Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (best motivational novels .txt) 📗

tight enough to snap. He eased the pressure so he could ask, “How bad is it?”

She halted for a second and reached for her arm. “Sticky.” Then resumed climbing.

“A little or a lot?” Pain sliced into his thigh with every step as he climbed. He checked his own bandage, glad to see that the bleeding hadn’t increased too badly, even with activity.

“Feels like a lot.”

Anger and concern held him in a tight grip. He should have come alone. He should have somehow found a way—no matter what the kidnappers had said—to talk her out of coming with him.

He pushed her to go faster. They needed to get up on top before they were discovered and someone opened fire on them.

Then Taylor reached the top and hesitated for a moment. He could see why. The actual roof was five feet below them on the other side. She straddled the ring that ran all around the edge of the roof, probably to protect it from heavy winds, which seemed to have damaged the roof anyway. He could make out several foot-wide holes. Luckily, they didn’t have to get on the roof. There was a two-foot ledge inside of the protective ring, four feet down, probably used by maintenance at one time. She swung her feet over and dropped to crouch on the ledge, Akeem right on her heels.

“Stay right there.”

She didn’t look as if she was keen on exploring anyway. She was holding her arm.

He would get to that. He eased up first and looked out. No movement on the ground, no movement inside any of the buildings that he could see from here, no lights on anywhere. Maybe they would be okay for a few minutes.

He laid out the emergency supplies he’d gotten from the first-aid kit before leaving their bags behind: an alcohol wipe and a couple of large bandages. He’d planned on using them on Taylor’s neck, but her arm needed them more. “Let’s try to take off your shirt. Let me know if it hurts.” He reached for her, awareness creeping into the moment immediately.

“It’s not that bad.” But she winced when he moved her arm.

He felt the cloth around the wound first, and after a while, breathed a little more easily. He didn’t find as much blood as he had feared he would. But the wound was still bleeding. The forced pace of their climb probably hadn’t helped.

“Stay still as much as you can.” He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off her good arm first, so he would only need to move her injured arm as little as possible.

Since the wound was still fresh, at least they didn’t have to worry about the material being stuck in dried blood, causing her further pain.

“Here.”

The sleeve slipped off easily. Her T-shirt was in the way, too, the wound just above the shoulder. He wanted to see all of it, as much as he could see in the darkness. He tried to push the material aside, but it wasn’t enough. So she reached for the hem and pulled the T-shirt over her head with her good hand. Which left her wearing precious little.

Don’t look at the pale yellow lace. Not an easy thing to do since it about glowed in the moonlight, definitely drawing attention.

Don’t think of the feel of her skin.

Who was he kidding?

“So what’s the verdict? Am I going to bleed to death?” She was saying the words jokingly, but he could hear the underlying worry in her voice and knew she wasn’t as worried about herself as about her inability to help her son if something happened to her.

And here he was, lusting for her.

On some level, he knew he probably should be ashamed of himself, but damned if he could find that place. So since he couldn’t not want her—even now, even here, always—he went for the next best thing, ignoring that he did.

“You’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ve gotten into worse scrapes at the ranch.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Relief lightened her voice.

And he didn’t want to. He hated to think of Taylor in any kind of danger or hurt.

He ripped the wrapper off the alcohol wipe. “This is going to sting.”

Her indrawn hiss of air was the only response.

He made as quick a work of disinfecting the wound as he could, making sure he got all of it. The bullet hadn’t gone in, just grazed her shoulder. But it did take a chunk of skin with it.

When he was done, working by nothing but moonlight, he positioned the bandages so they would cover the worst of the wound. He’d saved a corner of a wipe to clean the cut on her throat, his mood darkening by the minute. When he was done with that, he helped her get her shirt back on. They had no backup clothing here. As bloody and torn as the sleeve was, there was no help for that.

Only when he finally moved and the moonlight fell on her face did he see how her lips were pressed together, the tight set of her jaw.

Dammit. She wasn’t hurt badly, but she shouldn’t have gotten hurt at all.

“Still burning?”

“Like hell on high octane.” She offered a pained smile.

He wished he could take her pain. He wanted to pull her into his arms, run his fingers down her hair and soothe her. But she wasn’t likely to go for that. She wanted him gone. He winced at the memory of how he had kissed her in response.

“Look, I’m sorry about…Kissing you back there was…And that guy in the guardhouse. I had no choice, Taylor. I don’t want you to think that you can’t trust me. I know I’m not what you need, probably the last thing you need, but you have to let me—”

“I didn’t mind the kiss.”

He was so focused on how to word what he meant to say, that she’d confused him for a second. “What?”

“I don’t mind it when you kiss me.”

He stared at her. At her