Page 13 of The Fixer

A breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding escaped me, my muscles going lax, and I sank onto the table, resting my head on my curled arm. I was dizzy again, both from lack of food and from whatever Jet had done to me when he stepped into my life.

I swam in it, in the feelings coursing through me. I was drowning in them, barely able to take a breath. His intensity was one of the first things I noticed about him, that stunning silver gaze a very close second. The barely-there beard shadowing his face, softening his sharp jawline.

The perfect curve of his nose.

The rapid bob of his throat.

“Eliza?” Jet’s hand touched my arm the same second he spoke, but I wasn’t ready for it, wasn’t ready for the hard lines of his face when I opened my eyes.

For the third time, his presence startled me. My arm shifted, hard, and the bowl of water my scorched fingers had been soaking in flipped and spilled. Droplets of water flew before they fell, raining down upon both me and Jet.

He blinked, his long black lashes holding the water like morning dew clinging to a rose. A quiet chuckle rumbled free from his chest, the corners of his parted lips lifting.

“Are you always so clumsy?”

Groaning, I buried my head in the crook of my arm, mumbling words I both wanted and didn’t want him to hear. “Only around you.”

“Come.” Jet’s hand smoothed against my shoulder and down my back. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

I let him pull me out of hiding. Watched as he dabbed a cool washcloth over the blotches of red that peppered my feet and calves, working his way up to my dress that covered my thighs, then to my arms before he took my hand in his.

“I couldn’t find any aloe vera or antibacterial cream, but I found this.” Jet nudged the bear-shaped bottle sitting next to the empty bowl on the table.

“Honey?”

“It’s naturally anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial. It’ll do until we can get you something better from the store.”

He said it again.

We.

There was something inside me that shuttered at the thought, closing in around me and guarding my troubled heart. As much as those mercurial eyes begged me to let him take care of me, there was a constant nagging at the back of my head, reminding me of why I should say no. Of why I wanted, needed, to do this on my own. I fought with it as I watched him spread honey across my fingers and palm, then wrap my hand gently in a sterile dressing. He bandaged the little cut on my ankle, then assessed me once more, his gaze taking in every inch of me as if he could fix whatever was wrong.

“Almost done.” He rose without warning, grabbing the supplies he’d placed on the table and moving about my apartment to put everything back in its place. He’d cleaned up my floor and stove, cleaned up my burns and cuts. But when he reached into the cupboard above the microwave and pulled down a box of pasta, I couldn’t help but speak up.

“What are you doing?”

Without pausing in whatever plans he had, he bent to pull out a clean pot from the cupboard by the stove. “I’m making you something to eat.”

“Jet.” I rose and took a step toward him. “You don’t have—”

“Stay there.” The command was still in his voice, still rough and demanding. And though I blistered at the thought of him ordering me around in my own home, I also fell back into my chair, entranced by the darkness in his eyes and the strange, almost proud look on his face when I did as he said.

He came to me, and the hair on my neck lifted as my heart started to race. He crouched before me, sitting on his heels, his hands curling around my calves as he gave me a knowing look.

“You’re shaky. Dizzy, Eliza. Your mind isn’t focusing like it should. When’s the last time you ate something other than a few bites of chicken before you fed the rest to the cat?”

His thumbs skimmed my skin, and one thing was clear: He was right. My mind wasn’t focusing like it was supposed to. Instead of paying attention to what he’d just said, all I could think about was the way my name sounded on his lips.

“You need to eat, and the food in the fridge that the ladies at the funeral home sent you isn’t cutting it, or there wouldn’t be so much left. I’d take you out, but I’m not sure that’s advisable in your current state.”

“My current state?” My mind snapped to focus, and I bristled at whatever insinuation lay in his words. Then I was lost again, to the slide of his hips against my legs as he rose to his knees, to the feel of his hand tightly gripping my chin.

“You’re injured. Too shaky to walk. No matter how much I want to, I won’t risk your health just to take you out.”

My answer was nothing more than a blink. I was sure, somewhere in what he said, there was something I should be focusing on, something important that should mean something to me. But he was more right than he could possibly know.

I couldn’t focus.