So that was it. “Do you have to pee?”
He said a really foul word.
“Well, excuse me!” He didn’t have to relieve himself; so, it must be what she’d thought originally. The ape! As if he would die from unrequited lust!
“Helen,” he warned.
“Shhh. I’m trying to think of a plan for us to escape. Should I untie you?”
“Later. It’s too dangerous now while they hold all the weapons. First things first.” He sucked in a huge breath, then hissed, “Look at my ass.”
“Did aliens steal your brains? What in the world would make you think I want to engage in a quickie with you?”
He made a tsking noise of frustration. “Babe, when — rather if — I ever decide to make love with you, it’s not going to be a quickie. It’s going to be long and hard and noisy and — ”
“Stop it! Stop it right now.” Rafe had a knack for creating the most vivid, tantalizing, erotic fantasies in her head, and she wouldn’t have it. She stamped her foot for emphasis, and her pinto shied away nervously.
“I have a blister,” he blurted out.
“You have a… Oh!” Now it was her turn to blush. He hadn’t been putting the make on her. He just needed her help with a blister. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Hurry! It’s throbbing like hell, and Ignacio will probably find some way to make it hurt more if he finds out.”
Acting hastily, Helen moved him behind the horse and knelt. She feigned nonchalance as she undid the button of his fly and pulled down the zipper, but her fumbling fingers gave her away. That, and her barely quashed gasp as he grew hard at the slight brush of her fingertips.
“Oh… my… God!” Rafe gritted out. “Did you have to touch me?”
“Did you have to get it aroused?”
“Believe me, it has a mind of its own.”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“Helen, Helen, Helen. All you have to do is breathe, and I get turned on.”
“You jerk. Undoing your pants wasn’t my idea. Why do you twist every little thing into something sexual?”
“Sweetheart, your hand on my cock isn’t any ‘little thing.’ Believe me, it’s a great big thing.”
“God, you are such a horny toad. You’re hot for anything in skirts, aren’t you?”
“You’re not wearing skirts,” he reminded her. “And I’ll have you know, a woman opened my button-fly jeans with her teeth one time, and I wasn’t half as turned on as I am now.”
“Oh.” His crude words pleased Helen in a cockeyed sort of way. Could a woman actually do that with her teeth? Giving herself a mental shake, she said, “Stop teasing me, and turn around. Or else I’ll use my teeth to open that boil instead of your buttons, you randy goat. And I’ll take a chunk of flesh with it, too.” She gave his cheek a soft whack.
“Promises, promises.” Chuckling, he did as she ordered, and Helen pulled the waistbands of both his slacks and his black silk boxer shorts down to his thighs. Black silk? Oh, my heavens! Yep, he had a blister the size of a silver dollar on the crease where his right buttock joined his thigh, directly below his butterfly tattoo.
She had to admit, it looked mighty good. The tattoo, not his well-delineated, hard-muscled tush. Lawyering must be a lot more strenuous than she’d thought, she concluded irrelevantly. He probably worked out chasing ambulances.
Without thinking, she placed a fingertip on the swollen center of the blister, and he flinched with pain.
“Damn, that hurts.”
“Sorry,” she murmured. “It’ll have to be lanced and covered with an antiseptic ointment.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet these ding-a-lings carry medical supplies. Just break it and cover it with a Kleenex or something.”
“I can’t do that. It could get infected, especially in this heat. Besides, I have a tube of Neosporin I picked up after they dumped the survival vests. Although, during World War I, maggots were considered an accepted treatment for infected wounds — ”
“You… are… not… putting… maggots… on… my… butt,” he ground out, enunciating each word very cleary.