Page 132 of What We Brave
"Blake—"
"Laine."
I hold up my hands. He takes them, turns them over, frowns at the scrape on my knuckles. His thumbs are rough and warm against my frozen fingers.
"You tried to change it yourself."
"I know how to change a tire."
"In this weather with no gloves?"
"I have gloves. They're just... in my apartment."
He exhales through his nose. Releases my hands. "Stay here."
"I can help?—"
"You can stay in the warm car and not get fucking hypothermia." He leans closer, and his voice drops. "If I see you get out of this vehicle, I will put you over my knee. Understand?"
My brain short-circuits.
He says it like a joke. Mostly. But his eyes are completely serious, and something hot unfurls low in my stomach that has nothing to do with the car heater.
I've been with enough men to know the difference between posturing and presence. Blake isn't performing. He means it. And the part of me that should bristle at being told what to do is instead doing something very inconvenient.
"I—"
"Good." He straightens up, heads to my trunk.
I watch through the rearview mirror as he hauls out my spare, finds the jack immediately — it was under the floor mat, apparently, which I definitely checked — and gets to work. His movements are efficient, practiced. He doesn't fumble with the lug nuts or struggle with the jack placement. He just handles it.
He's so attractive when he's competent. The focus. The economy of movement. Those forearms.
I squirm in my seat. I'm supposed to be frustrated. I am frustrated. But I'm also watching Blake crouch beside my car in the cold, changing my tire without complaint, and I can't look away. Can't make myself stop cataloguing the way his shoulders move under his jacket, the sure grip of his hands on the wrench.
Who asked him to be like this? Who said that was okay?
Ten minutes later, he's loading my ruined tire into his truck bed. He comes back to my window, hair dripping from the rain.
"Done. I'll follow you home."
Home.I turn the word over in my head. Let it sit.
"You don't have to follow me?—"
"Not asking."
I open my mouth to argue, but he's already walking back to his truck.
Okay then.
I pull back onto the highway, Blake's headlights steady in my mirror the whole way.
I haul my overnight bag up the stairs, still feeling the ghost of Blake's hands on mine from the roadside. My knuckles sting where I scraped them. Worth it, probably, for the way he looked at me.
The guest room is the same as always. Clean sheets, lamp on the nightstand, that quilt Blake's grandmother made folded at the foot of the bed. I toss my bag down and start unpacking. Pajamas. Change of clothes. The wine I brought.
"Hey!" Reid's voice carries up from somewhere downstairs. "I cleared a drawer in the bathroom for you!"
