[h2]Esme Stirling[/h2]

Esme laughed again as Duke laughed at her words, then nodded as spoke. It was true, adding injures to what she normally got herself into didn’t help her bouts of clumsiness any. Having the added injuries only made things worse and even harder to get around without more problems. “Then I consider myself lucky you’re here.” she smiled with a warm laugh. “This would be a lot harder without you.” She watched as he lowered the towel to one hand and squared his shoulders, finding it hard not to notice his rippling abs as he readied himself to help her out of the bath. At his laugh and request, she readied herself to have him help her, but before she couldn’t even lift her arm, he had taken hold of her hand. This caused her to lift an eyebrow as she looked at him. Did he really think she had much to protest about in this situation? “You don’t want to redo the stitches. I don’t want you to have to redo them.” she laughed, as she gripped his hand and took to her feet with his help.

As she stood, her feet slid against the bottom of the tub’s slick surface, which would make things a bit more difficult. She noticed how he was trying his best to keep his eyes on her face as he took her hand and help her up out of the bath. It kept a smile on her lips. Esme even noticed the realization hit him after he helped her up and stepped back from the tub, then stepped back up to wrap his arm around her waist. Using her free hand, she tucked some of her wet hair behind her ear before he pressed his lips to her forehead and spoke, her eyes closing briefly before he stepped back to coax her to step over the edge of the tub. She could feel her heart rate pick up at the simple action. She mentally shook her head to clear her thoughts and let out the breath she was holding. Placing her free hand on his arm around her waist and gripping his hand that held her other hand, she shifted her weight to her injured leg so she could lift her good foot from the bottom of the tub and over the side of it. 

“I sure hope so. It’s gotten slippery in here.” she said in a slightly teasing tone as she felt her feet slipping a bit. Slowly, she lifted her foot from the bottom of the tub, wincing a bit as she felt a little pain in her other leg. Once she got her foot high enough, she brought it over the side of the tub and to the floor, but before she could step on the floor, her other foot slipped on the tub’s slick surface. Gasping, she came down hard on her other foot causing her to lose her balance from the force and fall forward. “Hellfire!” she said through gritted teeth from the surge of pain she felt from the jolt. Her grip on his hand and arm tightened to catch herself but knew she’d still hit the floor if Duke couldn’t catch her because she wouldn’t be able to get her other foot under in time. Then again, her leg would more than likely buckle as soon as her weight was on it from how she was falling. Esme braced herself for impact with the cold hard floor, not knowing if Duke would be able to catch her or not.