Consequences of a Hot Havana Night

She was back. Handing him a glass, she sat down beside him with a bowl of water, a towel and a large plastic box. When she’d told him she had a first aid kit he’d assumed she meant something she’d picked up at the airport. This, though, looked on a par with the kits at the distillery.

‘You’re very well prepared,’ he said softly.

He felt her tense.

‘It’s just the basics.’ She glanced up at him accusingly. ‘You should probably have a kit on your bike.’

In fact he did have one, and he was on the point of telling her that, but he was suddenly too distracted by the way her beautiful red-gold eyebrows were arching in concentration as she rummaged through the box.

Pulling out a packet, she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, then dropping to the shining patch of crimson on his upper arm. ‘I need to see if it’s stopped bleeding.’

‘Okay.’ He nodded, but he was distracted by a glimpse of her feet. She had taken off her shoes, and there was something strangely arousing about her bare toes.

Pulling his gaze away, he glanced back up at her face.

A trace of pink coloured her cheeks. ‘So I need you to take your shirt off,’ she said huskily.

* * *

Kitty swallowed.

I need you to take your shirt off.

As her words reverberated inside her head and around the room her eyes darted towards the triangle of light gold skin at his throat. If only she’d just ignored his objections and called an ambulance. Outside, on the road, with his shirt turning red, she hadn’t thought about anything but the fact that he needed help. She certainly hadn’t envisaged him taking his clothes off. But how else was she going to be able to deal with his injury?

She cleared her throat. ‘Or I could cut the sleeve off?’ she offered.

He didn’t reply. He just stared at her. And suddenly she forgot all about his shirt, and even his injury, for nobody had ever looked at her so intently. It was as though he was trying to see inside her, to read her thoughts. Her muscles tightened against a sudden flood of heat. No one had ever looked at her with such focus, not even her husband. It was intimate, exhilarating, both an intrusion and a caress—

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll take it off,’ he said.

She watched as he started trying to undo the buttons, but they were sticky with blood, and before she knew what she was doing she leaned forward, batting his hands away.

‘Here. Let me.’

Her heart began to beat faster as her fingers pulled at the buttons. She could feel the heat of him beneath his shirt and, try as she might, she couldn’t stop her eyes from fixing on his sleek bronze skin as the fabric parted.

Her fingers twitched aga

inst the buckle of his belt and, avoiding his gaze, she lifted her hands and inched backwards. ‘I’ll let you take it from here,’ she said.

He shrugged his left shoulder free and then peeled the shirt tentatively away from his injured arm.

For a moment she stared at him in silence, her heart pulsing in her throat. It had been such a long time since she had looked at a man’s body. Or at least a body that looked like his.

With broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist his body was muscular, but not overly so, with just the finest trail of dark hair splitting the lean definition of his chest and stomach. His skin was smooth and golden, but it wasn’t his skin that drew her gaze, but the two scars running almost parallel up his abdomen.

Clearly he hadn’t been joking when he’d said he’d had far worse injuries. But why, having been so badly hurt, would anyone take more risks?

It wasn’t a question she could ask a stranger—not even one sitting bare-chested on her sofa.

‘What do you think?’

Lost in thought, she was caught unawares by his question and gazed up at him dazedly.

‘What do I think?’ she repeated his question slowly. Her brain seemed to have stopped working.

‘About my arm.’