Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
I needed the bathroom, a lot, because I’d vaguely felt like I’d needed it at bedtime but had ignored nature’s call. I still had that pillow wrapped around my ankle. I bent down and lifted it. My ankle looked a whole lot better. Still swollen and there was a nasty bruise as well as the scabbed-over marks from that guy’s fingernails. But it looked a lot less angry than it did the night before. I rotated it left and then right and it was still fairly numb.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the edge of the platform that the bed was on. I got to my feet and was about to step down when that ankle completely rebelled against the action and the pain made me cry out. Shit. It couldn’t support me at all, so I took a tumble down the two steps and landed on my knees on the carpet.
“Tanya!” I heard, and then there were two big, strong arms lifting me up off the floor.
Concerned blue eyes were all I could see. And then naked, muscled chest. Whoa.
“Are you all right?”
“I— uh– ouch.”
His skin was warm and soft. And… beautiful.
He put me on the bed and lifted my calf carefully to set my foot on the bed. He touched my ankle with his warm fingertips and as strange as it was, his touch was actually soothing, where I’d expected it to hurt.
“I’ll order another medical pack and apply more ointment. One minute.” He turned to go to the screen.
“I n-need the bathroom,” I whispered, which was sort of silly since it was just us two, but it was kind of embarrassing.
He turned back around and carefully lifted me and took me into the bathroom. “I’ll set you on the other foot but don’t put weight on that one.”
“O-kay.”
“Does it hurt a lot?” he asked.
I nodded, grimacing while holding my breath. “But, I need privacy urgently.”
I was dangerously close to peeing my pretty bronze space pajama pants.
He set me down on my good foot and I held the bad one up a few inches off the floor. As he moved away, I wobbled. There was nothing for me to grab onto for balance until there was him. He’d quickly moved in to catch me.
“I’ll turn the other way. Go ahead. Use my arm to balance.”
He turned the other way, holding me up with one arm. I held on, then used my other hand to try to pull the pajama pants down.
“God, how embarrassing.”
“Don’t be silly. When you’re ready to sit let me know and I’ll give you privacy. Then I’ll come in backwards when you’re ready to get back up. Work for you?”
“Uh huh.”
I had a heck of a time trying to get the silky pajama pants down with one hand. I yanked the left side a little. Then the right. Then the left some more, the entire time feeling both completely mortified and wobbly, not to mention red-faced. The pressure on my bladder was excruciating. I blew my hair out of my eyes about three times and finally had them shimmied out of the way enough to lower myself onto the toilet, hand sliding down his thick forearm until he captured my hand with his much larger one, gave it a quick squeeze, and then asked, “Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, my bladder ready to burst, but I absolutely couldn’t let it go until he was gone. Humiliation.
He walked straight ahead and closed the door and then I finally let myself go. And I peed. And I peed. And I peed some more. The toilet’s bidet system began cleaning me, but then stopped because I peed some more. Holding it so long had the effect of painful peeing and feeling like my bladder would never empty.
I put my hand to my cheek, still feeling the heat of his hand, the strength of it. He was just so large and so … masculine.
“Tanya?” he called.
“Still not ready,” I replied loudly, panicky. “Don’t come in here!”
“I won’t.” He sounded amused.
I looked down at my ankle, which looked less better than it had fifteen minutes earlier. It really, really hurt.
Still peeing. Dribbles. Stop and start. And stop again.
God, would it ever stop? I might be done.
I waited. Okay. I figured I was done.
The toilet started to clean me and then when it stopped, I tried to get up on one foot, my other foot in mid-air, so I could get my pants back up before he had to come back in, but I wobbled and wound up back on the throne. Hard. Now my butt felt bruised.
Shit. I’d have to call him back in before I could get my pajama pants back up.
“Zane?”
“I’m coming.”
“Backwards. I’m not up and off yet. I tried, but I fell back down.”