Page 13 of The Fire We Crave

He didn’t need it last night when I offered to help with the groceries. He certainly didn’t want any sympathetic treatment when I cooked and cleaned up last night. I doubt he wants it now.

“You want a side of self-pity with that?” I ask.

It’s harsher than I mean, and I’m not even sure that’s what I meant to say.

Smoke raises his head and glares at me.

I glare back.

“Shut up, Quinn,” he says.

But there’s a hint of sadness to his tone.

I grab the dustpan and brush out of the cupboard, then begin to sweep the broken china into a pile.

“Ouch,” I say when the inevitable happens and I stand on something sharp.

I lift my foot and rest it on my knee as I brush away whatever hurt me. There’s the tiniest pinprick of blood on the bottom of my foot. “Shit.”

When I look up, Smoke has moved and is standing right in front of me. He winces as he drags a stool from beneath the kitchen island. “Sit.”

“I’m fine, it’s just a little?—”

“Sit,” Smoke says, this time more firmly as he grips my hips and lifts me onto the stool like I weigh nothing. And a whisper of pleasure runs through me.

It feels…good…to do as he says.

And I feel the imprint of his palms, long after he removes his hands from my body.

But then I notice the gritted teeth and the wince of pain.

He grabs paper towel and wets it beneath the tap.

“It’s not a big deal,” I say, looking at it a little more closely. “I think with the narrow cracks between the wide planks of wood, it’s inevitable there are some little slivers.”

Smoke walks through the broken plate debris, crushing it beneath his heavy boots.

“Why are you wearing boots and no shirt?” I ask.

He shrugs and gently dabs the wet cloth to my foot. I bite back a giggle. My feet are ticklish. And they look so small in Smoke’s big hands as he twists each foot, back and forth, to check for other slivers.

“I think you got whatever it was out,” he says. He presses gently over it with the cloth. “Do you feel anything poking when I do that?”

I shake my head. “No. It’s fine. Honestly.”

He runs his fingers over the soles of my feet and checks every toe, one at a time. It’s utterly overkill versus the scale of the…injury…if you could even call the tiny nick that.

“Stay there,” he says again as he stands and grabs a first aid box from a low cupboard.

I notice that so many motions make him wince. Bending. Flexing.

“You don’t need to do that. I can?—”

“Stop talking, and let me do this,” he says. “It’s my fault the shattered plate was on the floor. Couldn’t butter the toast. Let me make it right.”

It feels foreign. Interacting with this man I have avoided most of my adult life. But now we’re so close, I can smell the scent of his musk and whatever cologne he wore yesterday.

We’re definitely closer than two people with our histories should ever be.

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