Page 49 of Love Bound

Just as he rises, the phone rings. "Who has a landline?" he says, swinging onto the one barstool by the kitchen counter. When he sits down next to me, his bare forearm brushes against mine and I shiver.

A hand over the receiver, I mouth, "Patient," and turn to face the wall.

I can feel his stare from behind me and my heart trips.

I put the receiver down.

One of Molly's miniature horses is tangled in barbed wire.

***

By the time I get back, two hours later, it's nearly eleven and my feet are so cold they’re nothing but dead weight.

At sixty-three, Molly Wilson raises the horses herself and she's not facing the very real truth that she needs to stop. To at least hire some help. Tonight, little Minnie turned out fine with just a few scratches, none of which needed stitching, but next time, it may not be so easy. My wire cutters worked, and Molly's were broken. The stubbornness of Mainers is two sides of the same coin: one admirable; the flip side, irritating.

Finn's gone to bed. The fire in the front room is bright and the room is warm. Too warm, as my fingers and toes begin to sting. I run the hot water in the sink and throw my hands under the spigot.

"Shit, shit, shit," I hiss, hopping slightly in my wool socks.

The good news is that the Wilson's stable is a quarter of a mile down the road. The bad news is that the Wilson's stable is a quarter of a mile down the road, so I always walk the distance. Or run it. It's quicker than scraping down the Jeep.

I creep down the hall, shivering, past his door. I listen to every sound, every creak of his bed, every rustle, and I don't know why. Then there's the sigh of blankets settling. After grabbing my toothbrush, I go back out to the kitchen, so as not to wake him with running the water. And just as I'm drying my face with a paper towel, I hear him come up from behind.

"I just got back. Sorry to wake you," I say, turning around.

He stands at the end of the counter in nothing but red and white striped pajama bottoms. His chest catches the light and throws my heart out of sync. His nipples tighten as he comes near me and I am hyper-aware of the distance between us closing. I shiver, whether from cold or excitement, I can't tell, and I don’t care.

"This worked before," he says, and he wraps a hand around one of my wrists.

I pull back slightly, overcome by him, by the smell of his skin and by the fact that I don’t know what's going to happen next. My body knows, though.

"Come here," he says and pulls me closer.

I tilt my head up, but instead of a kiss he wraps his arms around me and the heat from his body begins to infiltrate my muscles, releasing the cold, loosening me up.

He's careful not to press his hips against me. Instead, he leans forward and whispers, "Is this okay?"

All I can do is nod and he kisses the top of my head. Chaste, sweet, but when he releases me, sliding his warm hands up my arms to hold my shoulders, that pulse between my legs begins again. "Finn," I start to say, start to tell him how I can’t take much more of this, but then my body reaches a decision.

I take his hands and place them on my breasts.

That move, that one small moment, makes his breath go ragged. I know he's searching my face, but I can’t look at him right now.

Taking my hand, he leads me to his bed, the PJ bottoms dropping to the floor, and for a moment I take him all in while he moves under the covers, shifting to a position that's comfortable.

"We don’t have to do anything," he says, "but you're freezing, and we know this works." His attempt at a joke doesn't leave him smiling. His stare is intense, focused entirely on me as if either one of us might bolt and the only thing tying us together is his focus on me.

I sit beside him on the bed and start to take off my heavy sweater.

"Stop," he says.

The care in his face makes my heart break. I can hardly breathe.

My heart slams up against my ribs as he takes an index finger and rubs it over the top of my hand. And then he circles his hand around my wrist, slips it under the sleeve of the bulky sweater, and very gently runs it up my arm.

The pulse in his neck beats, hard, fast, the V of his throat deepening as he struggles to sit straighter.

I can’t think of what to say, so I say nothing. When his hands reach my shoulders, he pulls me closer to him, so close his breath is in my hair, and his lips are so close to mine I can clearly see the stubble on his face. Then his other hand reaches up, untangles my hair, and he slides it down the other direction under the sweater, between my shoulder blades. A rush of warm slippery cream wells between my legs.