by Stacy Gail
He spooned the eggs onto a plate he’d set on a prepared cookie sheet pulling double-duty as a bed tray. Okay, he could admit it. He did look at her differently now, but who could blame him? If anything, he was relieved Sara had some high-octane juice going on in her DNA. Her job was a dangerous one, so any advantage she could get made him a happy camper. What’s more, this new knowledge didn’t change who she was in his eyes. She was still the sexiest, most intriguing, utterly fascinating woman who had ever crossed his path. He wasn’t about to let her bounce out now just because she was suffering from a bout of insecurity.
His determination to ignore her efforts to kick him to the curb came to a halt when he pushed through the bedroom door. Sara was right where he’d left her, though she was now clutching the throw as if it were Linus’s security blanket. Her long mink brown hair tumbled well past her shoulders, and she slumped over drawn-up knees that made sharp peaks under the sheet. She was the picture of abject misery, and a fierce tightening in his chest strangled off his breath when she raised lackluster eyes to his.
“I don’t know if I can eat,” she said without inflection, and the colorless tone told him how much she was suffering. Even at her lowest, there was always a spark of fire in Sara’s voice. “I’m sorry, but maybe I should just try to sleep some more. You don’t have to stay and babysit me.”
“There are no babies here, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.”
She watched him lay the tray down on the bedside table. “I’d think you’d want to be with your dad now, since he’s still in danger.”
“I told you, your father is with him. And since I get the strong impression William wants to break me into pieces and feed me to the dogs every time he looks at me, I’m only too happy to stay out of his way.” He sat next to her and offered a small forkful of egg. “I’ll leave you alone after a few bites. That’s a goal you want to shoot for, right?”
“Right.” With that, she wrapped her pale lips around the offered bite in a thoroughly non-sexual act that nevertheless shot a heavy dose of desire through his system to throb, painfully sweet, in his lower regions. And all the while he had to bite his tongue to keep from swearing at how quickly she’d jumped on the plan of booting him out of the nearest exit.
They got through most of the egg before Sara dropped her head onto the rise of her knees as if it had suddenly doubled in weight. “No more.”
Alerted by the tone, he set the plate aside. “Are you going to be sick?”
“No, it’s...my whole body is cramping.” The admission seemed to take a lot out of her, and her shoulders hunched as though she were imploding. “I’ve never absorbed fire before, so I had no idea it could get this bad.”
“Lie down. On your stomach,” he instructed when she began to slide back down into the rumpled pillows. Her meek compliance only confirmed just how crappy she felt, and that painful-sweet clenching in his chest twisted deeper as he moved to straddle her, the modest veil of the sheet separating them.
“Gideon, what—”
“Tell me where it hurts the most,” he said, and he couldn’t help but smile when she peeked back at him from over her bare shoulder. Her long, usually sleek hair was a tangled mess, her lips were pale and chapped with a fever that would have killed a normal person, and she didn’t have a hint of makeup on. In his eyes, no goddess could have looked more magnificent. “All I want to do is get the worst of the knots out so you can sleep. So cough it up—where does it hurt the worst?”
She only hesitated a second. “My shoulders. My back, and my...”
“Your what?”
She buried her face in her pillow. “My legs and my butt.”
Gideon closed his eyes for a moment and sent up fervent thanks to anyone who was listening. He’d be a good boy and not take advantage; he wasn’t that much of a jerk. But there was no reason on earth why he couldn’t enjoy himself in the process. “Got it. One all-over body massage coming up.”
“I... I don’t know, Gideon—”
“I’m a doctor, Sara. I am capable of being clinical.”
Of course he was, but that wasn’t even in the realm of possibility now, Gideon found himself thinking as he moved her hair aside and pulled the sheet down to bunch at the small of her back. Clinical detachment was all well and good, and under normal circumstances he could slip into that professional mode as easily as donning a lab coat. But he’d never been clinical about Sara. As leggy and dangerous as his most erotic fantasy come to life, she was femininity and strength all rolled into one, the personification of everything he found desirable.
So, no. Clinical was the one thing that wasn’t going to happen.
The first touch of his hands against her shoulders reminded him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t well. If it had been anyone else, he would have been calling for an ambulance and ice packs galore. She practically sizzled beneath his touch, and the intensity of heat radiating from her distracted him so much he almost missed the delicacy of her bone structure. For a tall woman she possessed a fragile frame, and his hands seemed far too brutal to ever come into contact with such an ethereal being. Then the muscles spasmed, and the sense of awe dwindled under the single-minded drive to ease her suffering.
He worked methodically, pushing his thumbs into the worst of the knots at the base of her neck until she whimpered. He had the feeling she wanted to kick a heel into his back, even felt her twitch, but she kept still as he kneaded the rigid trapezoid muscles until they loosened to flow under his touch. Inch by inch he worked his way down, noting with interest the extra ridge of muscle from which the wings of fire seemed to emanate, and the analytical part of his mind was now more curious as to how much energy and extras within her anatomy it took to make flight possible.
Apart from the radiant heat, her skin was impossibly soft, a silken delight that didn’t seem real. He couldn’t get enough of the feel of her, smoothing his palms down the subtle ladder of her rib cage while working the muscles that lined her spine. He took a moment to work out her triceps and biceps, delighting in how he could feel her wire-taut tension drain out of her like a living thing. Then he moved to one side, pausing to give her an opportunity to protest as his hand closed in on the veiling sheet.
“Sara?” Funny, how he could be a gentleman when he wanted to be.
She barely stirred. “Please. I hurt.”
A wave of something far sharper and sweeter than desire roared through him, and with renewed gentleness bordering on reverence Gideon peeled the sheet away.
Wow.
The breathtaking expanse of her body was a sight he wouldn’t forget, all smooth curves and elegant lines that had his mind emptying and mouth drying up. The swell of her ass alone was enough to make his heart still for two full beats before it started up again in a place that was thoroughly inappropriate for the situation. Absently he adjusted the tightening material of his jeans to accommodate the heady thrust of his arousal before he leaned over her.
Sweat popped out along his brow as he placed his hands on her hips, trying to think only of the muscles lying beneath the exquisite satin of her skin—the latissimus dorsi muscles flowing downward into the small of her back, the gluteus medius riding along her hip and flowing into the gluteus maximus, the powerful muscles that made bipedal locomotion possible. A magnificent structure of firm, rounded flesh that fit into his palms to perfection, as his fingers squeezed and rubbed and squeezed some more...
Oh God, he loved her ass.
Her legs were another agony of ecstasy for him to bear, and he threw himself into treating them to his massaging, exploratory ministrations as if his life depended on it. The outsides of her thighs were actually cool to the touch, a fact that barely registered in his fevered brain. He was too involved in trying to memorize the living-silk sensation of her unblemished, surprisingly fragile flesh. Desire pulsed a quiet, drugging rhythm through every cell of his body, and the confining rub of his jeans against his stiffened arousal was such a pleasant frustration t
o bear he couldn’t help but grind his teeth against it.
Self-torture really was going to be the death of him.
Sara’s legs had been the first thing he’d noticed about her when they’d been introduced at his going-away party. They were so outstanding in their perfection they were almost unreal, so it was easy to believe she wasn’t fully of this world. Now, as she lay bare before him, he could only sigh in heartfelt appreciation at her heavenly construction. The backs of her thighs went on for a country mile—slim columns of bone, muscle and sinew that possessed the power to either kick a man to death or squeeze him in an intimate embrace so passionate that being crushed by it would have been worth it. Even as he devoted himself to the taut hamstrings wracked with spasms, all he could see in his mind was Sara—her eyes closed as ecstasy overtook her, the clench of her legs around his waist as he’d bunched up her dress and drove himself so hard into her she took him up to his hilt...
A faint snore whispered from where Sara’s head was cradled in her arm. Snapped out of feverish memories, Gideon was all but panting when he glanced up at her. He could see part of her face, now relaxed and peaceful, her eyes closed and her breathing even.
Asleep. She was asleep, while he was on the verge of exploding.
A self-deprecating laugh huffed silently out of Gideon before he rose off the mattress with great care so as not to jostle her, and settled the sheet over her. A second later he thought better of it, pulled it back down to place a kiss on each lovely, rounded cheek, then draped it back into place. What mattered was that she was no longer suffering, and that she trusted him enough to fall into a deep, untroubled sleep while in his care. More than ever, he was determined to keep that trust from slipping away again.
Which meant it was now time for the coldest shower he’d ever taken in his life.
Chapter Ten
It was amazing what a good massage and sleeping the clock around could do for a body. With a satisfied sigh, Sara stepped out of the shower on legs that could now support her without threatening to disappear. A quick toweling off and a slathering of ginger-flower-scented moisturizer, and she was almost human again.
Human. Her mouth tightened, and she could all but taste the irony as she reached for the hair dryer. The one thing she had never doubted was that she was a human being, with all the flaws and foibles that came along with it. How could she be anything else, when she had the daily human hassles of potential morning breath, split ends and monthly crabbiness to deal with? Not only had she never questioned it, she’d never given a thought to explaining it to someone outside the tightly knit world that was Lynchpin. Way back in her childhood she’d made the rock-solid, unwavering decision to allow no one in her life who didn’t already know the Savitch family secret, so explaining it had never been a cloud on her horizon.
So much for great plans hatched in the single digits of age.
All things considered though, Gideon seemed to be handling the strangeness that had dropped into his life like a pro. Or at least she thought he was, she reconsidered as she wrapped herself up in a silky black knee-length robe and headed carefully downstairs. While her brain had been baking away with all the fire she’d absorbed, it was possible her perceptions might have been off. At the time she’d been fairly comfortable he’d accepted her genetic oddities, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she’d been so out of it she’d missed the silent scream in his eyes. It could be he was still here simply out of a grudging obligation because she’d saved him from getting flash-fried.
No time like the present to find out. “Good morning.” The moment Sara entered the kitchen and saw Gideon’s wide back under a plain gray T-shirt, a smile bloomed without conscious thought. Then that impressive back stiffened, as if he’d been poked with a hot iron, and the smile trickled away. Maybe his acceptance really had been just a product of her feverish imagination. “Sorry I don’t have much food in the house. I’m not what you would call domestic. Every attempt I’ve made when it comes to cooking has been on the level of a Greek tragedy, so I pretty much live on candy, cereal and microwave popcorn.”
“Breakfast of champions, I’m sure. But if it’s all right with you, I’d like to try something different. How do you feel about French toast?”
Despite her bout of nerves, her mouth watered to the point of drooling. “Do I have ingredients for that?”
“You didn’t, but when I went to pick up some clothes, I also did a little shopping.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, and just as quickly away again as he fiddled with a skillet on the stovetop. “You look better.”
Behind his back, Sara cringed at the memory of the god-awful hag’s reflection that had stared back at her in the mirror before she tried drowning herself in the shower. “I feel better. Give me one more day and I’ll be back to my old butt-kicking self.”
“Don’t rush it,” he advised, gesturing for her to take a seat at the marble-topped table in the open-plan kitchen-dining area. “You don’t want to be a liability to anyone, especially yourself.”
“I’ve already lost three days.” Then she paused. “Haven’t I?”
“It’s been three days, but I wouldn’t call them lost.” Joining her at the table, he slid a plate of piping hot, golden brown French toast before her along with a bottle of syrup. “I’ll bet you’re still running a fever.”
“I can’t feel it.”
“I can see it.” Without warning, he reached across the table and laid his hand against her cheek. “See? Still burning up.”
“It’s...” Her brain executed a textbook fade-away, until all was quiet inside her head and the universe pinpointed on the warm glide of his palm against her cheek. “Um. I’m still warm from the, um...the, um...” What the hell was it called? “Shower.”
He made a noncommittal sound, his hand lingering against her cheek with heart-stopping gentleness, the pads of his fingers sliding over her flesh as if fascinated by its texture. Then he dropped it and focused on doctoring up his plate with the intensity of a man single-handedly dismantling a thermonuclear device. “Nevertheless, I’d appreciate it if you’d take it easy for another twenty-four hours or so before reporting back into work. Both Lynchpin and the Feds are now all over this case, so you can sit back and relax.”
“Relax. Right.” She echoed him more out of a need for something to say than in agreement, and it was all she could do to stop herself from reaching up to her cheek to hold onto the delicious sensation of his unintentional caress. To occupy herself, she grabbed the maple syrup and dumped it all over her plate. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share any news on how things are going with Noah, or if there are any developments in the case?”
“That would fall under the category of working, not relaxing, so no. No shoptalk for twenty-four hours.”
She sighed and picked up her fork. “Today is going to be so boring.”
“Probably, since I’m going to force you to do nothing but rest.” He shrugged with a total lack of sympathy and gestured at her plate. “Would you like some French toast with your syrup?”
In between healthy bites, Sara had the grace to look sheepish. “I know, I know. My sweet tooth is legendary. But I have this crazy-fast metabolism that needs a constant intake of calories, and sugar is the best energy boost around. After this, I’ll probably chase it down with a candy bar and chocolate milk.”
He snorted as she plowed her way through the meal. “It’s incredible you can eat like that and still have such a perfect body.”
The moment the words hit the atmosphere it was like a noiseless bomb went off. She stilled, her fork halfway to her mouth as he did the same, freezing in the process of cutting off another mouthful of French toast. For a full second her pulse stilled while her gaze lifted to lock with his, and in that small eternity of time she saw something she’d half-feared she’d never see in his eyes again.
Desire.
Gideon pushed away from the table hard enough to make the chair legs scrape across the floor. “Sorry,�
�� he gritted out, picking up their plates and clearing the table in distracted, jerky movements. “Not very professional of me to say something like that. Forget I said anything.”
“I’m out of the woods now, Gideon. You don’t have to keep playing the good doctor.” Though she was sorry to see her half-eaten food go down the garbage disposal, Sara was far more interested in his behavior. If he were a perp or a target, she would have no problem figuring out which way he was going to jump, but this man-woman tension singing between them had her internal radar so on the fritz she could do nothing more than fly blind and hope for the best. “Do you...do you really think I have a nice body?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, her heart began to beat her to death, right along with her horrified brain. Holy crap, what the hell was she thinking, asking him such an inflammatory question? Talk about putting the poor guy on the spot. They both knew a body capable of producing six wings of fire was anything but nice, so—
“I didn’t say nice.”
Her heart plummeted. Splatted. Died.
“I said perfect.”
Relief bloomed so fiercely she was dizzy with it. But he still kept his back to her, and with the need to see what was in his eyes spurring her on, she rose to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Gideon—”
“Don’t touch,” he snapped, shocking her. She recoiled as if suffering an electric shock, while he gripped the edge of the counter until his knuckles showed white. “Not unless you’re ready for what comes next, and trust me—you’re not up for that. That’s why I’m doing my best to be a gentleman and keep my distance.”
“Are you sure you’re not keeping your distance out of disgust for...” Her jaw knotted against the words she didn’t want to say. Funny, how this made her want to hide when a barrage of Molotov cocktails didn’t even make her blink. “For what I am? It’s okay if you are, I totally get that—”
