Thrown By Love by Pamela Aares Page B

the pleasure of decking the guy more than a dozen times. He didn’t need any new incentive.
The ref called in two replacement players to take their positions. Chloe insisted on hobbling over to the table. He was half-glad since he wasn’t sure he could control himself if he lifted her into his arms. He was having a hard enough time ignoring the heat from her hand as she leaned on his arm. By the time they reached the table, shouts and laughter told him the volleyball game was back in full swing.
He rummaged in the first aid kit and came up with an elastic bandage. “Let’s have a look at that.”
She pulled her foot back and tucked it under the edge of the table.
“I just twisted it. I don’t think—”
“You need a wrap and ice. If you do both, you’ll be walking fine within a week.”
“A week!” She scrunched up her face and shook her head.
“ If you take care of it, that is. Let’s have a look.”
Slowly she drew her foot out in front of her.
He eased off her shoe and peeled off her sock. He wrapped his fingers around her instep and tipped her foot up toward him. He almost jumped at the jolt of desire that flamed in his groin. He quickly shifted so his arousal wouldn’t be obvious.
The nervousness pumping through him told him that what he felt was way more than desire. He was used to touching women, to feeling their bodies, meeting their rhythms, creating and enjoying the sensations that touching them aroused. But no experience had ever lit him like touching Chloe did. In meeting her he’d entered territory he thought he knew well, territory he’d carefully mapped and measured, but now he knew he’d been wrong. Those old maps would do him no good. She fired a need in him that he’d never expected to feel.
He didn’t dare look at her. If he did, he might just lay her back on the table and kiss her until he’d sated the beast she’d awakened. And he doubted he’d stop at a kiss. He kept his eyes on her ankle, concentrated on spiraling the bandage around it.
“Ow!” Her foot jerked in his hand. “That’s tender.”
Now he had to look up. She was biting at her lower her lip. He’d kissed those lips and if he wasn’t careful, he’d do things he shouldn’t just to kiss them again.
“Sorry. Just a few more twists.”
Her lips relaxed. Not quite a smile, but she nodded.
He dragged his attention back to her foot. As he rolled the bandage around her instep and ankle, he felt he’d fallen into a mythic undertaking and was crossing one of those mystical bridges, the kind that changed you forever. Once you crossed, you could never go back because when you turned around, the bridge was gone and the land you left was no longer there. Though he might’ve liked to ignore it, his inner voice, the voice that he trusted even when it irritated him—the one that told him when to change up on a hitter or to turn off a road, to take a detour he’d only later discover had kept him from a rock slide or an accident—told him that he’d stepped into this journey when he’d dragged Chloe into the alcove and stolen his first kiss. Women like Chloe should come with caution signs. Now he understood why ogres or dragons guarded the caves of mythic women—a guy needed some warning or at least a moment to pause and think.
He secured the bandage and stood.
She reached a hand to his arm. Her touch sent a charge through him. Damn, it was way too late for thinking.
“Thank you. Again.” Her lips trembled and emotion roiled in her eyes. Maybe pain. Maybe the shock of it all. But maybe something else.
“Ice,” he said. He didn’t say you’re welcome —she was more than welcome. “I’ll get it.”
     

     
Chloe sat on the picnic table, waiting for Scotty to return with the ice bag. She was vaguely aware of the boisterous laughter of families gathered around the other tables.
But she was very aware of the unsettling feelings that had crept into her as Scotty had bandaged her foot. She’d never known that a man’s