Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Fuck, she smelled good too.
Something kind of sweet, but not overly perfumy. Maybe lotion she’d put on before bed or something.
It wasn’t helping.
I sucked in a deep breath, forcing my mind back to my pain, not all her pretty.
“Tried to get on the chair,” I told her. “Overestimated my ability to twist without nearly blacking out in pain.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, sounding genuinely hurt that I hadn’t.
“It’s five in the morning.”
“So?” she said, shaking her head. “If you need help, you need help. Don’t be so proud,” she said, moving to stand.
And flashing her pretty pink panties with the little white hearts in the process.
What the hell was the matter with me?
It wasn’t like I’d never been around a woman in a tee and panties before. And so what if she was gorgeous? I’d known many gorgeous women in the past. Had seen them in far less clothing, even.
“Okay,” she said, back on her feet, and reaching down to grab my forearm.
“Sweetheart, I’m too heavy,” I told her, shaking my head.
“Boys,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “Always thinking girls are so weak and fragile. I have moved that couch at least half a dozen times since I moved in,” she told me. “If I can lift the couch, I can lift you.”
I wanted to tell her that it was one thing to shift a couch around and a complete other to deadlift a full-grown man.
But given the circumstances, what choice did we have but to try? It was that, or call and wake up one of my siblings at this hour.
“Okay. We can try. But the only way it’s gonna work is if I put an arm around your neck, and you put yours around my waist, then we can kind of pull against each other.”
“Right. Okay,” she said, dropping my arm. “We can do that.”
“Don’t bend over. You’ll just fall on top of me. Here, do a lunge toward me,” I said, trying not to watch as she did so. As soon as she was close, I let my arm go around her neck.
She slid hers around me, arms going upward for more leverage without putting pressure on my screaming ribs.
“Okay, on three,” I said, trying to tighten my core against the coming pain.
“Three,” she said, then pulled with everything she had.
And fuck if she didn’t get me back far enough to get my leg up under me to help push up, take some of the pressure off of her.
It wasn’t easy for her, for sure. She grunted and hissed through it. And by the time she lowered me onto the chair, she was panting for breath.
And my pervy fucking ass had to force my gaze up from her chest.
“See? No sweat,” she said, though she was totally fucking sweating in her hairline. “But for the record, it would have been a lot easier to just, you know, help you off of the couch.”
“Noted,” I agreed, taking slow, deep breaths before trying to scoot myself.
“Oh, for God’s sake. I can push you,” she said, rolling her eyes at me before moving behind the chair, and pushing me into the bathroom. “Do you need me to—“
“I swear to fuck if I ever need you to help me in the bathroom, just take me out back and shoot me,” I said, shaking my head at her.
“Hey,” she started. “Bodies get hurt and they sometimes start to fail. And it’s not exactly dignified, but it happens to all of us eventually. So there’s no reason to be embarrassed about it.”
That was a surprisingly deep comment for five in the morning. But she was right.
“I got this,” I assured her.
The bathroom was snug, with the counter easy to grab if I needed some extra support.
“Okay. But I’m not going back to bed until you’re on the couch, so if you change your mind, call me.”
With that, she walked out, closing the door, and I could hear her letting out the dog as I finished up in the bathroom, taking a minute to brush my teeth with a spare brush she had in the drawer. Then pulling off the braces on my fingers, and using some tape I had in the drawer instead. They’d do just about as good a job but wouldn’t be so bulky.
Finished, I looked at myself, seeing how pale I looked from the pain.
It was a nonstop shooting pain from my leg, ribs, shoulder, and neck now. And I was suddenly thankful that Shane Mallick would get me an appointment at his doctor, because I was going to need more pain pills sooner rather than later.
I hoped it would ease up in a few days.
The reality was, though, that I had no idea.
I’d never been hurt this badly before.
If the pain in just one of the areas—ribs, shoulder, fingers, or neck—would get better, I could deal with the leg and other pains better.