Free Discovering Stella by K.M. Golland Page B

in between us with a menacing look. “Okay, cowboys, settle down. Nobody is killing anybody.” She then closed the distance to Todd and threaded her fingers around his neck. “You have to back off and let Stella open up in her own time. The last thing you want to do is scare her off. You said yourself that you think she’ll take off.”
    He dropped his forehead to rest upon hers. “I know. I just don’t like it. She’s the only sister I’ve ever had. I let her go once before, and look what’s happened? It may not have, if I’d been around.”
    Meg pulled back abruptly. “Hey, you can’t blame yourself. You don’t even know what’s happened, or if anything has happened —”
    “It has,” he interrupted with resoluteness.
    “Okay, okay,” she said softly. “I agree, I think something has happened as well. There are obvious signs. But let’s work at making her feel at home so that, in time, when she is comfortable, settled and feeling safe, she’ll relax and possibly share her secret.”
    Deliberating Meg’s words, I understood where she was coming from. But from my experience with Stella already, I thought she needed a helping hand. She needed to be gently pushed, and I was the pushing type.

 
    *   *   *

 
    Todd and Meg took their leave shortly after our kitchen meet ing. I, on the other hand, waited for Stella to finish up in the bathroom. Why is it that chicks take their sweet fucking time? She’d been in there for more than an hour.
    Sitting down on the hallway floor, I’d nearly dozed off when the bathroom door finally opened and Stella wandered out in a pair of pink pyjama shorts and a pussycat singlet top. Instantly, my brain linked the furry feline with the pussy between her legs. I wanted to touch her again, this time without the fucking underwear.
    “Shit! What are doing? You scared me half to death,” she shrieked, stepping back and clutching at her chest, her backward motion unsteady due to her noticeable imbalance.
    I got up quickly and went to help her. “Your foot is still sore.”
    “It’s fine,” she said, dismissing my concern and limping past me.
    Without hesitation, I scooped her into my arms and headed for her bedroom.
    “Lawson, put me down!” she whisper-cursed.
    “Sure thing, when we get to your bed.”
    “No! Put me down! Now!”
    Ignoring her protest, I carried her into her room and knelt on her bed, gently placing her upon it. Thoughts of accidentally slipping and falling on top of her flitted across my mind, but I quickly quashed that ridiculous notion and straightened up, giving her some space.
    “Thanks, but carrying me was unnecessary,” she murmured, glancing at my lips for the smallest of seconds before scooting backward. That small, inconspicuous glimpse was enough to tell me that she wanted more of what we’d been doing before Todd and Meg had arrived home. That small glimpse held so much goddamn promise.
    Sitting myself down by her feet, I gently picked up her injured foot and rested it on my lap. “You really should get it looked at,” I said, caressing it softly.
    She flinched just slightly, but didn’t pull her foot away. “It’s just a sprain. I’m a nurse, remember? It will be back to normal in a day or two.”
    Not being one to beat around the bush — or argue with a nurse over a medical condition — I changed the subject. “Stella, about before —”
    “It can’t happen again.” Her voice and matching expression lacked conviction alongside the biting of her bottom lip. Like fucking fun, it can’t!
    I raised an eyebrow and fired her a shit-eating grin. “It’s gonna happen again, angel.”
    Stella wrenched her foot from my grip and hugged her legs to her chest. “Get. Out!” she sobbed, her words quiet yet just as potently filled with pain had she screamed them at me.
    Her sudden change of demeanour had me sitting there in shock, watching dumbfounded as she rocked back and forth with tears springing from her eyes. What the