The Billionaire's Courageous Lover (Bold, Alaskan Men Book 3) by Elizabeth Lennox Page B

her head.  “No.  I’m fine.  Really,” she told him, trying to reassure him even while her hand throbbed with pain.  Funny, it hadn’t hurt when he was kissing her.  Maybe she should just ask him to kiss her again so the pain would go away.  She almost laughed at that idea.  But she also knew that he wouldn’t help her in that way.  He’d already moved away from the lust part of their kiss to the regret aspect.  Darn it, if she could figure out how to eliminate that shift, she might be able to…. 
    “Andie, I told you…”
    Darn it!  If she’d just…hadn’t…Oh the man just irritated her with this idea that she had to go back where she was safe.  Ugh! 
    “Don’t say it!” she snapped at him and started to walk away.  But he grabbed her arm and swung her around. 
    “Let me see your hand, Andie.”
    She hid it behind her back.  “No.  Go away.”
    Knox sighed, obviously trying to find more patience.  “Andie!”
    She was angry now.  “No!  You keep kissing me, letting me think that you want me, but then you pull away and tell me we shouldn’t have kissed.  That I’m too soft and delicate for Alaska!  Well, no longer, Knox!  I’m…”
    “You’re going to show me your hand, Andie!” he said, bending lower so that his growl was right in her face.  He even reached around and pulled her hand forward.  When he looked at her fingers, he shook his head.  “Can you move them?”
    She wiggled her fingers and it hurt, but at least she could move them.  “See?  I’m fine!”
    Knox couldn’t believe she was being so stubborn!  The silly woman was obviously in pain and she needed to see a doctor!  Why in the world was she resisting?  “You’re not fine!  And you weren’t sitting in the lodge drinking hot chocolate.  You lied to me, Andie.”
    Her finger throbbed, her body ached, her thighs were on fire, and she was exhausted.  Not a good combination when dealing with Knox because his anger sparked her own.  “Yes, I lied. But only because you weren’t going to go off and fly around with your friends.  I didn’t want to be the one holding you back.  It looked like a perfect day to go flying, so I lied to get you to have some fun.”
    “I didn’t need to ski down the mountain.  I needed to be here for you.  If I had been here, this wouldn’t have happened.”
    Andie was too absorbed in what he’d just said to move on to arguing against his presence with her this afternoon.  “Wait a minute.  What do you mean, you skied down the mountain?  What does that mean?  You went up in a helicopter.  You just went for a ride.”
    He almost laughed at her assumption, but he was too concerned with her darkening finger.  “Andie, stop changing the subject.  You need to see a doctor.”
    Andie whipped her hand out of his gentle hold.  “What do you mean?” she demanded again, her body shaking with the fear of what he might have being doing all afternoon.  Surely she’d misunderstood.  Please, she waited while holding her breath, please let him tell her that he hadn’t actually flown in a helicopter, dropped out of it, and skied down the mountainside!  Oh please don’t let him say those words!  She’d seen videos of athletes who did that and it looked…crazy!
    “We went to the top, Andie!” he snapped at her, wondering what she’d thought he’d been doing.  Why else would someone fly up in a helicopter?  “Now let me see your hand!”
    “NO!  Tell me you didn’t do that crazy stuff I see on television.  Tell me you didn’t jump out of the helicopter and ski down that peak!”
    Even as she said the words, she started to feel faint just thinking about him doing something so crazy. 
    Once again, he ignored her plea and focused on the pain in her hand.  “Andie, we’re going to get this looked at.”  And with those words, he nudged her along.  The others had already stored their skis, Violet had returned Andie’s skis and poles to the rental