" in her. Just hours ago a cabbie had called her "wholesome." She reached for that nearby tumbler of wine and took a deep swallow, even though