Page 39 of Just A Chance

Her back is to me now. I step between the two trees and grab her.

“Ahhh!” she screams, flinging her arms in the air. She socks me in the nose with her little arm. It startles me. But it seems to set off a chain reaction in her because her fist follows on the heels of her last hit and she lands a knockout to my nose.

I drop my hold on her and bend over, clutching my nose.

“Sean! Why did you scare me like that!”

“I was trying to be romantic.”

“Well, it came across as psychotic!”

Her defense mechanism was more maniac than my approach was.

I stand up rubbing the bridge of my nose.

“Uh, Sean.”

I look at her wide eyes and pale face.

“What?” I step toward her, but she backs away.

“Blood,” she manages before she faints right into a tree. The tree stops her fall long enough for me to catch her, but I can’t save the tipping tree with her limp body in my arms while I bleed.

Again.

We are going to have to talk about how we keep ending up in these situations.

Chapter 17

London

Myheadfeelsheavyand something is digging into my back. I’m on the world's most uncomfortable chair and there’s Christmas music blaring through my brain.

What’s happening?

I crack one eye open but the image it brings me is confusing. The room I’m in is nothing but wood beams, a toilet, and a man with his back to me.

I swallow. That’s not any man. That’s Sean. Why am I in the bathroom with him? Why is there a chair in the bathroom to begin with?

I’m about to ask all these questions when Sean pulls the hem of his shirt up and over his head. My brain turns to mush. I’m not capable of anything except cataloging the corded muscles on his back and the way they wrap around his shoulders, bunching and flexing as he moves.

The fresh scar to the left of his spine snags my attention and suddenly I have feeling in my legs again. What’s possessing them to move though is beyond me. They don’t stop until I’m an inch from him, running my fingertips over the purple skin.

Sean freezes, his muscles flexed, waiting.

“Sean,” I whisper. “This is awful.”

“Really?” He lets out a ragged breath. “I thought it made me look more rugged.”

“That must have hurt so bad.”

He turns, slow enough my hand grazes along his skin as he does, over his side, landing at the top of his abs where he captures it in his fingers. “I love that scar.”

My brows furrow.

“That was the day I found you again.”

His words are full of so much meaning it hurts. He’s made it overly clear how much he cares for me, but will it last? Or will his feelings fade just as mine grow and he leaves me utterly debilitated?