"That," Ace pointed to a house slowly coming into view as we turned the corner of a narrow street. "-is where we'll be staying for now."

I looked out the window. The wooden house was located off the road and had a narrow descending trail facing it.

I looked towards Ace quizzically as we drove past the trail but my doubts were soon resolved as we came to a halt in a small garage. There were a few other cars already parked in there, probably belonging to the other house owners. Ruffling my hair slightly with one hand and stifling a yawn with other, I stepped out as Ace held the door open for me.

Once I was out, I felt slightly embarrassed that I hadn't even acknowledged Ace's gesture when I had just recently been lecturing him on manners.

My bad.

But in my defence, my back was extremely stiff from sleeping in the car and my butt felt so numb, I was almost tempted to break into a mini-twerking routine in order to bring it back to its normal self, but that wouldn't have looked very nice in front of a guy who was clearly trying to be gentlemanly and had only just met me a couple of days ago.

In order to relieve my stiff back a little, I stretched and a small groan fell from my lips before I could stop myself and I looked up to see Ace staring at me, his eyebrow quirked, face expressionless.

Expressionless, like he wasn't at all affected to see a girl stretching her body. But then, I had by no means, an enviable body and the groan was probably one of the most unladylike sounds he'd ever heard coming from a girl his age.

Levelling his gaze with an equally ridiculous expression of mine, I urged him to lead the way with a hand gesture and fell into step behind him as we started walking down the hill to the wooden house.

He seemed to know his way well around here as he stepped over tricky spots and manoeuvred his way down easily. I, on the other hand seemed to be stepping on all the wrong stones. I could only dream of the easy grace with which he jumped over unstable rocks, as if he had walked over this path a thousand times.

I was scared to grab hold of the wooden sticks lining the trail on both sides. They looked ancient and I didn't want to go rolling down, slamming against the rocks, were I to lose my balance.

The sound of his even breathing, as we made our way down silently, was doing strange things to me. Not to mention that it was very distracting to see the way his silver blonde hair shone in the sunlight.

So I stopped in my tracks to try and calm myself and figure out a way to reach down safely. Ace was at least a couple meters ahead of me already and I took the chance to admire his back.

His hair brushed the bottom of his nape, a couple inches above the shoulder blades and looked as if it were spun of silver and light gold. I could almost imagine the strands of hair that fell into his ice blue eyes as they stared up at me.

An involuntary shiver went through my body. If this was the effect he had on me-and he wasn't even trying-what would happen if he actually tried to woo me?

Woo?

Oh come on, who even uses that word these days?

Shaking my head, I started walking again, desperately trying to keep my balance when Ace suddenly turned around and threw me a bewildered look.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" He narrowed his eyes. "Don't tell me you were planning to push me."

"N-no!" My voice came out unnaturally loud and way too quick. Realising that it may come off as suspicious, I cleared my throat to explain.

"I mean, I was actually thinking how to not push you because the judging from the way I'm walking at the moment, it's highly likely that I'd fall and pull you down along with me." I pointed towards the sloping ground.

"So," I started walking again. "You better watch-"

My warning was cut off as my foot dislodged a stone and I lost my footing. A scream escaped my lips and I yelled, my eyes wide as I felt myself falling.

"-OUT!" I shouted sharply as I looked at Ace who stood just a few meters away. Just like me, he too seemed extremely surprised and didn't look like he was going to make a move to save himself anytime soon.

I almost wanted to laugh out loud at his stunned expression. It was all slowly widening eyes as if he was coming to a sudden realisation, mouth shaped into an o, no words forming as he instinctively pushed his hands open in front of him but I wasn't sure if I could in my current position.

I could see where this was going. It was clear that I was going to slam right into him, knocking us both down.

If only the idiot would move.

Everything happened in slow motion. I heard a shout from his lips and closed my eyes shut.

Might as well get this over with.

"Oof," A small strangled noise escaped from his mouth as our bodies connected with a nasty smack of chin against chest and I almost cried out loud.

Who in the world has such a hard chest?

Or maybe my chin had just hit a bone. The logical part of my brain that was slowly starting to function, added.

I barely had any time to register the throbbing pain in my chin when I felt Ace's arms going around me, as we both hit the ground together. I let out a cry as my elbow scraped against the hard stone and my head smacked against Ace's and we both went tumbling down.

And...I had no idea why in the hell all I could think about was Humpty Dumpty.

Turned out, I had actually fared quite well and had managed to escape with just a bruised arm, a throbbing face and a cut lip. Ace, on the other hand, did not look so good.

Since his was the body wrapped around mine as we were tumbling downwards, he bore most of the injuries. His jeans were torn from the knees and ankles and blood was slowly clotting underneath the frayed threads that were coming out. Both of his arms and hands were bruised and cut badly mostly because they had been bearing my weight. He had cuts near his eyebrow and on his right ear which he was currently trying to clean.

After the fall, we had both managed to drag ourselves into the house. Ace had somehow managed to fish out the keys from the back pocket of his jeans and unlocked the door, after which we had both started to search around for a First-Aid box.

Now, we were both sat on a couch in the cozy living room as Ace continued to fail terribly at cleaning his wounds.

"Let me." I extended a hand only to receive a glare from icy guy in front of me.

"No, thanks." He hissed and I rolled my eyes.

Not only the guy looked and felt as cold as ice, he even had a heart of ice.

Bloo-no scratch that-icy jerk!

After ten minutes of trying and failing, he finally threw the First-Aid kit onto the couch and got up before stomping up to the kitchen. I sighed and grabbed the kit.

Dipping the cotton in the antiseptic, I tried to reach my wounds but soon realised that it wasn't going to work...at least if I didn't want to end up with sprained limbs.

Sighing, and suppressing my ego, I dragged myself to the kitchen table and slumped down on one of the chairs before pushing the kit towards Ace who stood drinking water, with his back turned towards me.

"I can't reach my cuts." I said in a clipped tone. It was embarrassing to ask for help when the one in front of me hadn't despite being hurt more.

I continued when Ace didn't turn around. He seemed to have froze but that could just have been my imagination.

"Clean mine  and I'll patch you up in return. That way, you won't even have to be grateful." I chose my words carefully, in case I offended him.

"Okay." He finally spoke and I smirked inwardly. No one could turn down a deal proposed by me. Afterall, I was a businessman...well, business girl, but whatever. Same thing.

I held out my arm as he made his way around the kitchen counter and pushed open the First-Aid kit.

"Ow," I jumped as he dabbed antiseptic over my bruises. Even though tears stung in my eyes, I couldn't help but roll them. Where exactly had this guy come from? He clearly did not know how to clean someone's wounds gently.

I tried to steel myself and just bear with it but when he didn't seem to grasp that he was making it downright painful for me, I pulled my arm away, cradling it with my other arm.

Ace looked up at me confused.

"What?"

"It hurt." I told him.

"Um," He struggled for words and I frowned. Could he not get what I was saying or was he himself so used to wounds being cleaned in a painful way that he didn't think a little pain was a big deal?

"Don't press too hard on the cuts."

He seemed to realise what I was saying and widened his eyes in comprehension.

"Oh!" He exclaimed as he held out his hand. "Oh, okay. I'll try not to."

My eyebrows raised, I placed my arm in his hand and this time he went relatively easier on my poor arm. Though, it still stung like hell, it was a whole lot more bearable.

I watched as he quickly finished and then I grabbed a cotton swab. It took me an hour to clean his wounds and I went as gently as I could-partly, so that it hurt as less as possible and partly, so that he could know how it was done.

I smiled victoriously as Ace didn't even flinch during the whole process and was just about to congratulate myself for being an excellent First-Aid administrator when he spoke.

"Don't get too excited. I'm just used to pain so this didn't hurt."

I scowled at him. "You're welcome."

I turned around to discard the dirty cotton when I felt Ace tug at my arm.

"What the-" I started to say but the words died in my throat as I saw him lean in.

Our lips pressed together and many things happened in less than a second.

My eyes fluttered shut. I found myself responding enthusiastically as I felt the undeniable feeling of sparks in my stomach. The First-Aid box was knocked over, the antiseptic bottle smashed onto the floor but at the moment, it was just me, Ace and our lips moving in sync. Together.

________________________________

Well, uh oh, I have no idea what just happened. I swear it wasn't planned at the start of the chapter. It just happened.

Anyway, I hope you like the fourth chapter and the *cough* kiss *cough* because I did work hard on this.

It'd be great if you hit that little star.

Lots of love 😘