Fever Read Online Free Page B

was better . Her tight muscles released, and for the first time in hours, her anxiety lessened. Oh, that felt heavenly.
    “Good?”
    “Mm.” She reached up for the compress. She pressed it lightly and water ran into her hair, cooling the roots. She sighed with pleasure.
    “Want more?”
    Her eyes fluttered open. Their gazes connected, and that heavy feeling came into the air again. He held another dripping washrag in his hand.
    Her pulse skipped a beat. She stared at the cloth, lost in a dreamlike haze. She wanted its cooling effects.
    She wanted his touch even more.
    She always had.
    “Lie back,” he said softly.
    Arousal suddenly swirled through her veins, riding along with the tide of heat. As delirious as she was, she knew what he intended to do—and she knew what line of intimacy it crossed. It was a line she’d shied away from. She’d been afraid to even approach it, but now, with him standing over her, it didn’t even occur to her to say “no”.
    He’d promised to make it better.
    Wide-eyed, she settled back against the pillow, willfully putting herself in his hands. The never-ending heat looped around her. It spiraled out to him, and something fierce and hungry flashed in his eyes. The emotion was quickly subdued, but not before she’d seen it.
    Determinedly, he took a step forward.
    Delia shuddered when he touched her. The cloth brushed against her jaw line, impersonal and businesslike. It didn’t matter. The flame inside her retreated.
    Only to gather and regroup deep in her very core.
    The intensity of it made her clench her thighs together. Oh, God. It had been playing with her before. Toying with her.
    “Too cold?” he asked, hesitating.
    She fought back a groan. “Too hot,” she whispered.
    In so many ways.
    His breath whistled out between his lips, but that was the only reaction he allowed her to see. Like an automaton, he slid the soothing cloth down her neck. She tilted her head, already a slave to the pleasure. He was being so careful. So attentive. The cooling moisture swept over her shoulder and down her arm. He pressed the damp ball of material into her palm, and her fingers curled around it. Rivulets of water slid down her forearm.
    “Ohhh,” she gasped.
    “Are you always this sensitive?” he asked, his voice rough.
    “No…yes.” She didn’t know.
    She was today. Despite his efforts to comfort her, the unexpected heat in her belly was blooming. Its power was concentrated, double that of anything she’d fought all day.
    And it was growing.
    “Does it hurt?” he asked.
    Pleasure. Pain. It was getting harder to tell one from the other. “Good. It feels good.”
    “Then we’ll try this for a while and see if we can knock that fever down.”
    For a while?
    Heaven help her. She knew what he was like when he put his focus on something.
    He set about his mission, and Delia was lost. Sensation buffeted her. Touch dominated, but all her senses were heightened. She could feel the damp terrycloth as it slid, rough and wet, against her skin. She could hear his deep breaths. Feel his undivided attention. Taste her own need.
    Her vision narrowed until it was just the two of them.
    But the fever fought back.
    Deep inside her, a white-hot battle blazed. She began to squirm on the mattress, silently begging him as he stroked her. He was avoiding those parts of her that needed his ministrations the most. Time and again, he sponged down her arms, her belly, and her legs. Always careful in his touch. Always avoiding where the heat was burning brightest.
    “More,” she whispered.
    “I know, hot stuff, I know,” he crooned. Her toes curled as he wiped the arch of her foot. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
    He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. If he knew, he wouldn’t be tormenting her like this.
    Any self-consciousness that Delia had left slipped away. Her nipples peaked, and her hips tilted. Her core was on fire. She let her thighs drop open. The air in the room