Gingerly, she lifted her leg off the chair and brought her foot to the floor, hissing when the dead weight hit her ankle. She unbuckled the belt at her waist and threw it over to the end of the futon. Next, she reached for the waist of her form-fitting pants and stopped. Her eyes bored into his. “Do you mind?”
He grinned at her and winked. “Nope.”
“Turn around.”
“Tiny, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen hundreds of times already.”
“I bet,” she muttered under her breath. “Please?” she asked sarcastically.
“Since you asked so nicely.” He turned slowly and showed her his back. Behind him, he heard her struggling to slide the pants over her ass and down her legs while still sitting. With every rustle of her clothing, he imagined her shedding the material.His mouth began to salivate. His little Tinkerbell was going to be fit and tight in all the best ways.
He knew the exact moment the pants were down around her ankles and that they were stuck. She couldn’t bend enough to get them off without feeling pain. He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Was he being a dick?
Yes, but I regret nothing.
He turned his head in profile to her. “Need help?”
“No, I don’t need any help. You’ve helped enough by being the reason I’ve got a sprained ankle to begin with.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t trip you. That was the tree root.”
He listened to her struggle a few moments longer before he spun around. “Stubborn little pixie.” He got down on one knee and gently eased his fingers between her ankle and the pants, guiding them over the rapidly swelling and bruising joint. “There. Your virtue is still intact.”
He stopped in his tracks. More saliva spurted into his mouth. His heart stuttered. His eye twitched.
Those legs!
Inside his head, he groaned. He knew it. Hotter than hot. She might be tiny, but Sawyer knew a beautiful set of legs when he saw them. They were toned like a gymnast and made her short form look long-legged, beginning at the bottom of a pair of plain white, but strangely sexy, boy shorts and continuing down to the tiniest feet he’d ever seen—size five by his guess—where they boasted pink sparkly polish on the toes.
Mentally, he gathered himself back together with an internal shake of his head. Grabbing the flannel pajama pants, he shook them out so they unfolded and slid them over her legs to just over the knees. “Lift,” he ordered.
Haskell bunched her hands into fists and used them to push herself an inch or so off the futon so that he could slide them over herass and up to her waist. The action brought him within an inch or so of her mouth.
Their eyes locked.
Fuck! Eyes really can sparkle like sapphires!
He cleared his throat, then reached for the T-shirt as he stood.
Haskell dropped her gaze and began to pull at the sleeves of her long-sleeved black T-shirt.
Sawyer wanted to look away, but the devil on his shoulder wouldn’t allow it. Holding the shirt out in front of him, he turned his head as if to give her privacy, but out of his peripheral vision, he watched her change. The plain, simple sports bra she wore was no better on his heart rate than the tiny boy shorts, and he already was envisioning being able to get those entire small but perfect tits in his mouth.
Yeah, there was definitely a little time to fuck around.
Once she was settled, he sat back down on the chair he’d vacated earlier, took her leg back into his lap, and reached over and grabbed one of the towels, unfolded it, then refolded it in half horizontally. “This might hurt a little,” he warned.
Using one of the towels from the kitchen, he began to wrap her ankle. “You’ll need to stay off this for a day or two. Ice it. Keep it elevated.”
Haskell was silent as he continued to wrap her up. He heard a hint of guilt when she quietly said, “Thank you for helping me tonight. I interrupted you and kept you from what you were doing. You could have left me stranded tonight. Multiple times. But you didn’t.” Her eyes searched his face. “Why? You could have been caught.”
“Dunno. At first, it was reflex. Someone falls, you try to catch them.” He shrugged. “Seemed rude to leave you behind. As for interrupting, I didn’t leave completely empty-handed.” He knotted the ends of one of the towel strips, holding the largertowel in place to serve as her wrap bandage. “So, what were you doing in the air duct?”
“Practicing,” she mumbled. “That museum has some unique physical challenges. I use it as a practice exercise.”
Sawyer began to put away all of the items he had been working with. When he returned to her on the futon, he swiped the makeshift ice bag from the floor and scooped her up in his arms. He expected her to squawk and put up a fight, but surprisingly, she merely put her arms around his neck and watched him as intently as he watched her while carrying her.
Inside her room, he set her down on the bed, her back to the headboard. Grabbing the extra pillow, he slid it under her ankle as gently as he could. Then he rounded the bed and threw himself on the other side, lying flat, his hands laced behind his head.