Page 19 of Taken By the Bounty Hunter

“For what?”

“My hands…they’re so dry. It’s the weather. My whole body is like sandpaper these days.” I rasp a phony laugh, knowing I sound like I’m lying. I feel ashamed at how I’m not soft and feminine. I’m thinner than I was, and paler. I’m skittish and scattered and I talk too much because I’m both scared of people, and yet starved for conversation. So many things have never occurred to me until this moment.

Jefferson doesn’t seem to hear me. With eyes closed, he kisses each knuckle, one by one, caressing me with his lips. It’s the sweetest yet wildest sensation of my life.

No one has ever touched me so tenderly.

Jefferson makes all the blood rush out to my farthest extremities, and back in, flooding my core with a delightful neediness. He makes my arms itch to hug him.

I want all of me pressed against all of him.

“I’ve thought about you every day, Georgie,” he says with a scratchy, emotion-filled voice that makes me swoon.

“I’ve been thinking about you, too. You literally kept me alive the last month.”

He goes tense. “What do you mean, kept you alive?”

Oh no.

“I can’t talk about that right now.”

“Georgie.”

“Jefferson.”

He sighs grumpily, and I smile.

Angling toward him, I say, “I don’t need you to get me anything to eat or drink. I don’t need you to worry about why I look different. I just don’t want you fussing over me. Okay?”

“Roger that,” he rumbles.

“And I don’t want you to look at me like I’m a basket case about to snap.”

“I’ve been worried. That’s all.”

“Well, I don’t want you to worry.”

I pivot some more, trying for a good angle without making it sexual. Although, all the sensations pinging through me would be okay with that, too.

“What do you want, Georgie?”

“I want to be close to you.”

“That’s easy. Come here, then. Come here right the hell now, sweetheart.”

His astonishingly strong arms angle me so that I’m fully straddling him. At the same time, he shoves the rickety table away, knocking it onto its side along with the empty plastic red cup.

I don’t care.

I can only bring myself to care that someone has called me sweetheart. I only notice the way my heart pounds at Jefferson’s commanding tone.

No one has ever called me that. Not even sarcastically. And no one has ever made me fall apart by demanding a hug.

Jefferson’s hands are on my hips, sure and steady. It’s still such a new feeling that I feel like a teenager getting away with murder. He touches me like he already knows my body.

He’s probably been with a list of women too long to count.

Maybe I don’t care.

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