Page 52

Multiple unused bottles of my favorite shampoo are on the vanity, waiting for him.
As my eyes track Ark to the built-in bar to gather ice in a washcloth, I say, “You don’t need to bother. My ankle d-doesn’t hurt.”
He ignores me. It seems to be his go-to defense mechanism of late.
Silent and brooding are my favorite words to describe his personality over the past two weeks. Teasing is another, but that is reserved for the brief touches he rewards me with when no one is looking, and the longing stares he bombards me with when a dozen people separate us.
I hiss for a completely different reason than pain when Ark places a makeshift ice pack on my ankle. It is freezing, and the coolness of the droplets rolling down my foot and soaking into his bedding makes me yelp.
“Hush,” Ark says, his quirked lips softening the snap of his reply. “The colder the compress, the less chance of inflammation. Rest, ice, compression”—he squeezes the washcloth around my ankle during his last word—“and elevation. All standard first-aid treatment for an acute injury.”
“I wouldn’t say my injury is a-acute.”
I unknowingly walk straight into his trap. “But you admit you’re injured?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” I say with a laugh, grateful for the return of his deeply guarded nurturing side. “You’re twisting my words.”
“Am I, Mara?” I love how he says my name, and not even the tiredness of a long week can conceal that. “Because they sound crystal clear to me.”
It takes me a moment to realize what he is saying.
When it clicks, I’m gobsmacked.
I didn’t stutter again.
This is only the second time in over a decade my vocals haven’t displayed nerves while speaking with the opposite sex.
While grinning about my bewilderment, Ark attempts to cut the invisible rope binding us together. “Rest in here for as long as you need. Once the swelling goes down enough you feel confident putting pressure on your ankle, I’ll organize for someone to take you home. You can start fresh again next Monday.”
My worried gasp reduces the length of his strides.
“Next Monday?” I don’t wait for him to answer me. “I can’t take a w-week off.”
I’m not stuttering because I am nervous. I am stammering because I fear not having enough funds to pay for the groceries I’ll need to purchase since I will miss out on a week of Ark’s generosity.
The food he sends home with me each day doesn’t solely feed Tillie and me. It also feeds Mrs. Lichard and a handful of elderly residents who can’t afford both surging rent prices and food.
I could try to stretch my wages to cover some basic necessities for my neighbors, but I don’t want to do that to Mrs. Lichard. For years, she refused payment for watching Tillie before and after school. Supplying her with some groceries is the least I can do for all the help she’s given me over the past sixyears. I don’t want to pull back on purchases just as her pantry is starting to look not so empty.
“I c-can work. My ankle is fine.”
A sob involuntarily leaves my lips when I slip off Ark’s bed. The ice seems to have aggravated my injury, or perhaps the tightness of my one-size-too-small shoe was acting as a compression. My ankle is now swollen like a balloon and extremely tender.
“Sit before you hurt yourself more.” Ark’s bossy demeanor should scare me senseless, but I find it as endearing as his handsome face. “Bed. Now.” He lifts me like a child and places me back onto the mattress before he wedges his pillow under my foot. “If you move again, I’ll tie you to the headboard myself.”
Heat floods my veins when images Mrs. Orlov assures me that I have no right to conjure roll through my head. Ark’s fingers. His tongue. Those chunky, kissable lips. I imagine them in places they have no right to be—again—and the furious hotness they trigger have me grateful for the coolness of the ice pack he returns to my ankle.
“Hush,” Ark murmurs again, mistaking my whimper as one of pain. “I won’t hurt you.”
His breath quivers in our shared air since he stands mere inches from me when I whisper, “I know.”
As his throat works hard to swallow, his hand lifts a fraction higher. It lingers on a teasing portion of my thigh the immodest hem of my uniform can’t conceal before he locks his eyes with mine.
He stares at me for several heart-thrashing seconds, taking in my parted lips, the rosiness of my cheeks, and my dilated eyes before the corner of his mouth hitches.
I suck in a desperate breath, my heart racing, when his spare hand moves for my face. This time, I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink for fear of giving him the wrong impression. I return hisheated stare as he forces a felonious hair back into line before I breathe through the sensation of the back of his fingers trekking down my cheek.
Again, a touch so simple shouldn’t cause such a wild response, but there’s no denying the inferno raging through my stomach when his fingers’ focus shifts to my mouth. The burn makes me squirm and has me wishing he’d move his other hand up a few more inches.