Page 15 of Love JD

I stared at him with my cheek on my knees. “Here,” I said flatly.

His bright, jean blue eyes found me. A millisecond of shock flitted over his features before incredulous anger replaced it. “What…?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. I picked up my head and sent a few more glass fragments clacking to the cement balcony. “Maybe I walked under a ladder.”

“Jesus, Isla.” He jogged forward, and his designer sneakers crunched over broken glass as he maneuvered himself onto the balcony. He crouched down in front of me, and I noted that he was wearing a pair of comfortable-looking canvas joggers and a white T-shirt. He had his keys and his phone in his hand, and he pocketed them as his vibrant eyes looked me over. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. Having him nearby should have made me nervous. It should have set off my dysautonomia. It should have made my blood pressure plummet and my heart rate skyrocket, but like the other day, I didn’t feel that way with him around. I felt calm and maybe even… safe? What the hell?

Glass crunched as he shifted forward and took my bloodied hands in his. “You’re cut to shreds, Kid. Did you pass out?”

Oh, no. It was so much worse than that. I was just clumsy. Sighing through my nose, I gestured toward my boot with my chin. “It got caught and I lost my balance.”

He glanced at the boot, and then his gaze traveled up my bare legs, over my thighs, up my stomach and to my face. Heat radiated from my neck and bloomed up to my cheeks. Why was he looking at me like that? “What are you doing home alone?” he asked.

The warmth in my face lit like tinder. Words jammed themselves in my throat as my nerves prevented me from giving him a decent answer. I felt my throat work to swallow aridly. Because I make stupid choices to give myself the illusion of control.

“Hm?” he prompted, angling to catch my eyes as I looked away.

“It’s embarrassing to ask for help,” I finally huffed, leaning away from him. “Okay? It’s embarrassing.”

“More embarrassing than this?” he demanded.

Obviously, this was more embarrassing. I slid a resentful look his way and pulled my hands from his.

Zev’s chest rose and then fell as he exhaled, and he rubbed his dark stubble with a scratchy sound that made me shiver. In a good way? I wasn’t sure what my body was doing, but it didn’t jive with my brain, and that kind of pissed me off. He shifted, still crouched, so he could examine my stuck boot. After a few test pulls on my boot that, despite my best efforts to remain stoic, caused me to cry out in pain, he let go of my ankle and pushed against the railing.

Zev made a thinking sound, and then without preamble, he grasped each pole on either side of my ankle and pushed out. The muscles on his arms strained, popping out in high definition like a 3D movie theater experience, and with the briefest of grunts, he bent the balusters until they looked like parentheses.

I gawked. “Whoa.”

Gently, he lifted my foot and fed it out of the widened opening. Then he swiveled a scowl of censure my way. “Someone needs to sign you up for a common sense class.”

“That’s not a thing,” I breathed out, still in awe that he had gone Hulk on my railing.

“I’m sure they’ll make an exception for you,” he muttered. Zev brushed his hands over my legs, leaving goosebumps trailing after his fingers. His eyes, bluer than a deep summer sky, focused on what his hands were doing as he brushed glass off my back and shoulders and picked little shards from my skin. “You got sliced and diced on your back a little, but it’s not too bad. I think I got as much off as I can. Don’t try to stand or you’ll cut up your good foot.”

“Maybe I want to punish my foot,” I joked. “It tripped me into a glass door.”

Zev blinked at me in irritation. “If you’re looking for punishment, I can think of a few ways.”

My jaw hinged open. That pulled a roguish half smile from him, and he slid his hands under my knees and behind my back like he had the other day at the wedding. “I’m taking you to the shower so we can rinse off the rest of the glass.”

“Nope,” I protested, twisting.

But he had already lifted me, his sneakers cracking over glass before he lunged into the living room. He brushed off the bottom of his shoes on the door frame, inspected them behind him as he balanced me in his arms, and then strode across the house toward the shared bathroom.

I grabbed onto the trim around the bathroom doorway to stop him, but Zev barreled through like he’d walked through a cobweb. I screeched in frustration. “Okay, okay, but you have to leave, right?”

“Not a chance,” he laughed derisively. I tried to escape, but he stood me in the tub. “Give me your foot.”

I plastered myself against the back of the shower, holding out a warning finger and giving him crazy eyes. “Only if you leave.”

“I already saw you in your underwear,” he pointed out.

“Do not remind me,” I bit out. “I’ll pass out, I swear to God.”

“Fine, fine,” he backed away, hands up. “Let me help you with the boot and then I’ll leave. But Isla, if you fall—”

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