“On someone taller that might not be a problem, but you’re a small girl.”
She looked up. At him standing a few feet away. Big and bad and half naked. His damp hair sticking to his head and chest. If she didn’t know Mark, didn’t know what a surly jerk he could be, she might be in danger of falling in love with him. Of throwing herself against his hot, sticky chest and kissing him full on the mouth. Not for how he looked, which was pretty damn good, but for understanding how she might feel.
“What?”
She shook her head and glanced away. “My family doesn’t want me to do it. They all think I’m impulsive and will regret it.”
“You don’t strike me as all that impulsive.”
She looked back at him, and her lips parted. All her life she’d been told she was impulsive and needed direction. The urge to kiss him full on the mouth just got a little stronger. “Compared to everyone else in my family, my life is chaotic. Out of control.”
He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “Things around you might be chaotic, but you’re in control.” One corner of his mouth lifted a little. “My life used to be like that. Now it’s not.”
“You look in control to me.”
“That’s because you didn’t know me before.”
“Were you a control freak?”
“I just liked things done my way.”
Of course he had.
“I lost control of my life the day I woke up in the hospital hooked up to machines and strapped down to a bed.”
“Why were you strapped down?”
“I guess I was trying to pull the tube out of my throat.”
Even seeing the scars, it was hard to look at him now and see how si [andck he’d been and how close he’d come to dying. He was strong and in control more than he thought.
“Have the surgery if that’s what you want.” He shrugged one bare shoulder. “It’s your life.”
“Bo thinks it’s mutilation.”
“You’re not Bo.”
“I know but…” How could she explain it to someone who wasn’t a twin? “When you live your whole life looking like someone else, changing that is scary. Weird.”
“You’re talking about boobs. Not your face.” He reached for his cane leaning against the weights. “But maybe I’m the wrong person to give my opinion. I’m a thigh man.” The cane fell from his hand and landed on the carpet with a soft thud. “Shit.” He grabbed on to the weights for balance and slowly lowered himself.
Without thinking about it, Chelsea moved forward and knelt on one knee. She grabbed the cane and looked up. His face was just above hers, and something dark and intense entered his brown eyes.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said, his voice a rough whisper against her cheek.
“Do what?”
He rose and towered over her. “Rush around treating me like I’m helpless.”
She stood also, so close that nothing but an inch of air separated the front of her lacy blouse from his hard chest and fine dark hair.
He stared into her face as he reached for the cane. His hand wrapped around hers, and his warm, strong grasp sent a tingle up her wrist to her elbow. “I’m not a child.”
She was so close she could see a darker line around the edges of his irises and all the little variations within the deep brown of those eyes surrounded by those thick, enviable lashes. “I know.”
His hand squeezed around hers. His gaze lowered to her lips. “I’m a man.”
Yes. Yes he was. A half-naked man with big sweaty muscles and smoldering eyes. Suddenly she felt kind of hot and light-headed. Probably from all the testosterone she was inhaling. “I know.”