Her pulse beat in her ears, a rapid flutter. She told herself it was a natural reaction to the sting of hydrogen peroxide hitting the wound. But then he traced his index finger over her palm and she knew her reaction had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with him.
She inhaled, her lungs requiring more air than she could take in. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone took care of her. Oh, her parents had bandaged her childhood scrapes and put ointment on her bruises. But as soon as she was old enough to fend for herself, it became a point of pride to cause them as little concern as possible. Between trying to earn enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table and looking after the energetic, never-met-a-dare-he-didn’t-take Matt, her parents had enough worries.
She had been more often the caregiver than not, from babysitting her brother after school while her parents were still at work, to doing everything she could to help her college boyfriend ace the LSATs and apply to law school. Tom did get into a top program, thanks to her coaching. Then he attended law-school orientation, announced he had found the woman of his dreams among his fellow first-year students and dumped Danica.
“You can only rely on yourself and family,” her father had said when she was still crawling into her childhood bed to cry under the covers three weeks later. When her boss at the time mentioned he knew an executive-recruitment firm in Palo Alto that needed an assistant, she took the money she had saved for a security deposit on an apartment with her now ex-boyfriend and spent it on a plane ticket to California. It was the furthest possible point from Tom and still in the continental United States. She would show everyone she could do just fine on her own.
But with Luke’s touch trailing embers in its wake, it felt good to have someone look after her. More than good. A heaviness gathered deep and low, a persistent ache demanding to be relieved that she hadn’t felt—well, she hadn’t felt since Luke kissed her outside the taqueria in San Francisco. And before that, a very long time.
He took out a gauze pad and sterile tape. “You weren’t planning on using your hand much tonight, were you?”
“Um.” Good thing it was her left hand, and she was right-handed. She definitely planned on using her right hand later that night while indulging in fantasies. Involving him. “No.”
He bent his head down as he worked. It was all she could do to stop her mind from conjuring those fantasies, right here, right now. For example, what would happen if she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his? Would he welcome her kiss, without the music and the bright lights and the buzz of the party creating an alternate reality in which they moved in the same social world?
What would he taste like? Champagne, bright and tart? Or—
Snap out of it, Novak. She didn’t belong here, sitting on a sofa that probably cost more than six months of her salary as Johanna’s assistant, just as she didn’t belong at that party where she barely passed for a guest. She certainly didn’t belong in Luke Dallas’s arms.
“You don’t have to do this,” she blurted out.
He finished bandaging her hand, smoothing the tape over the gauze with deliberate strokes of his fingers. Strokes that advanced and withdrew, creating an answering drumbeat rhythm between her legs. “Due diligence,” he said with a half smirk, his gaze locked on hers as his fingers continued their caresses. “If the cut gets infected and you can’t work, you could sue. A lawsuit might bankrupt the Peninsula Society.”
“Oh.” The pleasure-pain tightening deep in her belly at the thought of kissing Luke lessened, just a bit. Then his smile deepened, and it roared back. She swallowed her own smile. “Well, we can’t have that, can we,” she said primly.
“Just controlling outcomes,” he agreed, his gaze sparking with humor. Crinkles appeared at the corners of his summer-sea blue eyes.
A teasing Luke was catnip to her libido. She tugged her hand. He frowned but let it go. “Thank you for the bandage. I’ll order a car to go home.”
He sat back on the couch, his gaze never leaving hers. “What did you want earlier?”
“What?” She wasn’t that transparent. Was she? She didn’t need to touch her cheeks to know they were burning.