Page 25 of Drifter’s Heart

Warmth and Mirrors

Sunlight lances through a window that’s not mine, slapping me squarely in my face. My back aches like a bitch, and my stomach sweats. I catalog every ache and pain earned from the last forty-eight hours plus some, starting from the moment Winnie threw coffee at me.

Winnie.

I lift my head from the odd angle I’ve slept at and find the weight on my stomach that’s currently in overheat mode glaring down at me.

“What are you doing in my bed?” Winnie pinpoints me with eyes I know well, but hers aren’t icy. They’re blazing blue, and aimed right at me.

It’s like looking into a sliver of the ocean, captured in a gem.

“You invited me here,” I say neutrally, expecting the forthcoming slap at any minute. “I get it if the memory is murky. You were pretty out of it when I arrived.”

She frowns. “You nearly broke my door with your foot. Why is everyone walking into my home without asking?”

That’s not a question I need to answer, so I don’t. “You seem fine.” I try to lever myself up, but her hand shoots out and strikes my shoulder.

“Don’t you dare move.”

There’s that slap I’ve been expecting. If not the reasoning.

I hold up my hands, which have been pressed to her back, where they spent the night molded to her body. “Staying where I am.”

“Good cowboy.” Winnie smirks and wiggles, getting herself nice and comfy back in her warm patch.

The warm patch that happens to be me. Apparently her sass is back and last night’s low has worn right off.

A groan rumbles deep in my throat. I force the sound back with effort, but I know she hears my frustration. “Don’t move, sweetness. Can you do that for me?” The rasp comes out taut and strained, and her knowing smile tells me she catches every inch of that torture.

Yep, Winnie’s back. Hell, she even gives me a front-seat show to her finest ass wiggle.

My fingers grip her back tight. “Winnie,” I warn her. “This cuddle ain’t gonna last long if you keep doing that.”

She stops instantly, though her eyes are still hellishly bright and piercing. I’m in so much shit. Maybe I should have gone straight home. But the way she looked last night, so lost and sleepless, washes over me. My hands flex on her back, long strokes over her spine, and she soothes.

“Why’d you come here?” she asks, crossing her wrists on my chest and perching her chin on her hands like I’m a custom-made Winnie-shaped table designed for her personal use.

She’s not objecting to me stroking her back, and even though I’m still sweating beneath the little hot rock she is, I’m not moving her off me unless she objects. All the barriers we’ve put up over the last months—years—are failing under the pressure of her ex’s appearance and her trauma restart.

I open my mouth to say some inane, meaningless banter that she’ll no doubt throw right back at me, but the wary look in her eyes reminds me that underneath her sassy front, the woman in my arms is still as vulnerable as all hell. I opt for the truth instead.

“I spent the better part of a day digging toilets in another country, and designed a bridge for the town to access those. It wasn’t really the right month or weather.” My hands twinge on cue, and I wince.

Winnie’s face freezes comically. “You—what?” She flips faster than I expect her pocket-rocket frame to move. “Kitchen. Now.”

Her command cuts through my morning haze. I’m half out of her bed before I figure out my body has moved. “Uh-uh, Rand. Piss first. Then you can torture me with whatever you have in mind.” I shake my hands free but then grip her waist when she comes at me again, depositing her, open-mouthed, back on the bed, right in the middle. Not giving myself time to think too much about it, I press a kiss to her lips, hard and quick. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I murmur, and head down her hallway. The taste of her, sleepy and startled, lingers on my lips the whole way.

Trailing my fingers along the wall, I check each room I pass, locating the bathroom between her bedroom and Sally’s empty one. A minute later I’m done, washing my hands with enough soap to kill anything I might have picked up out of country.

“Did you have shots? Where did you go?” Winnie’s voice summons me from the kitchen.

I grin. She’s back in paramedic mode and it’s sexy as fuck. “Weeks back.” The project sat on hold long enough to give me time to prep, thankfully. I wait until I find her in the kitchen, and I rest my ass against one corner of the wraparound laminated benchtop. The room is green and scarred and hideous and cluttered. “Everything was done when I first drew up the designs and submitted them. Then the project fell through and… I didn’t expect to go.”

“What happened?” Winnie rummages about in a top cupboard too tall for her duck butt.

“The job went to someone else.” I press my hands to her waist, squeezing those luxurious curves I’ve just had my hands on for the better part of nine perfect hours. “What the hell are you looking for, Rand?”

“The antiseptic. You have done an, uh, interesting job cleaning that, but unless you want to die or lose a hand, I’m fixing you up. There.” She points to a bottle at the back of the top shelf.