"Let's just fix up your knee, shall we?" he asked.
"Okay." She shrugged.
"Where do you live?" he asked. "After I help you get home, we can clean your injury."
She lived some distance away. The truth was, she'd wanted to escape Seattle for a little while and had ended up in Edmonds. Sure, Edmonds was only eleven miles from Seattle, but with big-city traffic, she wouldn't be at her apartment for at least a half an hour.
"I live in Seattle," she admitted.
"That's not good." He whistled and shook his head.
"Indeed." Her car upholstery was going to be ruined by blood if she drove now. She wondered what her mom would think if she called to ask how to get blood off her seats.
"My place is just a block away," he said. "I can help you get cleaned up there."
"Are you sure?" She examined the man. "You've helped me so much already."
"What, do you really think I'm going to let you stand out in the middle of a crosswalk bleeding to death?" He raised an eyebrow. Damn, she wanted to learn how he did that so perfectly.
"The guy in the BMW had no problem leaving me bleeding," she said.
"The guy in the BMW is an ass," he said.
"And you're not?" she asked.
"I can be an ass sometimes." He grinned. It could have been her imagination, but she swore that his grin was wolfish. A chill ran down her spine.
"I guess it would be okay to go to your place." She hesitated. "I just feel bad putting you out so much, Mr.…"
"Just call me Sebastian." The man nodded at her.
Sebastian. A sexy name for a sexy man. The only name that would have been more befitting was Mr. Gorgeous, and she wasn't sure that would have gone over too well in high school.
"I'm Emmy," she said.
"Short for Emelia, by chance?" he asked.
"Nope." She kicked a rock that was underfoot. "Emmy. Just Emmy."
"Hmm." He looked at her. "It suits you."
She hoped that was a good thing.
"Thanks." I think.
Instead of answering, Sebastian just grinned at her in a roguish, I-eat-women-for-breakfast kind of way. As he started to walk and she followed, she had to remind herself that he'd just watched her hurl a stiletto at a car while screaming like a lunatic. An eighty-year-old homeless woman would have had more of a chance with him than she did at this point.
Muttering under breath, she hobbled forward a step and winced as pain shot up her leg. Apparently anger was an amazing sedative because, now that she wasn't pissed off enough to spit out sour words, she was half-certain that her leg was about to fall off. She sucked in air and tried to remain strong, but her pain must have shown on her face anyway because he gazed at her with concern.
Sebastian wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her and said, "Let me help you."
Her face flushed. God, she couldn't remember the last time she'd let a man help her with anything. She was Miss Self-Sufficient. Yet her leg was hurting pretty bad, and she had to admit that she rather enjoyed the way Sebastian's hard biceps felt pressing against her soft shoulder.
She walked two steps pressed against him, then three, four, five, six…Just as her knee hurt so much she was considering amputation, Sebastian distracted her by opening his mouth to talk.
"So what do you like to do besides throw shoes at cars?" he asked.
It took her a moment to realize that he was teasing her.
"I like to bake cupcakes." She licked her lips at the thought of frosted cake goodness.
"Cupcakes, huh?" He grinned and licked his lips as if she was presenting him with one.
"They're fun to decorate." She cringed as she took a step.
"And what do you do for a living?" He steadied her as she limped.
"I own a bakery."
"You own one?" He gave her a once-over. "You look pretty young to own a business."
"Owning a bakery was my dream." She smiled as she thought about all she had accomplished. "I went to Seattle Culinary Academy and then started the bakery once I graduated. To be honest, I was terrified. College was expensive, and I was burdened by a lot of student loans. But my bakery turned out to be a major success."
His eyes widened. "Well, I'm impressed."
She shrugged. Despite the fact she owned her own business, her social life was a major joke. Her best friend was a morbidly obese cat named Pickles, and the last guy she dated had said that she was too intimidating to be his girlfriend. Because of that, she was at the bakery twenty-four hours a day. The only people she was close to were her eighty-five-year-old neighbor, Mary Lou Parkinson, and her parents. Still, she wasn't about to share that with a perfect stranger.