Embrace Read Online Free Page B

belonged to a small bathroom. A wrought iron chandelier—the old fashioned kind with candles instead of light bulbs—dangled from the ceiling. Add shackles and bars, and you’d have one hell of a dungeon. Despite the obviously dark tones, his room was cool in an unusual way.
    “I like it,” I said.
    Isaac used his foot to push a few boxes out of his way. “I couldn’t have designed it better if I’d tried.”
    I wondered if he would have seriously designed his bedroom with stone floors and iron accents and somehow doubted it.
    I hooked my fingers through my belt loops. “So, where do you want to start?”
    “Over here.” Isaac used his hand to clear away a large cobweb that blocked one corner of the rectangular nook, wiping the thin strands on the bottom of his jeans afterward. “I want to put up a bar so I have a place to hang my clothes.”
    He gave me four screws.
    “Are these iron?” I asked, surprised at the weight of them.
    “Matches everything else.” He picked up a bracket and a cordless screwdriver. “Don’t ask me where my dad found them.”
    My job was to hand him the screws, which left me plenty of time to watch the muscles in his back and arms flex as he forced them into the stone wall. Once the first bracket was in place, he set up a step stool.
    “I’ll need you to help hold the bar so I can make sure it’s straight.”
    “Sure.” I climbed the three steps up the ladder.
    Isaac had just lifted the bar in place when a large black spider spun down from the ceiling and landed on my shoulder. I screamed and, forgetting I was on a ladder, jumped backward. Before I fully knew what happened, I was on the floor with my right arm twisted under my body.
    Isaac put down the bar and hurried to my side. “Are you okay?”
    I was mortified, sprawled across his floor like a clumsy child. I wanted to disappear, but that wasn’t an option.
    “Yeah, I’m fine.” I tried to push myself up, but as soon as I put pressure on my right hand, pain shot through my wrist and triceps like a million needles stabbing me, and I fell back down. “Ouch!”
    Isaac wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me into a sitting position. He gingerly took my forearm in his hands and frowned.
    “I think I may have broken it.” I bit my bottom lip to keep from cringing in pain.
    He ran his fingers from my elbow to my fingertips as he examined my wrist closer. The warmth of his touch was soothing in a maybe-something-good-can-come-out-of-being-a-klutz sort of way. After all, it did give me Isaac’s undivided attention. He was so close I could smell vanilla and spearmint—his shampoo, I guessed.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, like it was his fault I had forgotten I was standing on a ladder. “I should have got the vacuum like my father always does and made sure I got the spider too.”
    “It’s okay.”
    Isaac continued to rub my arm with long strokes from my elbow to my fingertips.
    “I may need to go to the hospital.” It was the last place I wanted to spend my Saturday, but with the amount of pain I felt when I tried to get up I was sure I’d broken something. I would have wiggled my hand to see if I could move it if Isaac hadn’t had it in such a vise grip.
    “That’s not necessary,” Isaac replied, a strange edge to his voice. After what seemed like several long minutes, he then eventually asked, “How’s it feel now?”
    I moved my hand up and down like a hinge. Surprisingly, my wrist didn’t hurt as badly as when I’d first fallen. It was like his massage had eased all the pain and soreness away, or I was in too deep a state of shock and embarrassment to feel pain right then. I was sure it was the latter and I’d be begging my dad to take me to the emergency room when I got home.
    “Better. Thanks,” I finally replied.
    He helped me stand. “Do you still want to help me unpack, or would you rather I take you home?”
    I didn’t hear him at first. I was too busy looking for the spider. Then the words