She stopped kicking and refocused on his face. A muscle ticked along hard-clenched muscles in his jaw, but his mouth curved upward in a tight smile.
“You’re gonna have to hold on to me,” he said, voice strained. “Seeing as how I decided to catch instead of fetch.”
“F-fetch?” Her breath caught. “What’re you talking about?”
“I can’t fetch help, so I’m gonna pull you up.”
A ragged sound—half sob, half laugh—burst from her lips. “Really? You’re cracking a joke right now?”
“I’m telling you to grab on to me.”
She slipped another quarter of an inch, a gasp escaping her. “I—”
“Now,” he rasped. “Please!”
Hannah lunged up, her free hand latching on to Travis’s broad forearm. The muscular tendons flexed beneath her hold as his gloved hand tightened around hers and pulled upward.
His wide upper body rose in slow increments and his knee shifted under him, his thick thigh straining against the seam of his jeans as he squatted on the exposed beams and hauled her higher and higher.
Her arm cleared the roof, then her shoulders, chest, and waist. She jerked her right leg up, propped her knee on a beam, and pushed against the wood until her entire body reached the roof and both of her feet were planted on sturdy wood again.
Hannah lay there facedown, her body sprawled across exposed beams, one hand wrapped around a beam and the other still clenched in Travis’s grip.
“Are you okay?”
She dragged her attention away from the hard dirt floor of the stable, visible between the exposed beams, and looked at Travis. His lean cheeks were red, his mouth pinched, and his hand holding her wrist shook. The tremors traveled up his arm, making the muscular biceps pressed against her ribs tremble. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead and a soft strand of his black hair had tumbled over his eyebrow.
“I’m fine.” She licked her lips and asked, voice catching, “You?”
Emotion flickered in his dark eyes as they met hers. His expression softened despite the pained set of his jaw, and he nodded.
They remained still for a couple moments, their heavy breaths rasping as they stared at the drop below them.
Travis released his grip on her wrist and his gloved hand trailed away across the beams to his side. “Did I hurt you?”
Hannah blinked at the regretful note in his voice. “What?”
“Your wrist.” He dipped his head. “Did I hold you too hard?”
She followed the direction of his gaze and studied the sensitive flesh of her wrist, where red blotches the size and shape of his fingers deepened into a purple-tinged shade with each passing second. An intense throb still hummed beneath her skin, but something warm and soothing mingled with the pain.
Bryan had hurt her more often than not during their ten-year marriage and had broken every promise he’d made to change. The pain he’d inflicted had always been deep, infiltrating every safe space inside her until she’d forgotten how it f
elt to not be afraid.
But the waves of sensation Travis’s tight grip had left behind were different.
It was just a result of the circumstances, she assured herself. A side effect of Travis’s pulling her to safety.
Yet, for whatever reason, she yearned to feel his touch again.
“No.” Her voice emerged husky and she cleared her throat. “You didn’t hold me too hard.”
And I want you to hold me again. Her eyes smarted with hot tears at her desire to be protected. To be held, rocked, and assured her life would be right again someday.
It was a silly, stupid whim that would leave her vulnerable to a man’s hands.
She squeezed her eyes shut until the moisture in them receded, then tightened her grip on the wood beams and shoved herself to her knees. “I think it’s time to take a break.”