Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) - By Stacy Gail Page 0,22
at the far wall, with a folded-up wheelchair leaning against it. A multi-drawer red cart sat by the opposite wall next to a sink where Ella was washing her hands as if she was about to go into surgery.
Or, if she was a nurse.
“It’s really not that big a deal.” But he limped in a pitiable way as he moved to the table. Hopping up wasn’t required. All he had to do was settle back onto it like it was no more than a barstool. “There’s no need to go to so much fuss, you know. You didn’t kick me that hard.”
“Yes I did, but that’s your fault, not mine.”
He blinked as she dug into the cart and came up with gloves for herself and a rolled-up, self-adhering elastic bandage for him. So much for trying to ease her conscience. “Excuse me?”
“You picked me up.”
“So?”
“So, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I thought you said for me to give it my all or you’d kick my butt out of class.”
“All I wanted from you was a demonstration of a hold like a bear hug.” She turned to him as she removed the bandage from its package. “I believe my exact words were for you to put your arms around me. Not once did I say, ‘Toss me up into the air as if I’m a three year old.’”
“I didn’t want to do it in the first place, so I wasn’t exactly hanging on your every word.” And he hadn’t wanted to do it. Making like a nightmare that might lurk in this woman’s past rated on his Things To Do list just below setting his hair on fire.
Her huffy sigh carried a world of straining patience. “For purposes of teaching the basics of how to deal with an attack from behind, I needed a partner to act out the part, step-by-step. When you decided to improvise and show off how muscly you are with that hard body of yours, I hit the fast-forward button on the defensive moves and reacted instinctively. The result—no one really learned anything while I get to wrap up your knee like a mummy.”
Nate watched as she bent, caught his foot up, and wedged it between her knees. He froze while his imagination went wild as he stared at where they came into physical contact. With one move off the exam table, he could easily slide his leg between hers. He’d do it slowly, not to scare her but to entice her, and he’d enjoy the friction of it as his thigh parted hers, the slender columns of her legs sandwiching his in a warm embrace of need and hunger. He’d run his hands down her back to cup her lean little ass to encourage her to ride along the length of his leg. He wouldn’t stop as the warmth of the friction-created heat bloomed at the juncture of her thighs, and she would rock against him until that heat became an all-out blaze and she was moaning for more...
“...hurt you, I’m truly sorry for that.”
His skin flushed and tightened until he was the one who wanted to moan with the sweet pain of it. “You think I’ve got a hard body?”
She lifted dark brown eyes to him, and for a second he forgot how to breathe. “Are you listening, or is this another shining example of you not hanging on my every word?”
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t follow the script. But in case you didn’t know, it’s a pretty decent bet that if you’re attacked from behind by some freak, he’s not doing it because he’s a compulsive bear-hugger.”
For a moment she looked like she wanted to wrap the bandage around his mouth. “Trust me, I grasp that fact in every possible way you can imagine. But for teaching purposes, I had a vague hope that I could walk the class through a few basic moves before addressing the much more advanced techniques needed to escape the clutches of, say, Sasquatch.”
Ouch. “Are you saying I have big feet?”
She rolled her eyes and began wrapping his knee in deft motions that were so fast and uniform it almost seemed unreal. “Newsflash, Nate. You’re not dainty.”
A slow smile curled a corner of his mouth before he gave himself a mental shake. “Damn it. I am not going to say it.”
“Say what?”
“Nope. You can’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
Ah, hell. She asked for it. “You know what they say about men with big feet, right?”