Caught Up in the Touch (35 page)
A long pause made her squirm on the edge of the bed.
“It’s absolutely incredible.” He turned back to study her pencil portrait of an old woman in Central Park. She let her mouth drop, the relief at his praise unexpected.
She and the old woman had been regulars in Central Park during the afternoon lull between grown-up lunchtime and kids getting out of school. Lilliana had done her best to impart the beauty and tragedy of the woman’s life in detailed pencil lines on stark two-dimensional paper. Pencil was her favorite medium, and the one she was the least confident about. There was no color to hide behind.
“Amazing. There’s joy, yet sadness too. Is that what you intended?” He looked over his shoulder, his eyes serious, before turning back to the picture.
She again controlled the urge to hug him. This time for seeing what she had taken pains to reveal, yet feared she’d failed at doing. “Everyone’s life is a mixture of joy and sadness, don’t you think?”
He didn’t answer, yet stared for another long moment at the portrait. Finally, as if coming out of a dream, he crouched at the first outlet and went to work. She watched him work with an efficiency of movement that reflected his athletic background.
His voice was back to its short, brisk usualness. “Everything in here checks out electrically. But your balcony is a hazard. Get it fixed, and for God’s sake don’t take one step onto it until you do. Next, I want to see the bathroom that caused so much fuss last fall.”
The moment she’d been dreading. Without offering an excuse, she led him to the Pepto-Bismol bathroom. She propped a shoulder against the doorjamb instead of following him into the tight space.
The handheld machine he used let out a series of beeps as he checked the outlet. He grunted and dropped to his knees to check under the cabinet. Even from the doorway, Lilliana could see the tangle of wires that Carl hadn’t known what to do with.
Pulling out a flashlight and crunching his shoulders into the tight space, he muttered, “Good Lord.”
Having your inspector utter calls to the Almighty didn’t bode well. After a couple of minutes of grunting, he clicked off the flashlight and reversed his shimmy. Would she need to tear the wall out? Rewire the entire upstairs? She waited for the crushing blow to her plans.
“Dammit!” He jerked as he ducked his head out from under the cabinet. Crouching on the nauseating pink tiles, he fingered a tear in his shirt. Blood oozed, but she couldn’t tell how long or deep the scratch was.
“Goodness, how bad is it?” Falling to her knees, she tugged the shirt out of his pants, lifting it to reveal his wound. She traced the smooth, firm skin alongside a long, shallow scratch. Her voice creaked a little. “It’s not bad. Let me dab on some ointment, and I can stitch the tear in your shirt. It’ll only take a minute.”
She went to work on his shirt buttons from the bottom, her breathing pacing faster to match the beat of her heart.
“Stop. I’m fine. I have other shirts.” His words sounded rushed, panicked.
He grabbed at her wrists, but the movement only flipped his shirt apart, exposing the bottom half of his chest. Something dark edged from the checked cotton. He froze, his hands loosening. She finished working his buttons open and spread the shirt to expose his entire chest.
“Oh. My. God.” Her words compressed out of lungs that held no air.
She wasn’t in shock from the defined muscles of his chest. That she’d expected. It wasn’t even the sexy dusting of hair over his pecs or the trail into the waistband of his pants. What hypnotized and held her rapt was the enormous tattoo that covered one side of his torso.
The vibe was difficult to nail down. Tribal with some Picasso Cubism thrown in. Script played peekaboo under his arm, obscured by the shirt hanging to the curve of his shoulders. What words would a man like him pick to inscribe on his body? One thing was certain—his tattoo was a work of art. Now she was less interested in his warm, man-scented skin than what was drawn on it. Impatiently, she pushed his shirt off his shoulders to hang at his elbows.
The tattoo extended to his shoulder and upper arm, stopping at mid-biceps like a permanent sleeve. In all the football practices she’d attended, he’d never revealed his ink. Unlike the boys or other coaches, he wore long-sleeved workout gear and used a towel tucked into his shorts to wipe away sweat, but she’d chalked his habits up to being a quarterback and needing a protected throwing arm and dry hands.
Never in a million years would she have guessed what preppy, uptight Alec Grayson had up his sleeve. Literally.
“It’s old. From when I was young and stupid. Most of my teammates in Philly had tats and I thought I was the sh—” He muttered to cover the curse word and ran a hand through the top of his hair, mussing the regimented style. “I’m planning to get it lasered off.”
“Don’t you dare!”
Clarity struck like a shot of adrenaline to her heart. He was ashamed or at least embarrassed by the tattoo. With trembling fingertips, she skimmed the outer line of a dark-black swirl of ink tracing the muscle of his pectoral. At first contact, the muscle jumped, and he flinched away as if in physical pain.
“Don’t you dare,” she repeated in a whisper leaning in to follow the line with her lips.
The Falcon Football Series
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Contents
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CAUGHT UP IN THE TOUCH copyright © 2015 by Laura Trentham.
Excerpt from
Melting Into You
copyright © 2015 by Laura Trentham.
All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Author photo © Steven Huskins
Cover design by Crystal Ben
Cover photographs:
Background images by Shutterstock
Couple © Tom Merton/ Alamy
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eISBN 9781466883956
First eBook Edition: July 2015