Fueling Her Fire (5 page)

Chapter Four

Dylan rushed to her, his boots crushing the colorful broken
glass into even smaller bits of wreckage. “Kip! Oh my god! Are you okay?” Still
wearing his work gloves, he pushed the Christmas tree back up and cleared away
enough sharp glass to allow her to turn over and sit up.

“I’m fine,” she sputtered, embarrassed, and then glared up
at him. “Why did you just walk right in?”

He was kneeling in front of her, his gloved hand on her bare
leg and his concerned, sparkling blue eyes searching her face. “I saw through
the window what you were trying to do so I hurried in to help you before you
fell.”

“I fell
because
you came in.”

“I’m really sorry. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just help me up.”

“Hang on, there’s glass everywhere and you have bare feet.”
He cast his eyes around the mess that had been her Christmas tree and his voice
trailed off. “Kip, do you have a first-aid kit anywhere?”

“Why? I’m—” Her eyes followed his and her voice cut off with
a weak moan. Her thigh was bleeding from what appeared to be several small
cuts, but that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was the two-inch shard
of glass sticking out of her skin, which was bleeding steadily. She grabbed at
his arm as she swooned.

“Whoa! All right, deep breaths—don’t pass out on me!” He
caught her eyes with his and stared steadily into them while she blinked hers
back into focus. His voice was soothing. “I’m here with you. I’m going to fix
it. It’s really not as bad as it looks.”

Kip wasn’t squeamish about almost anything—catching fish,
killing bugs…she’d grown up in the country—but she was squeamish about blood.
She felt the panic rising in her and a part of her wished she
would
pass
out until he’d removed the glass shard from her leg.

“First-aid kit,” she managed to mumble. “Under the sink in
the kitchen.”

“Okay,” he said, squeezing her arms comfortingly. His voice
was slow and calm. “I’m going to get it. I’ll be right back.”

Dylan used his gloved hand to clear a spot on the floor
where he could sit and easily care for her. Taking off his coat and work gloves
on the way to the kitchen, he retrieved the first-aid kit. All the while Kip
tried to think about anything except the piece of glass impaled in her leg, but
of course it was all she could think about. Returning to her, he met her eyes
with his steady ones before pulling out gauze and adhesive bandages. He reached
for her leg.

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm. “Did you wash your hands?”

“Yes ma’am.” He smiled at her reassuringly and got to work.
Cocking his head, he asked, “Kip, did you ever get married?”

She was taken aback by his question. It was none of his
business. He had certainly never wanted to be her boyfriend, much less her
husband, so why did he care? Making no effort to hide the ice in her voice she
asked, “Why would you want to know?”

He inspected her leg, twisting her thigh carefully from side
to side to see the shard from all angles. “No reason really. I just saw that
fancy truck of yours outside and wondered what your husband did for a living to
afford to buy it for you.”

In disbelief of his gall, she angrily ticked off each word
of her response to him. “I am an attorney for a big firm in Chicago. I make a
good living. I have
no
trouble buying a fancy SUV like that one for
myself
.
I don’t need a man to buy it for me.” Her anger got the best of her and she
added, “If you got out of the backwoods once in a while, Dylan, you’d find out
that there are many women who don’t
need
a man to make them happy.”

His eyes flicked up to hers and then quickly back down, but
not before she saw the flash of anger in them.
Good.
She’d meant for the
comment to hurt him. After what he did to her back then, how dare he ask about
her love life now and then insult her with his sexist ideas?

Keeping his eyes on her leg he asked, “So is that why you’re
not married then? Because you don’t need a man?” She saw his jaw clench.
Although in her anger she’d been ready to spar with him, his question coming so
soon after she’d broken up with her cheating boyfriend stabbed at her like a
jab to a freshly sutured wound. She bit back tears and turned away, remaining
silent.

“There, see? It was only barely cutting into your leg. It
just looked a lot worse than it was.” His voice was suddenly gentle again,
comforting.

She looked back at him, her eyes smarting, and then stared
at the piece of glass in his hand. “What?”

“The glass. Look, it’s out.” He turned it in his hand and it
glittered in the light. “It was only stuck in your skin a tiny bit. You don’t
even need stitches. It looked a lot worse than it was.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her leg where Dylan was holding the
gauze and, to her horror, the relief of having the glass out of her skin was
enough to tip the balance of her tenuous hold on her emotions. She felt her
chin tremble as hot tears filled her eyes and spilled over.

“Hey, don’t cry! It’s out! I’m going to have you fixed up in
no time!”

“I’m not upset about the cut, you ass.” She glared at him
through her tears.

“Oh,” he grimaced, “sorry. I purposely said that thing about
your truck to get you fired up.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Why?” she asked incredulously.

“You almost fainted when you
looked
at the glass
sticking out of your leg. I figured you might actually faint when I took it
out. I had to distract you while I removed it.” His face had turned sheepish.
“I went a little far, I guess.”

Kip looked down at her leg where Dylan was blotting the cut.
The bleeding had slowed considerably. His plan to distract her had worked—she
hadn’t even noticed when he’d removed it. She sniffed.

“Hey, Kip, I’m really sorry. Honestly, I’m not a bit
surprised by your success. You were always the smartest person I ever knew.”

“It’s fine,” she grumbled. “I’m just… ” She broke off and
looked around at the scattered bits of festively-colored glass that used to be
her great-grandmother’s ornaments and then at her bloodied leg with the tiny
shards of glass still pressed into the skin of her thigh. What was she going to
tell her mom?

Choking on a sob, she lost her fight to the tears again and
covered her face with her hands. Now that she knew she wouldn’t need stitches,
she wished Dylan would just leave and let her deal with the carnage of her
Christmas alone.

“Hey,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper, “hey.” He
touched her arm, his large hand massaging her arm in a comforting gesture.
Wiping her face, she looked up at the ceiling, avoiding his gorgeous eyes and
taking deep breaths in an attempt to get a hold on her tears. Dylan continued
to stroke her arm, not speaking, giving her the time she needed.

She couldn’t help but notice, even in the haze of her
emotions, the strength of his hand under the soothing gesture and how good it
felt to be touched by him. She had been sure she’d never feel Dylan’s hands on
her skin again and, to her surprise, she sensed a slow burn low in her body—a
burn that she hadn’t felt in a long time from the touch of a man.

Drying her eyes with her cardigan, she looked back at him
and laughed bitterly.
Was it possible for the night to get any worse?
“I’m sorry. You must think I’m a basket case. It’s just that these were my
great-grandmother’s ornaments and my mom’s on a cruise in Europe somewhere and
I can’t get a hold of her,” she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “When I
tell her I broke them she’ll be really sad but she’ll pretend not to be because
she won’t want to upset me even more than I already am…because I also have to
tell her that even though I
thought
my boyfriend was going to propose to
me on Christmas, I found out he’s been cheating on me so instead I dumped him
yesterday and came out here to the cabin by myself because it’s Christmas and I
didn’t have anywhere else—”

Kip cut off her words with a wince, realizing that in one
crazy, run-on sentence, she’d just blurted out her whole story to this guy with
whom she was still so angry. She looked away and sniffed again.

“Wow, okay.” Dylan looked thoughtful. “Well,” his voice was
calm and matter-of-fact, “we should get to work then. First things first. You’re
going to need a drink while I finish picking the rest of the glass out of your
leg. And then we’ll clean up the mess and see if any of these ornaments can be
salvaged. I’m assuming the wineglass on the counter is yours?” Kip nodded,
genuinely grateful he’d moved on without addressing any of the story she’d just
told him.

Dylan handed the wineglass to her and his smile was as
dazzling and gut-wrenching as it ever was in high-school. Maybe more so now
that Kip knew what to do with a man like him. “We’ll have you bandaged up in no
time, okay?” Kip nodded again. “Then I’ll clean up the glass so you can stand
up.”

“Okay.” She had to admit, it felt nice to be taken care of,
especially by him. With his body close enough for her to smell the manly scent
of him, it was easy to forget she was still so mad at him.

He used the gauze to gently dab the remaining blood on her
leg and inspected her skin, holding her bare thigh in his large hands and
studying the remaining damage. “I think most of this will just brush off, but
there are some pieces I’m going to need to pick out, unfortunately. Do you have
any tweezers?”

She nodded, taking a gulp of wine and closing her eyes. “In
my bag, at the top of the stairs.”

He retrieved her overnight bag and opened it as he walked
back to her, starting to rummage. “Where do I find it in here? In a makeup
kit?”

Suddenly she remembered the fuchsia-pink ribbed vibrator
she’d packed in her bag to help occupy herself during the lonely nights at the
cabin. She reached desperately toward him. “No Dylan, hand it to me! I’ll find
it!”

“Damn, this bag’s heavy! Why’d you pack all these batteries?”

“Dylan,
put the bag down
!” she demanded.

“Okay, okay.” He said placatingly, kneeling down and holding
the bag open for her with a mischievous grin. “Why? What’s in there that you
don’t want me to see?”

“My underwear,” she muttered, feeling a great deal of relief
for the near-miss. She quickly extracted the tweezers and Dylan set the bag
aside.

They were silent while Dylan bent over her leg, flicking and
picking the final bits of glass from her bare thigh. She hissed at the worst
pinches of pain, but Dylan was slow and careful and murmured words of comfort
while he worked.

She hadn’t been the center of a man’s attention for too long
now. It felt good. Her sex life with William had been fairly regular, but his
lovemaking always seemed to be focused on his pleasure rather than hers, or
even
theirs.
And even though Dylan was actually causing her pain at the
moment, his full focus was on her and the sensations his actions were creating
in her body. It was almost reverent and her face warmed as she realized she was
actually getting turned on. It was utterly crazy that Dylan could turn her on
more in pain than William could in passion.

When Dylan had cleaned all the glass from her leg he
bandaged the largest of her cuts, taking care in smoothing the bandages across
her thigh. “I think you’ll live.” He smiled at her.

She touched his arm. “Thanks. I’m glad you were here.”

He stilled his hand but kept it wrapped around her upper
thigh, then slowly and purposefully slid it an inch upward.

She knew she should reach out to stop him, but she felt
frozen and instead asked simply, “Dylan?”

“Kip,” he looked at his hand on her leg but didn’t move it,
“I want to ask you a question. Your ex…did he… I mean, were you…satisfied by
him?”

“What?”

“Did he try hard to keep you, you know…happy? In bed?” He
peeked up at her through his long eyelashes.

“
What
?” Her startled question came out like a yelp.

“I’m just wondering, because,” he glanced up at her again
and then away, “I saw that vibrator in your bag and all those batteries.”

“Oh god,” she moaned. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s
none of your business.”

“That’s true,” he said softly, “but I can’t think why a girl
who might be sad because she just broke up with her boyfriend brings a vibrator
and a whole lot of batteries with her to a secluded cabin, unless she’s looking
to maybe…well…make up for something she’s been missing.” He met her eyes, his
blazing now with determination. “I just think it’d be a real shame if your
boyfriend wasn’t concerned about your pleasure. A man’s got to try to please
his woman.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it—the way those words rolled
right off his tongue like he said stuff like that every day—like he should be
standing in a gentle wind, bare-chested in front of a stallion and talking
about pleasuring “his woman”.

Dylan’s face darkened. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry.” She touched his arm. “Really, I’m not laughing
at you. I promise. It’s just that what you said was something that wouldn’t
come out of my ex-boyfriend’s mouth in a million years. ‘A man’s got to try to please
his woman.’” She imitated Dylan’s deep voice and dissolved into laughter again,
imagining the staid William stiffly saying something so “alpha male”. He’d
sound like a complete tool. But from Dylan it sounded so natural, so honest…and
Kip knew that’s because it was.

Her laughter sobered quickly as the realization of this
thought brought an instant rush of fresh heat to her clit, which had been long
neglected by her ex. “It’s just nice to hear a man say something like that,”
she added softly.

Dylan licked his lips and Kip wanted to reach out and touch
them or lay her hand on his cheek. He stroked her non-injured leg, his touch
smooth and light. Not taking his eyes from hers, he said, “I can do more than
just say it.” His voice had grown husky and the combination of his touch, the
seductive tone in his voice and the lust in his eyes caused her pussy to begin
a traitorous throb.