CHAPTER SEVEN
ABBYFOUNDHERSELF staring at his abs, the muscles perfect enough to make her stomach flutter helplessly in reaction. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, disturbed more than slightly by her body’s helpless reaction to his physicality.
It was mystifying and definitely bad timing! Lord, what was it about this man that made him the one member of the opposite sex capable of awakening her dormant sex drive? Recognising this was a question for later when she was safely back home and far away from temptation, so she huffed out a resigned but determined sigh and lifted her chin, responding to the internal challenge of not acting like a sex addict with as much dignity as she could manage.
‘Fine. So what do you want me to do?’
He almost looked as if he was going to tell her something very different, but at the last second he seemed to regain some control and dragged his eyes off her mouth. ‘I just need to sit down for a minute.’
‘All right, lean on me,’ she said, trying to sound brisk and not breathless at the thought of contact with his hard, lean maleness.
‘No, it’s fine.’
She shot him a glance from under the sweep of her thick, straight lashes, discovering as she did that he was looking tense. ‘You really don’t have the hang of this accepting help thing, do you?’ she sighed out. ‘It was your idea,’ she reminded him. ‘And don’t worry, I’m stronger than I look.’
An image of her landing a right hook on her captor’s jaw flashed into her mind.
‘I remember, cara,’ he said, the look he gave her hinting that he was seeing the same replay in his own head.
The unexpected approving warmth in his voice brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I don’t normally need rescuing,’ she husked out, not sure why it felt important to establish this upfront, but it did.
The tentative half-smile that had begun to twitch the corners of her mouth upwards wilted then vanished completely as their glances connected. Abby had the weirdest sensation of time slowing as the air seemed to buzz with an invisible static. She had no idea how long the moment lasted, but when she did manage to wrench free she took refuge in resentment.
‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’ Had it been some sort of joke to him? she wondered, remembering their smooth negotiation of the security checkpoints, which of course made perfect sense now.
‘I was trying hard to forget myself.’
Abby had not begun to decipher this cryptic response when he moved in closer and laid a hand across her shoulders. She fought against the impulse to tense, the effort making her body quiver as she struggled to focus on the mundane, the ordinary, the smell of antiseptic to distract herself from the massive hormone rush that sent wave after wave of heat through her body.
Whether he was injured or not, the animal magnetism that poured off him had a mind-blanking force.
Get a grip, Abby told herself sternly as she followed her own advice, literally, and slid her arm very carefully around his narrow waist, feeling ludicrously self-conscious.
‘Is that ok?’ she asked, tilting her chin up to look into his face. The veil of his lashes lifted and she was instantly skewered once more by the mesmeric tug of his electric-blue stare. When she managed, after a short delay, to react to his head jerk of acknowledgement, she was too flustered to notice that he looked as disconcerted as she felt.
She cleared her throat. ‘Good, then lean on me and take your time...say when you need to stop.’
She hadn’t wanted him to stop...
The memory surfaced and she felt a stab of shame. Oh, hell, now was not the time to relive a moment that was indelibly printed onto her mind for all the wrong reasons!
Her jaw quivered and her teeth clenched as she closed the door on the memory of the mortifying moment when she had come on to him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and then—as if that wasn’t enough to make her cringe—been firmly rebuffed.
It was an embarrassing memory but that, she reminded herself, was all it was. It wasn’t exactly rocket science—she’d been vulnerable and he hadn’t taken advantage...humiliating at the time and, yes, she had hated him for it then, but now she was glad he’d been a gentleman.
Common sense told Abby that it had been the circumstances as much as the man that had fanned into life instincts she didn’t even know she possessed. Chances were she might never experience a moment like that again. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or depressed by the thought.
At several points during the transfer his breathing sounded laboured but they didn’t stop, their progress slow but steady.
‘Thanks. I’ll be fine now.’ Zain straightened up and took the last steps under his own steam, then lowering himself down onto the edge of the bed. ‘It’s easing.’
She tossed him a sceptical look but shrugged; clearly, showing weakness was not his thing, another reason on the list she’d compiled that he really wasn’t her type. The macho stuff really tried her patience; she liked men who didn’t mind showing their vulnerable side. There was just one vital ingredient missing, however. The thought of kissing them, let alone anything more intimate, left her feeling...well, nothing really.
The silence stretched until Abby decided that getting straight to the point was probably the best policy—she knew what she wanted to say, as she’d been rehearsing it on the journey here, not sure when she’d have the opportunity to deliver her speech and wanting to be ready when it came.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be well enough for me to—’
He spread his hands in a mock-submissive gesture. ‘I’m weak but willing.’