Page 120 of Riv's Sanctuary

Those piercing green eyes of his followed her as she walked to the chair and were now staring down at her with great intensity.

Settling into the chair, she tried not to wince as her tired muscles protested.

“And maybe don’t work so hard next time,” he snapped, before his tone softened. “It isn’t good to overwork.”

There was a scoop beside the bowl and, as she reached for it, Riv's hand shot out and closed around her wrist.

A protest was on her lips when he lifted her hand, palm upward, something flaring in his eyes.

Eyes falling to her palm, she realized the blisters she’d been developing had gotten angry.

Her palm looked red and bruised.

When she looked up at Riv, she couldn't read his expression, and when his piercing green eyes hit her and bored into her soul, she felt she had to say something.

“It’s nothing. It’ll heal.” She tried to pull her hand away but his fingers only tightened around her wrist, enough to hold her hand still but not enough to bruise her flesh.

“Your idea of what is nothing differs greatly from mine.” His gaze fell back to her hand. “You are losing the top layer of your hand.”

There was something notably different about his voice and Lauren looked up at him, disbelieving.

He wasn’t scowling…he wasn’t growling…he sounded normal—caring, even.

Considering that he’d stayed away from her for over a week, this was a surprising development.

Maybe something happened last night when she was asleep. Maybe they were in some kind of weird moon cycle she wasn’t aware of. Because this Riv wasn’t the same Riv she knew.

“Both your hands are damaged.” There was something akin to gruffness there this time but when his gaze fell on hers, there was no annoyance or anger there.

Instead, he looked at her as if he was only just seeing her, as if something about her was being revealed to him at that very moment.

It felt as if she was looking in his eyes for ages before he rested her hands gently on the table.

“How is it that you are losing your hands?”

She smiled at that, unexpectedly, and Riv’s gaze followed the movement of her lips.

Suddenly, he was too close and this situation too strange. It reminded her that she was female. He was male.

And it reminded her of that bathroom incident. The one they hadn’t discussed. The one that she thought about every night. The one that made her wet when it shouldn’t because, well, it shouldn’t!

He’d completely and utterly rejected her.

How low was her self-esteem to still get turned on by his proximity?

“I’m not losing my hands,” she answered, keeping her voice as plain and unaffected as she could. “They’ll heal. It’s only blisters from raking too much. I probably—”

“This is because you were raking?” He gripped her hand again, careful not to touch the blisters, and stared at it.

This time, his expression was clear: growing horror.

“It’s nothing really…” she found herself saying, her voice lower than usual. The look on his face almost made her feel sorry for herself.

“La-rehn…”

Lauren froze.

The way he said her name.