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Honesty compelled her to admit, “I really do feel a lot better. Thank you.”
“You’ve already thanked me. Several times already, in fact. But I should be the one to thank you . . .” His voice was gruff, as if the words tasted foreign on his tongue. “For your help yesterday.”
“Like I had a choice,” she muttered, still salty about the damned forced labor. His beard twitched as his jaw clenched and his lips thinned. Gosh, for an actor, he was terrible at hiding his emotions. Then again, he clearly didn’t care if she knew he was pissed off with her or not. Probably preferred it if she did.
“You had a choice,” he reminded her. “I was happy for you to stay in your room, but you wanted to negotiate for better conditions.”
“All I got was a Wi-Fi password you were going to give me anyway.”
“Not my fault you’re a terrible negotiator.” He got up and lithely descended the single step down. “Anyway, the sandbags did the trick, the flooding slowed down to a trickle.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said, a little distracted when he came to stand right beside her. Her nose was level with one flat brown nipple, and her eyes were riveted to those impressive pecs mere inches away. He was standing so close she could smell the faint hint of chlorine from the hot tub on his skin.
Her eyes tracked over the dark hair lightly sprinkled across his chest and abs… from where her rapt gaze helplessly followed the happy little trail wending its way down from his belly button—an innie, her favorite—to where it disappeared under the low-riding towel which looked in serious danger of slipping.
“For someone who accused me of needing an audience, you sure do seem to enjoy enabling my alleged thirst for attention by staring at me.” His low voice rumbled almost directly into her ear, and startled her into jerking her head up.
“Fuuuck!” he yelled.
“Ow!” she yelped at the same time.
Her abrupt move had sent the top of her head straight into his jaw and they both felt the impact keenly. They stepped away from each other, Iris rubbing her throbbing crown, while Trystan had his palm cupped over his jaw.
“Jesus, you have a hard head.”
“You have a harder jaw. You’d think that the beard would have provided some cushioning, but nope,” she complained. “Is my head bleeding? I feel like it’s bleeding.”
His hand dropped from his jaw and he reached out to cup her face. Alarmed, Iris jerked away from his touch.
“What are you doing?”
“Let me look,” he commanded with a scowl. Iris remained tense while he gingerly palmed her cheeks and angled her head downward. One of his hands continued to cradle her cheek, while the other parted the hair on her scalp. His touch was gentle, soothing, and seemed completely at odds with the abrupt man she knew him to be.
“It’s not bleeding, but you’re going to have a lump about the size of a goose egg.”
“This entire trip has been nothing but hazardous to my health so far,” she grumbled.
“Look at it this way,” he said, his fingers still entangled in her hair, while his other hand continued to cradle her cheek, his long thumb now idly tracing the line of her cheekbone and sending shivers of sensation skittering over her skin. “You avoided being crushed to death by a falling tree on day one. That’s a win.”
Iris fought back a smile but couldn’t disguise the betraying twitch of her lips. His eyes were drawn to the movement of her lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and his pupils dilated to the point where only a sliver of silver remained. His head lowered, until the merest breath separated his mouth from hers, and Iris choked back a moan.
“T-Trystan?” His name emerged on a whisper of uncertainty, and he shuddered—a full-body ripple that caused gooseflesh to visibly pebble his skin—then blinked, before shaking his head as if to clear it.
He dropped his hands and took a deliberate step away from her, leaving her feeling bereft, as if she’d lost something precious.
“I didn’t realize we were on a first-name basis, Hughes,” he said, that awful, detached coldness back in his voice, and Iris sucked in a pained breath. That one frigid statement hurting more than anything he’d said about her biological father earlier.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Abbott,” she apologized, hating that the stiffness in her voice betrayed her hurt. So much for cultivating a thicker skin. “You’re right, of course. I won’t forget myself like that again.”
He chose not to acknowledge her apology and instead opened the sauna door. He grabbed their robes from the hook outside the door and handed the smaller one to her.
“Put this on,” he said while shrugging into his and thankfully—tragically—covering himself up and removing all that tempting flesh from her lascivious gaze. “Stay warm until you get back to your room, then get into some sweats, do those stretches, and spend the rest of the morning taking it easy. Okay?”
She was too busy shrugging into her robe, while keeping her towel from slipping, to do more than grunt in response to his bossiness.
“Hughes!”
His sharp tone immediately drew her attention.
