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“Chauvinist,” she said mildly in reply, wondering if his smiles ever reached his eyes.
He unfastened the cutoffs and let them drop, then stepped out of them and limped into the bathroom. “I’ll wash what I can reach, then call you to do the rest, all right?”
“Yes,” she said, her throat tightening at the thought of feeling his body under her hands again. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t washed him before, but he was awake now, and he had kissed her. It was her own response to him that was making her nervous, not worrying over anything he might do. He was still too much of an invalid to make any serious advances.
There was no need for her to sleep with him now; it would be easier on both of them if she didn’t make a big deal out of it and simply made a pallet before he came out of the bathroom. Thinking that, she took a couple of quilts from the top of the closet and unfolded them on the floor, then dragged a pillow from the bed and tossed it down. She wouldn’t need a cover; her robe would be enough.
After twenty minutes he opened the door. “I’m ready for the reinforcements.”
He wore only a towel knotted around his lean waist, and he was literally weaving on his feet. Rachel looked at him closely, concern driving away her nervousness. He was pale, the skin stretched tautly over his high cheekbones, but his lips were very red. “I think you’re feverish again,” she said, laying her hand against his cheek. He was too warm, but the fever wasn’t nearly as high as it had been before. Quickly she lowered the lid on the toilet and helped him to sit down, then gave him two aspirin and a glass of water before she finished washing his torso, working as fast as she could. The sooner he was in bed, the better. She should have been looking for the fever to flare again after the way he’d pushed himself that day.
“Sorry about this,” he muttered as she dried him. “I didn’t intend to give out on you this way.”
“You’re not Superman,” Rachel told him briskly. “Come on, let’s get you in bed.”
She helped him to stand, and he said, “Wait.” Removing his right arm from around her shoulders, he tugged the towel loose from his waist and draped it over one of the towel racks. Totally and unconcernedly nude, he put his arm back around her shoulders and leaned on her heavily as she hel
ped him walk to the bed. Rachel didn’t know if she should laugh or get huffy with him, but in the end she decided to ignore his lack of clothing. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him before, and if it didn’t bother him, it shouldn’t bother her.
Even though he was feverish and exhausted, nothing escaped his notice. He saw the pallet at the foot of the bed, and his dark, level brows lowered as his eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
“My bed.”
He looked at it, then at her. His voice was quiet. “Get that damned thing up from there and get in bed with me, where you belong.”
She gave him a long, cool look. “You’re presuming a lot on the basis of one kiss. You’re a lot better now. I won’t need to get up with you during the night, so I don’t need to sleep with you.”
“After sleeping with me that many times, why stop now? God knows it can’t be modesty at this stage, and sex is out of the question. Any pass I made would be false advertising, and you know it.”
She didn’t want to laugh, didn’t want him to know that his logic seemed very…logical. It wasn’t the thought of what he might do that made her wary of sleeping with him now, but rather the knowledge of what it would mean to her to lie beside him in the night, to feel his weight and warmth in the bed next to her. She’d gotten used to sleeping alone, and it was painful to rediscover the subtle but powerful pleasure of sharing the dark hours with a man.
He put his hand on her throat, his callused thumb rubbing the sensitive tendons running down to her shoulder and making her shiver. “There’s another reason why I want you to sleep with me.”
She didn’t know if she wanted to hear it. That cold, lethal expression was in his eyes again, the look of a man for whom there were no illusions, who had seen the worst and not been surprised. “I’ll be right there, at the foot of the bed,” she whispered.
“No. I want you at hand, so I’ll know exactly where you are at all times. If I have to use the knife I want to make certain you don’t accidentally get in the way.”
She turned her head and looked at the knife, still lying there on the table beside the bed. “No one can break in without waking us.”
“I’m not taking that chance. Get in the bed. Or we’ll both sleep on the floor.”
He meant it, and with a sigh she gave in; there was no use in both of them being uncomfortable. “All right. Let me get my pillow.”
His hand dropped to his side, and Rachel retrieved her pillow, tossing it into place on the bed. Gingerly he eased between the sheets, and a low groan escaped him as he lay back, putting strain on his shoulder. She turned out the light and got into bed on the opposite side, pulling the sheet up over both of them and curling up in her usual position, just as if they had done this for years, but the casual pose was completely superficial. She was tightly knotted inside; his caution was catching. She doubted that he really expected the men who were hunting him to break into the house in the middle of the night, but he prepared himself, anyway.
The old house settled around them with comfortable squeaks and groans; in the evening silence she could hear the crickets chirping outside the window, but the familiar noises didn’t reassure her. Her thoughts roamed restlessly, trying to piece her snippets of information into a coherent picture. He was on vacation, but he’d been ambushed? Why were they trying to get rid of him? Had he learned something they wanted suppressed? She wanted to ask him, but his quiet, even breathing told her that he had already gone to sleep, worn out from the day.
Without thinking, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. It was a purely automatic gesture, left over from the nights she had needed to be aware of his every movement.
There was no warning, only the lightning-fast strike of his right hand as his hard fingers clamped around her wrist with a force that bruised and twisted. Rachel cried out, in fear as much as pain, every nerve in her jolted by his attack. The hand that held her wrist slackened a little, and he muttered, “Rachel?”
“You’re hurting me!” The involuntary protest was wrung from her, and he released her completely, sitting up in the bed and swearing softly under his breath.
Rachel rubbed her bruised wrist, staring up at the faint outline of his body against the darkness. “I think the pallet would be safer,” she finally said, trying for lightness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to touch you. It just…happened.”
His voice was rough. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. My wrist is bruised, that’s all.”
