“I’m serious.” I put my hands on his chest and use real effort to push. His arms don’t budge from around me. If I’m being honest, I really don’t want him to put me down. My ankle is full-on throbbing now, and walking on it is going to be a nightmare. But that doesn’t mean I should let him damage himself trying to help me. “Put me down before you hurt yourself.”

“Hurt myself?” The eyebrow arch I spent way too much time thinking about last night is back. “Are you trying to insult me?”

“I’m trying to get you to let go of me. You can’t carry me all the way back to—”

“Grace?” he interrupts.

I wait for him to say something, but when he doesn’t, I answer, “What?” in what could, perhaps, be described as not the nicest tone.

“Shut up.”

Part of me is super insulted at his words, and the matter-of-fact way he says them, but the part of me that’s actually in control of my tongue does exactly what he asks and shuts up. I mean, I suppose there are worse things in the world than being carried by a super-sexy guy instead of struggling along in terrible pain. Maybe.

With me in Jaxon’s arms, we move three times as fast as we were when I was limping with every step. Before I know it, we’re through the castle doors, striding up the stairs.

When we get to our room, Macy unlocks the door and holds the weirdass beads back as she tells Jaxon to, “Go on in.”

Seconds later, he deposits me on my bed and I think that’s going to be the end of it. But then he reaches down and pulls off my boot.

“I can take it from here,” I tell him. “Thanks for your help.”

He shoots me a look that tells me to shut up again, this time without him ever having uttered the words. Which embarasses me so much that I try to pull my foot away from him and start peeling my sock off on my own.

“I sprained my ankle,” I snark. “I’m not dying of consumption.”

“Yeah, well, the night is young.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” I glare at him.

“It means you’ve been here three days, and this is the second time I’ve had to get you out of trouble.”

“Seriously? You’re going to hold me responsible for a windstorm now?”

“I am.” He wraps his hand around my calf and gently but firmly eases my leg over the edge of the bed so he can look at my ankle. “You didn’t see Macy falling out of her tree, did you?”

“It wasn’t—” Macy starts, but no way am I going to let him get away with blaming me for this.

“Her branch didn’t break!” I interrupt. “Mine did. What was I supposed to do? Grab on to the trunk and— Oww!” I try to yank my foot away as he probes at a particularly sore spot.

He ignores me, though his touch—already soft—gets even gentler. “There’s no swelling and only a little bruising, so I don’t think you broke anything.”

“I already told you it was just sprained.” I pull my leg away, but with much less force this time. Something about the feel of his hands on my leg, his skin against mine, has me especially unnerved. “You can go now.”

This time, the look he gives me is half amused, half don’t push your luck. And, despite that, also super sexy. Which is completely absurd, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Heather would die if she saw me now—two small steps away from whimpering and sighing over some ridiculously commanding guy. It’s gross, and normally I’d put him in his place. But the fact that he’s all growly like this because he’s worried about me and wanting to make sure I’m okay? I don’t know. Somehow it makes a difference.

“Should I get ice?” Macy asks for the first time since Jaxon overrode her objection. She’s currently standing near her bed, all but wringing her hands and trying not to show how freaked out she is that Jaxon is in our room.

I turn to answer—and hopefully reassure her—but realize she’s talking to Jaxon. You know, the guy she spent ten minutes warning me about before the snowball fight. “Et tu, Brute?” I say with a roll of my eyes.

She shrugs, a little shamefaced, as Jaxon answers, “That’d be great.” Then she all but runs to the door—at least until he smiles his thanks. Then she freezes. Like, actually freezes in the middle of walking, one foot off the floor. “Also,” he adds, “do you happen to have an Ace bandage? I can wrap her foot before I go.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Macy?”

She still doesn’t answer.

Jaxon glances at me, both brows raised, but I just roll my eyes. Then clap extra-loud to get her attention.

“Macy?”

“Oh yeah. Ice. I’m on it.”

“So no bandage, then?” Jaxon asks.

“And a bandage. Yes. Absolutely. I have a few, actually.” Suddenly she’s stumbling over her words and her feet as she rushes to her bureau and starts wildly opening drawers.

She finally finds what she’s looking for in the bottom drawer and spins around, a tightly wrapped hot-pink bandage in her hand. “Does this work, Jaxon?”

“It’s perfect, thanks.”

She glows under his praise, and it’s all I can do not to make a teasing comment. But seriously, if she’s not careful, she’s going to turn into one of his minions. So much for you can tell me how he hurt you. Traitor.

I reach out to take the bandage from her, but Jaxon gets there first. “I really can do it, you know,” I tell him.

“Maybe I want to do it for you.”

As she heads for the door, Macy makes a sound like the melting is actually starting, and even I have to admit, it’s a good line. Then again, convincing myself to like Jaxon has never been hard. I’ve been attracted to him from the very beginning, even when I was also supremely annoyed by him.

“What? No protests?” he asks a little sardonically.

“Are you going to wrap it or not?” I grouse, ignoring his question because answering it would be too embarrassing.

He ducks his head and gets to work, but not before I see the small grin he’s got going on. His scar pulls on the very edges of his lips, but that just turns the smile into a crooked little smirk that is a million times hotter than it should be.

His fingers are cold as he wraps up my ankle, but his hands are so, so gentle. I find myself relaxing despite myself, my muscles going lax as he strokes a finger back and forth against my calf.

And when I say his name this time, even I can hear the yearning. His head snaps up, his dark, bottomless gaze locking with mine.

His hand on my leg becomes firmer, more insistent as he leans in just a little. His wildly sexy scent seems even stronger now than it did when he was carrying me. It fills my senses, makes my mouth water and my hands ache to touch him. Makes me want to press my face into the curve of his neck and just breathe him in.

I’m already on edge from his closeness, and these new longings he sets off in me have my breath catching in my throat. My heart goes wild and, as he leans in just a little farther, my whole body lights up like the aurora borealis I’m still dying to see.

“Grace.” He says my name like it’s a promise. It’s the last straw, and I gasp, full-on melting commencing deep inside me. I’d say his name back, but I’ve lost control of my vocal cords. And pretty much the rest of my body, too.

His hand comes up to cup my cheek, and I close my eyes, lean into the caress. And then nearly jump out of my skin as the door crashes open and he yanks his hand back.

“I’ve got the ice,” Macy says. “I even crushed it up and—” She stops cold, her eyes going wide as she senses the tension in the air. With the way Jaxon is leaning over me, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what she interrupted, and for a second, it looks like she’s going to ease her way back out of the room.

But then the moment is gone, and Jaxon is standing up, heading toward the door himself. “Put the ice on for twenty minutes and see how it feels. If it isn’t better, ice it again in an hour. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I manage to croak out of my still-tight throat.

“Excellent.” He risks giving Macy another smile, then shakes his head as she whimpers just a little. He doesn’t say anything else until he’s about to walk out of my room. Then he turns around, hand on the doorknob, and says, “Stay away from Flint, Grace. He’s not what you think.”

The words chase away the last of my vocal paralysis—and goodwill. “Flint and I are friends. And you don’t get to tell me what to do.” I have just enough self-control not to add, No matter how much you intrigue me.

I expect him to fire back with something—God knows he’s arrogant enough to believe he should be instantly obeyed—but instead he just tilts his head and watches me for several long seconds. Then he says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” I narrow my eyes at his easy acquiescence. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He turns to go.

“I didn’t think it would be that easy.”

He gives me his inscrutable look, the one I’m already coming to hate. “This is going to be a lot of things, Grace. Easy isn’t one of them.”

And then he’s gone. As usual.

Double damn it.

22

Baby,

It’s Hot in Here…

For several seconds after Jaxon leaves, I wait for the other shoe to drop…in this case, a rainbow-colored Converse in the form of Macy demanding to know what’s going on between us. Which I can already see is going to be a problem on a lot of levels, most obviously the one where I have no idea about what’s going on between us. If anything.

Yes, Jaxon has sought me out twice today, but I have no idea what that means. Or even if it means anything.

And what was that parting shot about, anyway? This is going to be a lot of things, Grace. Easy isn’t one of them? Who even says that? Was he saying that he’s interested in me? Or that he isn’t?