Page 60 of Hold Me Today

Nick spares me an inscrutable glance before unzipping the bag and riffling through its contents. “And you need to find somewhere else to stay while we fix that stairway to hell.”

My lips purse at his unintended play on Led Zeppelin’s infamous “Stairway to Heaven” song.Focus, Mina.Right, right. Under my breath, I can’t help but hum along to the melody.

Pulling out a fresh pair of jeans from the duffel bag, Nick drops them to the floor and flicks open the medical kit. Only when he’s stripped off his tattered jeans does he say anything else—and, truth be told, I’m too busy admiring him in a pair of tight briefs to do anything but gawk.

The man is seriously blessed in more ways than one.

A masculine hand waves in front of my face. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

Cheeks flushing, I jerk my gaze up to safer territories. “Not a word.”

I expect him to reprimand me the way he’s always done, condescension coating each word. Instead, his mouth quirks up and he throws me a look like he doesn’t know what to do with me. Under normal circumstances—you know, with him being surly and uncommunicative—that glance would leave me feeling chilled all over. Instead, I feel indescribably toasty which is insane considering I’ve still got snowflakes melting into my hair and clothes.

“Let me repeat from the top.” Bending over, Nick grabs the medical wipes and proceeds to wipe away the beads of blood on his thigh. “You aren’t staying here.”

This time, I hear him perfectly. “Of course I am.”

“Not a chance in hell.”

Watching the rough way he deals with his injured skin, I bat his hands away and sink to my knees. “You would have gotten your point across better if you’d said, ‘over my dead body.’” With the chill of the concrete flooring seeping through the thin layer of leggings, I crane my head back to look Nick in the face. “At least that would be reasonably appropriate given the situation.”

He lifts one brow coolly. “Over my dead body.”

“Great.” I poke him in his uninjured shin. “Now lay down and play the part. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

“Better do what she says, boss,” remarks Bill with a hearty chuckle. “She sounds like she means business.”

Though I’m sure it grates on his nerves to play the part of damsel in distress, Nick maneuvers his big body onto the ground. While he doesn’t lie back as ordered—and I don’t blame him because this floor is filthy with sawdust and debris—he nevertheless reclines back on his palms and leaves his bare legs to my ministrations.

Even sitting, the muscles in his thighs are tight and incredibly firm. They clench when I hold a square piece of sterile gauze to the deepest gash. Pressing down with my thumb to stem the blood, I rearrange my legs so that I’m mostly seated on my butt. It’s more comfortable this way, and I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll be here for a while yet. No matter what he says, I can’t just stay elsewhere until the stairs are restructured.

Hell, it’s not even a matter ofcan’tbut a matter ofwon’t.

“Let the guys go home for the day.”

Tensing beneath my fingers, Nick shakes his head. “Can’t. We need to stay on schedule. Drywall by Wednesday and floors put in by Friday. We keep this pace up, and you’ll be ready to go by the middle of the following week.”

I strip off another piece of gauze and apply it to one of his deeper wounds. Already the blood is drying. Growing up, First Aid kits weren’t a thing in our house. My mom loved concocting creams and herbal remedies, allegedly all passed down through our family. One time, Dimitri sprained his ankle, and instead of painkillers and a set of crutches, my mom whipped up a poultice and slathered it all over his foot. My younger brother gagged from the noxious smell, and even I watched on with my fingers plugging my nose shut as my mom bandaged his ankle with plastic wrap from the kitchen.

Crazily enough, it worked.

Without my mom’s magic, I settle for more hydrogen peroxide from the kit.

With a hasty look thrown over my shoulder, I spot the guys back at work. Rock music blares from the Bluetooth speakers as they nail another frame into place, and I find small comfort in all the noise. Hopefully it’s loud enough they won’t pay us any attention.

Nick’s fingers brush my arm. “Get it off your chest,” he murmurs, tracing those long, nimble fingers down to my wrist. “I can see the worry all over your face.”

I keep my gaze on the task at hand, cleaning each scratch like it’s a life or death situation. “I can’t stay anywhere else.”

“What about with Effie?”

Baby wisps of my hair fall into my face when I shake my head, and I shove them behind my ear with the back of my hand. “Not an option. She and Sarah are stressed enough without adding me as the unwanted third party to their twosome.”

“You could stay with me.”

He says it so simply, so matter-of-factly, that I laugh. Except—except that he doesn’t laugh along with me. Lifting my chin, I meet his somber gaze and . . . oh.Oh.He was being serious. My heart performs a strange flip in my chest, like a beached whale moored on shore. “A fake relationshipandmoving into your house?” I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth to hold back a startled giggle. “What are we? The leads in a Hallmark movie?”

His broad shoulder lifts, even as his gray eyes shine with amusement. “You’d be helping theI’m-over-Savannahstoryline. Consider it payment compensated for that hydrotherapy room.”

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