bare.
He blinked and clamped his jaw tight. “Dani—” he said, and started to bend down. Thank God there was at least one part of his brain that was holding on to rational thought, even though the rest of him was reacting to the exquisite sight of her beautiful, bare body.
“No!” She turned her head and looked up at him, horrified. “Get away!”
He froze.
She wriggled as she tried to pull the tail of the shirt down to cover her butt. She wasn’t successful. “Go—somewhere, please,” she begged. “Don’t look.”
Harte didn’t know what to do except turn his back.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said shortly.
He heard fabric rustling and a couple of quiet groans of frustration.
“So you tripped over your jeans when you tried to take them off?” he asked, trying his best to sound serious and supportive, although in a different situation, it would be really funny.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me. I swear I’ll—” She yelped in pain.
Harte whirled. She was holding her left wrist. “What is it?” he asked. “Your wrist?”
“Don’t look,” she cried. “Turn around!”
“I need to look at your wrist.”
“It’s fine,” she said. The stubborn tightness of her voice was in sharp contrast to the mortified and pain-filled look on her face. She raised her gaze to his. “Please.”
He turned his back again. While he waited for her to dress, he occupied himself by trying, without much success, to banish the vision of her exquisite curves. He heard her moving around. Then she bit off another gasp of pain.
He almost turned around, but he restrained himself. “Be careful with your wrist. If it’s broken—”
“I am,” she grated. He could practically hear her jaw clenching. After a few moments, she said, “Okay. I’m dressed.”
He turned around and looked at her. But she was looking at the pile of clothes on the floor, and her face was turning bright red.
He looked down to see what was so embarrassing for her. There, nice and white and pretty, were the cotton bikini panties she’d found on the store shelves. He stared at the dazzling white scrap of fabric lying on the drugstore floor, every bit as mesmerized as she’d been, and certain he was thinking the same thing she was. He raised his gaze to hers and felt himself grow hard at the thought that she had nothing on under the thin cotton scrub pants.
She swallowed audibly and drew in a long breath.
Harte waited, wondering what she was going to say, because he had no idea what he should do.
“I—guess I forgot something,” she said hoarsely.
Harte felt his face burn. He let go of a huge breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Yeah,” he said, his gaze flickering toward the panties, then back to meet hers. “Yeah.”
After a long moment, he cleared his throat. “Let me see your wrist. I need to make sure it’s not broken.”
“Okay,” she said meekly.
He realized he was still holding the flashlight, so he set it down on the counter. It was on the soft-light setting and he aimed it toward the wall, hoping the light and its reflection would help him see. Swallowing hard, fighting for control over his libido, he bent down next to her and gently took her forearm in his hands and examined it closely.
While he studied her wrist, Dani took the opportunity to study him. With his head down, his profile was lit by the faint light of the flashlight. He was undeniably good-looking. She already knew that. But she hadn’t realized just how classic his features were. His nose was long and straight, his mouth was firm, his jawline was chiseled. And those eyes—she could actually see the shadow of his lashes on his cheek.
“How’d you hit it?” he asked as he used her flashlight to inspect the wrist bone.
“Hmm?” Was it fair for one man to be so beautiful from so many different angles?
“Dani?”
She blinked. What had he said? “What?”
“Are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
“No, I didn’t hit my head. I think my wrist hit the edge of the counter when I tripped. And it was already sore from when I jumped up onto the porch.”
He nodded. “It’s a little red, but I don’t see any swelling or discoloration.”
His touch was so gentle, his voice so kind that it made her want to cry—because apparently, she was going to cry about everything from now on. And once they managed to get away from these men who seemed determined to kill them,