Darkness Dawns by Dianne Duvall Read Free Book Online Page B

scratches until she had washed his blood off her hands. The water had stung and, when she had seen the raw, red marks, they had immediately begun to throb and burn.
    Dropping the cloth to his lap, Roland located the tube of antibiotic ointment and struggled to remove the cap. A muscle leapt along his jaw.
    It must be killing him to move his fingers like that.
She thought it fairly miraculous that he could move them at all. A hole that size must have broken bones and damaged nerves and tendons, too.
    She reached for the tube with her free hand. “Let me …”
    He sent her a warning glare.
    Sarah swiftly withdrew. “Okay.”
    At last succeeding, he squeezed a generous dollop of clear goo onto his index finger and applied it to her palm with a featherlight touch that made her pulse race.
    As if he heard her heartbeat pick up, he raised his dark brown eyes, meeting hers.
    She wanted to look away but couldn’t.
    What was it about this man that affected her so?
    His fingers resumed their slow strokes. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, his voice as smooth as melted chocolate and just as appealing.
    Unable to find her own, Sarah shook her head.
    The ache in her palm receded beneath his touch, replaced by a warm tingling.
    Roland gently covered the scratches with a nonstick pad and wrapped some of the remaining gauze around her hand, just as she had done for him.
    Her other hand received the same careful treatment. When he was finished, Roland held both of her hands in his.
    “We match,” she teased.
    His dark eyes lightened with amusement as he drew her attention to the fact that the whole of one of her hands barely filled his palm. “Not quite.”
    She smiled.
    “Sarah, there is something I must ask you.”
    Sobering at his earnest expression, she leaned forward. “What?”
    He shifted infinitesimally closer, his eyes boring into hers. “Is that pizza I smell? Because I am
famished.
”
    The corners of his lips twitched.
    Sarah laughed. “Yes, it’s pizza.” She glanced at the clock on the DVD player. “And it should be about ready.”
    Roland smiled up at her as she rose, his raven hair falling forward across his bruised forehead and lending him a boyish charm.
    “I was hoping you would wake up,” she said as she headed for the kitchen, “and tried to think of something you could eat that wouldn’t require hurting your hands with the use of utensils. I figured you would balk at my spoon feeding you.”
    “You were right. I would. Pizza is perfect. Thank you.”
    Grabbing a pot holder, she hoped he wouldn’t change his mind when he saw it. Heat blasted her as she opened the ovendoor, removed the pizza, and set it on the stovetop. For some reason, most of her fellow Americans seemed to think any food that didn’t contain chemicals that had been banned in every other industrialized nation or that didn’t increase their risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other debilitating illnesses must taste like crap and turned their noses up without even trying it.
    If Roland was like that, too bad for him. He was going to go hungry.
    She sighed and closed the oven door. Who was she kidding? No, he wouldn’t. She’d just fix him something else and be pissed about it.
    “Would you like tea or water with it? The tea is decaf.”
    “Tea, please.”
    She smiled. Roland had said “please” and “thank you” more times in the hours she had known him than Tom, her ex-boyfriend, had in the entire last year they were together.
    Carrying two glasses and a pitcher of iced tea over to the coffee table, she set them down, then went back for plates and napkins and finally the pizza.
    Roland stared down at it as she sliced it. “That pizza is organic.”
    Here we go.
“Look, I know it doesn’t contain artificial crap, genetically modified organisms, irradiated vegetables, recom-binant artificial bovine growth hormone, pesticides, or other harmful chemicals, but if you’ll just give it a chance—”
    “I don’t have to give it a