Page 71 of Hexed Up

He grunts. “It’s taken me five years of training.”

“I’m very impressed,” I say, “and grateful for my ankle’s sake.”

We reach the hotel, and with a little bit of back and forth and some miscommunication, we finally get the door open and he deposits me in an armchair in the lounge, dropping to his knees.

“What are you doing?” I squeal, for one second convinced he’s about to repeat last night’s shenanigans. And right now, I may not have the self-restraint to refuse him.

He cocks one eyebrow and shakes his head. “Taking a look at your ankle.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, relaxing back into the chair as he unlaces my trainer and slides it gently from my foot. Then he takes ahold of my sock and I squeal a second time. “Do not remove that sock!”

“Why not?”

“I’ve just been hiking for an hour.” His brow creases in puzzlement. “It’s going to be … you know … smelly.”

“I’m not sure I’m smelling so great myself right now.”

On instinct, I can’t help taking an inhale. I’ve never exactly enjoyed the smell of boy sweat. In fact, entering the boys’ changing room on occasion has left me gagging. But like everything else about this man, even his sweaty body doesn’t smell so bad. In fact, it smells rather nice.

Carefully, he peels off my sock and my ankle is revealed.

“Two hundred years ago this would have been quite scandalous you know,” I point out as we both stare down at my ankle. It’s not nearly as knobbly as usual. It’s swollen and puffy and turning slightly purple.

“And highly erotic as well,” he murmurs, cradling my foot in his hands and lifting his dark gaze to me. His hands are large and my foot, despite the swelling, looks frankly teeny tiny in comparison. Where is that damn chaperone?

“I really don’t understand it,” I say, trying to keep my voice light and breezy and paying no attention to my pounding heart. “The ankle must be the most boring part of the human body.”

“But they were illicit and hidden away.” He strokes his fingers over my injured ankle and I suppress a shiver. “I’d better go find you some ice.”

“Wait!” I call after him as he starts to stand. It may appear dramatic but my ankle isn’t hurting nearly as much as it was. I’m not sure I strictly need the ice. Although, once I lumber up onto my feet, I find I’m wrong about that. I bet the pain was just being masked by all the adrenaline racing around my blood.

“I think the best thing for it,” I tell him as he hovers in the doorway, “is to make some more anti-inflammatory ointment. It’ll fix things up really quickly.”

“And you can make this ointment?” he asks.

“Well, I need a few ingredients and a stove and a saucepan, but I assume those will be down in the kitchen. The only problem is getting there.”

I peer down at my foot, and my own personal hero comes striding back towards me and sweeps me up into his arms again. Although this time there is a little bit of a grunt.

We spend a few minutes striding through the rooms on the ground floor of this hotel, finally finding a door down a flight of stairs to a large kitchen in the basement. It’s so big, it’s practically the size of my flat back in Hampstead.

This time he deposits me on a hard wooden chair and then turns to face me.

“What do you need?”

“Like I said, a saucepan and then various herbs.”

I swing my gaze around, pointing towards a cupboard with a glass door and rows of herb pots and plants sitting behind it.

Horatio starts opening cupboard doors and peering inside, and I hobble on my good foot and hop towards the herb store.

“Hey, hey, hey!” he says, spotting me.

“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s going to take me some time to sort through these.”

I reach the counter, open the glass door, and start searching through for the various different ingredients.

“How big does this saucepan need to be?” Horatio asks me.