Stray Read Online Free PDF Page B

missing the opportunity than I am of taking it, whatever my inexperience and ineptitude.
    “Screw it.” I wrestle the shirt up over my spinning head. It comes off with a snap. Static crackles in my hair. I lean on the dresser to keep from falling, breathless, brazen. The holsters are tricky. Bending down causes blood to rush to my head but I manage to release the clips without crushing them and the silver guns fall from my thighs, clattering on the hardwood floor. I pause over the waistband of my tiny brown shorts, hands trembling at the sound of Jamie’s footsteps on the stairs. Too late. I stifle a squeal and straighten up too fast, nearly toppling. Jamie nudges the door open and freezes like he’s been paralysed by a ray gun – glass of orange juice in one hand and a plate with one of Miriam’s gargantuan muffins in the other, Buffy still mewling in worship at his feet. “Everton?”
    I look down, embarrassed by the heat in my face, and gesture at my boots. Words come thick and stuck together. “Dunno I can manage these.” I hold the bedpost and lift my foot to tug at the laces one-handed. The room tips and the floor hits my knees. The thump makes Buffy hiss and dart out into the hall, but it’s a numb landing, like I’m encased in foam rubber. Jamie moves. Plate and glass clatter on the desk. Then he’s there, helping me onto the bed.
    “Told you.” My laugh sounds foolish in my ears and I don’t brush the hair back from my face, preferring a place to hide. Jamie crouches in front of me, still holding my arms, not saying anything. I rub the red spots on my knees and wish I could think of something funny to say, something cool and ironic because I want to be shirtless and brave, not shirtless and lame. How on earth had I ever instigated anything as remotely sexy as the night after Barb shot me? How had I ever touched him or kissed him and not been crippled by shyness?
    Jamie lets go of my arms and begins to unlace a boot. I know he can hear the drumbeat in my chest and I grit my teeth, forcing myself to look up; he has his eyes on the job. I watch his strong hands pull the loops free, one at a time in slow methodical strokes, loosening the tension from the top of my calf, down the long shinbone to the tight ankle and high arch of my foot. He slides his hand, cool and smooth, beneath the leather tongue, cupping the back of my knee and slips the boot free. Where red marks from the boot stitching track the top of my foot, he presses his thumbs, kneading the tender grooves, applying pressure in a circular pattern from my toes to the crest of my foot. I close my eyes and try not to moan. Finally, he lowers my foot to the floor and draws his hands up the back of my calf to hook his thumbs in the sheer stocking, drawing it down and off.
    I open my eyes on his, like he has been waiting for me, like he isn’t going to talk or move until I look at him. I tuck my hair back behind my ears as an act of courage, dropping my gaze and lifting it again, like I can adjust to the intensity of his stare by practise. “Thank you.” I sound hoarse.
    “The other?” He draws his teeth slowly over his lower lip and I need more air and lift my shoulders to make room for breath.
    “Please.” I might be begging for mercy.
    He begins again in the same unhurried and methodical way as before and this time I watch him as he works in the dim light. He’s taken his jacket off downstairs, the fedora too. The pale khaki shirt hangs loose over his shoulders and open at the neck, a deep V of bronze to the middle of his chest where two surviving buttons hold the fabric together. His brow is grooved with concentration, and his grey eyes lie hooded in shadow. I want to touch him, to run my fingers through his thick hair, dig my knuckles into the base of his skull in the way that I know he loves, but I can’t move. I’m paralysed, overwhelmed by the gap between my longing and my ability to do anything about it.
    Jamie removes the second