Page 7 of The Handyman

I just breathe. Carefully.

Heavy, fast footsteps thunder down the hall.

I turn my head slowly toward the door.

Mason comes through the study door. I see him in a flash of lightning. He's completely soaked—his gray T-shirt gone dark, plastered flat against his chest and shoulders, every muscle visible through the wet fabric.

Hair pushed back from his face, rain still dripping from his jaw, trailing down his neck. His eyes find me the moment he clears the doorframe. Not scanning the room, not checking the windows or the puddle spreading across the floor.

Just me. Fixed and immediate, like nothing else in the room exists.

He crosses to me in four steps and drops to one knee. His hands close around my arms just above the elbows—fingers wrapping all the way past, his grip firm and certain, not rough.

His hands are freezing, wet from the rain, and I can feel every single finger pressing through the thin cotton of my T-shirt. Their coldness shocks my skin. He smells like rain, his face close, and I don't know how to process any of it.

"What happened? Are you hurt?"

Mason looks at my face, my hands, and sees my palms, pink from slapping the wet floor. His grip on my arms hasn't loosened.

My heart feels like it's trying to escape its cage. Not from the fall. From his hands on me. From the look on his face. From the fact that he is kneeling in front of me on a wet floor and his hands are shaking—barely, a tremor I can feel through his fingers.

"I slipped. I'm fine. The windows were open and I⁠—"

"I told you to stay in the kitchen."

His voice drops. Controlled and tight and barely held together. His hands move from my arms to my face. One hand on each side of my jaw, tilting my head, making me look at him. His thumbs rest under my cheekbones.

Mason's holding my face the way you hold something you're checking for cracks.

"My books … I had to check the⁠—"

"Katy."

His thumb drops lower along my jaw until it rests just below my bottom lip.

"When I heard you scream, my whole body went cold. Do you understand that? I was outside, and I heard you, and for two seconds, I didn't know what happened. Those were the longest two seconds of my life. Don't do that to me."

There's a sharp tug in my center from his proximity, and with each touch, Mason sends electric shocks firing across my nerves. Fireworks spark between my thighs, and I know deep down that we're both crossing a line we can never uncross.

My whole world comes screeching to a halt.

I look at his face—wet from the rain, jaw locked, blue eyes that aren't cold anymore, that are hot and angry and terrified—and I think about every guy who's ever asked me out and gotten a firm, big NO in response.

And I think I know why.

None of them, not a single one, not one boy I have ever known, has looked at me the way Mason is looking at me right now, on his knees on a wet floor, holding my face in his hands, his breath warming my cheeks.

Mason stands and slides one arm under my knees and the other behind my back and lifts me off the floor. Effortlessly. I'm in his arms, and his wet shirt is pressed against my side.

I can feel his chest expand and recede with every breath.

He carries me out of the study, the hallway still dark. The only light is the lightning flashing, more frequently now, through the windows at the far end.

Mason walks toward the stairs.

"Put me down."

He doesn't stop walking.