“For what?”
“For doing this for me.”
A scowl scrunched his brow. “Who said I was doing it for you?”
My throat was tight. “Whatever the reason…thank you.”
He didn’t respond, he only hooked me with those eyes as he slowly knelt.
I heaved a sharp breath when he grabbed onto me by both knees. Fire raced my veins, thatconnectionfinding a place to take root.
“You cut yourself.” It was a soft accusation.
A frown pulled tight, and the words whimpered free, barely audible with him touching me the way he was. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal.”
He eased back on his haunches, and his left hand glided down the back of my calf to draw my leg out so he could inspect the bottom of my foot.
He dragged his finger down my heel. “It is a big deal. I already told you I take good care of what’s mine.”
My stomach bottomed out, and I tried to ignore what he insinuated. The way it felt for this man to touch me. The way I ached.
He inclined his head low enough that it concealed his face, but I could feel the intensity that blazed from his being, the way I used to feel him. A lifetime ago when life had belonged to us.
He twisted my foot then used the tweezers to pull the glass from the cut. I hissed at the sting, then I couldn’t breathe at all when he leaned in and blew over the flesh.
His breath was heated, and it swarmed me as if he were a scorching, summer wind.
A torrid, unrelenting flame.
I curled my hands tight around the edge of the counter to stop from doing something absurdly stupid like running my fingers through his hair.
My love for him throbbed with agony.
“Does it hurt?” he asked as he dabbed the cut with a cotton swab.
“It always has.” The confession wheezed past my dried lips.
I could feel him swallow. The way his shoulders went rigid.
He angled his gaze up to take in my face, his words as broken as the shards of glass. “Who is it you belong to, Aster?”
It was the same thing he’d asked me last night, only this time, he wanted a different answer.
I knew it. Felt the possession in the way his big hand curled around my ankle.
“You.” It trembled from my mouth.
At least for a little while, I did.
Because he’d chosen to do this for me. I just hoped whatever reason he’d done it for didn’t destroy me in the end.
“Good girl.” I could barely hear what he’d said, though I felt the caress of it skate up the inside of my thighs.
Need boiled in my belly, pouring out to touch every nerve ending as he cleaned the small amount of blood from the cut and applied a bandage.
“There,” he murmured.
“Thank you,” I said again, pushing it around the lump that had taken my throat hostage.