“Compliments are always welcome.”
His dark brows drew together, and genuine curiosity darkened his gray eyes. “What happened between you two? A miscommunication? A fight?”
She blew out a breath. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like? The man was a fool to leave you.”
“Not quite the fool you think,” Brek corrected from the doorway, where he now loomed, tall and broad shouldered. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth hard. The powder room felt suddenly small and very crowded. “I never left Taylor; she left me—at the altar on our wedding day. She chose paragliding over our vows.”
“Holy shit.” Sloan McCaffrey coughed into his hand. “Must have been one hell of a glide.”
Stryke took in the scene: Taylor sitting on the stool, her foot slightly swollen and already turning black and blue from the embedded glass; Sloan leaning negligently against the vanity, bold in his pursuit of Taylor.
His chest tightened at the reliever’s interest. He shouldn’t have felt a thing, yet he did. Pain wedged between his ribs like a spike, and his muscles felt roped and knotted.
“I shouldn’t have pried,” Sloan finally said as he pushed off the vanity and moved toward the door. “Later, Taylor.”
Stryke stepped aside to let him pass.
Which now left him alone with Taylor and her tweezers.
“Addie asked that I check on you,” he told her.
She blew him off. “A few more splinters and I’m ready to Bunny Hop.”
Bunny Hop, his ass. The stubborn woman couldn’t even stand.
She sat, her spine curved, her concentration back on her foot and off him. Wisps of blond hair curved against her cheekbones, her face in profile, slightly drawn, her lips tight. Her breathing was shallow. He could barely detect the rise and fall of her chest.
She hadn’t looked at him since he’d entered the powder room. She was waiting for him to take the initiative and leave.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
He took a step toward her. “Need help with your foot?”
“No,” she said so abruptly, and with so much force his own heart kicked.
A growl rose low in his throat. To hell with what she wanted. He held the advantage. Taylor had a hurt foot and a bad knee. She couldn’t run either fast or far from him. He was staying—whether she liked it or not.
He dropped down beside her.
She jerked back.
“Don’t touch me.” Her words were edged with the same unhealed pain he felt when he was near her.
Despite her resistance, he secured the tweezers and her ankle. He pressed her heel to his thigh, then wrapped one hand about her calf to hold her still.
She quieted.
Her nearness scented the air with Amber Nude. The fragrance reminded him of restless nights and heated sex.
So much sex—both rough-and-tumble and slow and languid—as well as long moments of doing nothing more than holding each other.
“You need my help,” he insisted. “I’ve doctored you more times than I can count. Give me five minutes, and if I haven’t removed the glass, I’ll leave.”
She looked at him then, a woman torn between dealing with his doctoring and dealing with him as a man. “You need to be with Hilary, not here in the powder room with me.”
“Hilary doesn’t have glass in her foot.”
He poured a capful of peroxide between her toes, then took up the task of removing the tiniest shards of glass.
He’d always liked her feet, narrow with sexy toes. He knew they were ticklish. Yet now wasn’t the time to make her giggle. Those days had long passed.
“Four minutes,” Taylor counted down the time on the vanity wall clock, the tick loud in the ensuing silence.
Stryke moved to the ball of her foot. He’d removed the last piece of glass by the time Taylor said, “Thirty-five seconds.”
He ran his fingers along her toes and across the bottom of her foot, making sure he’d gotten it all. Without conscious thought, he stroked her ankle. His thumb drew a soft circle over the bone before she pulled her foot back.
“Thanks, but I can take it from here,” she told him.
She stretched then, reaching over his shoulder for the Neosporin and Band-Aids on the vanity. His shoulder flexed as her breast unexpectedly brushed his upper arm, and her sleek side came in contact with his chest.
The sensation was as intense as it was irreversible, a commingling of heat, a compression of flesh.
He could tell she was debating whether to pull back or to collect the items. In the end, she sucked it up and grabbed what she needed, then dropped back on the stool.
Pushing to his feet, Stryke looked down on her fair head, the slender column of her neck, the firm set of her shoulders. He had something to say, and needed to get it off his chest. “I apologize for showing up at Addie’s party.”
Taylor cautiously met his gaze. “It wasn’t purposeful?”
He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his dress slacks and shook his head. “Despite our history, I’d never go out of my way to embarrass or humiliate you. There was no reason for you to meet my fiancée. I thought we were headed to dinner. I had no idea until I was in the limo that the mayor planned to stop here for a photo op. If I could have avoided Addie’s birthday, I would have.”
She nodded. “I appreciate your honesty.”
“I’ve always been honest with you.”
“I’m the one who never came clean.” Her expression turned thoughtful as she spread the Neosporin and strategically placed the Band-Aids between her toes. “I owe you—”
“Nothing, Taylor.” He refused to touch on their past. “Now’s not the time.”
Her lips compressed. “Will there ever be a time?”
“Afraid not.”
She looked a little sad as she absently rubbed her knee—a gesture not lost on Stryke. He knew her knee hurt her more than she’d ever let on. “Tell me you’re not desert hiking on Monday.” The words escaped him, spoken with more concern than he would have liked.
“I thought you wanted me gone.”
“I do, but not if you’re hurt.”
She eased to her feet and stood before him, her weight on her good leg. Her smooth forehead reached his chin, a forehead he’d so often bent and kissed, just for the pleasure of it. Not today. Not ever again.