She wantedthat MAN.
So, of course, her natural reaction was to shove him off her and try to geld him in one go.
She wanted to ask if he was all right, but her throat was raw and her voice was gone. She’d used the last of it when she shouted at him just now.
She swallowed against the soreness. She could feel the swelling, but there didn’t seem to be further damage. Hopefully, she’d recover fully in a day or two.
“I deserved that,” he rasped as he uncurled from his defensive position and sat back against the tree trunk.
“You should have told me,” this he said softly, his tone not so much accusing as regretful.
His eyes lingered on her neck, and his face expressed his contrition as no words could have.
She sat down next to him, facing him, and shrugged, making sure he saw it.
No big deal. Shit happens,she tried to convey.
A small smile tipped the corner of his hair-stubbled lip.
“You’re tougher than you look, aren’t you?”
She blinked.
Of course. I’m totally badass.
“I am sorry,” he murmured. “I’m an ass.”
She patted his shoulder and gave a nod.
It’s okay. Nobody’s perfect.
“Here, let me get you something for your neck.”
She didn’t want him to leave, but he was gone before she could stay him with her hand. Shortly, however, he returned. With a strip of linen wetted with cold water from the nearby stream.
He squeezed out the excess and wrapped it around her neck. Her bruised skin felt immediately better, but it had as much to do with the tender way he cared for her than the remedy itself.
He sat beside her and leaned back against the tree, his long legs sprawled before him.
It looked like an invitation, to Rui’s female-influenced way of thinking.
It would be so natural and easy to scoot her bottom between those strong thighs and curl up against his big, broad chest. That would make her feel even better. Even though it had nothing directly to do with her bruised neck.
By sheer dint of will, she resisted this urge.
“I have dreams,” he began in a low voice, so deep, Rui would have thought it was thunder rolling across the sky if she hadn’t been so particularly focused on him.
But she was mesmerized by everything Wolfe. So she heard clearly every word.
“I’ve always had them,” he continued softly, his voice more gravelly than usual with the remnants of slumber.
“I’m hunting the dragon that has eluded me all this time,” he said, and she understood that he was describing his dream to her.
This felt very private and personal. Rui hung on his every breath and word. Finally, she would get to know a little of the real Wolfe.
“I’ve tracked him to his lair. It’s hidden somewhere in the bowels of the earth. Or at the end of it. The journey there is never clear. I just know that I’ve trekked across foreign lands. Sailed stormy, monster-infested seas. To a place that is guarded by more creatures beyond man’s ken. My men and I succeed in killing them all. And they succeed in killing us too. I’m the only one who’s left.”
Unaware of her actions, Rui slid her hand into his much larger one as he spoke.