Helping Sarah

Chapter 18

Michael

Both hands flat on my chest, Sarah blinked up at me, her eyes wide and her mouth open, her warm breath fanning over the edge of my jaw.

"The hob," I said, my voice thick.

She glanced behind her. "Oh. Thank you."

I made my hands release her and fall to my sides. I tried to make my feet move too, but they were welded to the floor in the middle of her small kitchen. The sensation of Sarah in my arms was still affecting me, and I'm quite certain it could be measured in my blood pressure. My blood was certainly moving quicker than it used to. Southbound, that was.

Bollocks. That was not a friend's reaction. A friend would just be glad to have spared her a burn, he wouldn't have noticed the rounded curve of her hips or the fullness of her breasts pressed to his chest.

Shoving back my hair, I looked at Sarah. And my heart insisted on keeping up its thumping. Her eyes were still wide and for just a second it looked as if her breathing was as ragged as mine. A second long enough for that hope I'd tried to deter to awaken and refuse to calm down again.

She looked away, over my shoulder, and gestured behind me. "I need the meat."

"Of course," I said quickly and opened the fridge, found the minced beef and handed it to her. Then shoved back my hair again. It had flopped right back down over my eyes and I didn't know what else to do with my hands.

They – all of me – were practically buzzing.

Sarah turned to face the hob and add the meat to the pot, and I finally managed to take the few steps to the doorway to give her some space.

And to tell myself that her wide eyes hadn't necessarily been the sign I'd been hoping for. Maybe she'd just been startled. She seemed fine now. Calm again. Wide eyes and ragged breathing back to normal. It didn't mean anything.

I didn't listen.

I stayed in the doorway to try and temper the heat that was still shimmering all over my front. The delicious smell rising from the pot on the stove helped turn some of my thoughts, and I almost drooled when Sarah took out pasta sheets and cheese.

"Why have you only learnt to cook recently?"

I tore my gaze away from the dish she was assembling the lasagne in. "I didn't have much time to cook in my last job," I replied, "nor was I all that interested in it. I lived mainly on cold pizza and coffee."

Her nose wrinkled as she stared at me. "Sorry, but that sounds..."

"Disgusting," I smiled. "Yeah, it was. And really unhealthy. I used to work about seventy hours a week, until back in September I started being dizzy all the time. I couldn't sleep at night though I was constantly tired, and one day in the middle of a meeting I started having trouble breathing. My GP told me my blood pressure was way too high and that I was on the brink of diabetes. She warned me that I needed to work less and change my diet, so I haven't had pizza since, and I'm down to two cups of coffee a day."

Sarah's eyes widened as she stared at me, but I couldn't tell if it was from horror at my brush with serious health problems or at my miniscule coffee consumption.

Two cups a day might not seem miniscule, but believe me, compared to what my daily intake used to be, it is. It had taken weeks for me to conquer the instinctive reach for the coffee pot in the kitchen at Capra Games and reach for the tap instead. Lisa had checked the contents of my mug every time she'd passed by it.

"It's not been easy," I told her. "It took some time to change my habits and shift my excess weight, but I've been exercising too and that's helped."

Sarah's eyes fell, and, I swear this is true, she might as well have run her hand down my bare chest for the heat it set off where her gaze touched, for the tremor that racked me.