Page 51 of As the World Falls

“Quit being a baby, Cecilia. If you leave it in there, you'll get an infection, which will hurt worse.”

She takes a hard breath and holds her hand back toward me. Her fingers are slightly shaking, and I observe the way her face is frozen in the expectation of pain. Lord help me, I take pity on her.

I use my left hand to take hers and entangle our fingers together as I close my hand around hers. She looks at me in shock now, and I hate the way it’s surprising to her for me to be nice, but I try to ignore it.

“Hold your finger up and squeeze my hand if the pain gets too bad.” She nods quietly, lifts her finger for me, and I lean into her. Our balled hands are the only separation between our chests now. I look closely at her finger and use my right hand to angle the pick under her nail.

She squeezes my hand hard when it makes contact, and a small whimper leaves her mouth. I stay focused, though, using the pick to dig out the splinter embedded deeply into her skin as gently as possible. Unfortunately, though, I had to dig the pick into her skin more than I’d liked to be able to get enough traction to push the splinter out. I finally get it to start wiggling, and I glance up at her momentarily, finding her face beat red but her eyes on me instead of her hand.

“What are you looking at?” I murmur, looking back down at her finger.

“You,” she answers. “You’re so focused. It’s easy to get lost in your determination.”

“And if I told you not to stare at me?”

“I’d tell you it’s distracting me from the pain and to quit being a baby about it.”

I push the splinter completely out of her finger, making her squeak in pain, and then a long exhale leaves her once she seesit’s out. “Takes one to know one,” I quip, grabbing a paper towel and wrapping it around her finger to wipe up the blood.

Our eyes stay connected longer than I’m comfortable with, but I can’t look away. She’s looking at me like I was her knight in shining armor when I was the kind of guy she needed saving from. I was thinking bad things, like the things I could do to her in the privacy of this bathroom, and she was looking up at me with such naïve sweetness.

“Wash your hands,” I finally tell her, stepping back. She looks down and hops off of the counter, turning to wash her hands. I opened the antibiotic ointment and retook her hand when she dried it off.

“I can do this part,” she says, but I ignore her and rub the ointment on her finger with a small piece of gauze. I pick up the band-aid, tearing it open with my teeth, pulling it free, and gently wrapping it around her finger so that the wound isn’t exposed anymore.

“Keep an eye on it. Staph infection isn’t uncommon from bad splinters.”

“Why thank you, Dr. Kingston. This was all…nice.”

“Yes, well, despite what you think about me, Cecilia, I’m not entirely evil.”

Her eyes soften in a somewhat sad way, and I can’t stand the sight of it. “I don’t think you’re?—”

“We should get back out there, or people will get the wrong idea about us in here. I don’t need any bloody gossip around here.”

I open the door, waiting to exit after her. She stayed still for a moment, staring at me, and then she walked out without another word. I’m following a step behind her when she stops suddenly, her hand shooting out behind her and plastering against my chest. Next thing I know, I’m being forcibly shoved backward. She turns on her heels and pushes against my chest with bothof her hands now, her eyes wide and crazy as she pushes me around a corner and into a break in the wall.

My back slams against the wall as she plasters herself to me, her chest colliding with mine. “What on earth are you doing?” I shout.

Her hand flies over my mouth, making my eyes shoot up in surprise as she attempts to silence me. “My brother,” she shrieks in a whisper. “He’s here.”

I bite down on one of her fingers, not hard but enough to make her yelp and pull her hand away. I set my hands on her hips and spin us so that she’s the one against the wall now. I lean backward, peaking my head around the corner, and see Tobias standing in the hall, speaking with my secretary.

“Damn it,” I grouse, digging into my pocket for my cell phone.

“What are you?—”

“Shh,” I bite out, placing my hand over her mouth to see how she likes it. She looks outraged as I do, and I can’t help but smile as I dial my secretary’s number.

When she answers, I waste no time. “Please let Tobias know I’m heading into a meeting and will be busy the next few hours. Under no circumstances are you to tell him anything else or mention my assistant. I want you to tell him to come back after hours.”

When I hung up the phone, I felt a minor sharp pain against my fingers, and I looked down, seeing that she had now bitten me, too. I remove my hand to reveal a wicked grin on her mouth, which makes my stomach turn with a violent heat.

I narrowed my eyes at her and leaned back out, seeing my secretary and Tobias still talking. I roll my eyes when I see him lean onto the counter now, getting closer to her as they talk.

“Your fucking brother,” I grumbled, leaning back in toward her.

“What is it?”

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