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Iwake wrapped around Clark’s entire body. I love the hard body of a man. And Clark has a very hard body with massive muscles stretching throughout his impressive physique. But I instantly sense coldness, and he’s clammy. I pull back enough to feel his forehead. He’s burning up. Is it because of me spreading my own body heat through him?
“Clark?” I whisper, and he wakes with a little moan, and as he moves, his side of the covers is soaked. Not only does he have a fever, but he’s also chilled, sleeping in his sweat.
“Clark, I need you to wake up.” We were both so lost in one another, something I still can’t wrap my head around.
“Xan, I don’t feel good.”
I pop out of bed, pulling for my clothes. He needs to change, and I have to stoke the fire again. It’s burned out in the hours we’ve clung to each other’s bodies.
“I know, baby.” I just called this man, baby. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes, okay, and then I’ll start the fire.”
I’m frantic in my movements. But more so, I want to care for Clark as I cared for David in our seven years together.
“Hey, when was the last time you had something to drink?” I ask as if I know what I’m talking about and I’m a medical doctor.
“You know, I’ve been a little bit busy.”
We both blush at his explanation, and I grab water from the counter. It’s colder than the ones in the fridge.
He rolls over to his side, and I take some clean clothes from my backpack on my way back to him. “Okay, don’t guzzle it, drink it slowly. And, let’s get you in clean clothes, then I’ll start the fire again.”
He’s not shy as he strips, as it’s obvious I’ve seen every part of his body. “Need help standing?” He shimmies the pants up his legs, minus boxers. When he stands, his hand lands on me to steady himself. Somehow the idea of his trust in something as simple as giving him physical support makes my heart burst.
“Why don’t I move the large, overstuffed chair closer to the fireplace?”
I reach for his forehead again, and he leans into my touch. “Sure, but I just can’t stand long.”
The last thing I can handle is someone as large as Clark passing out on me. Someone like Jennifer Laney or my mother is small, and I could move them. Clark would have to stay put until he woke.
“Stay here until I get this moved, okay?” He doesn’t respond, but I don’t think he wants to challenge me.
The chair is a fucking heavy ass thing, and I scrape it across the floor.
“Hey.” I swing around to grab him. “Hold onto me.” His touch affects me more than I expect, but after just two times together, there’s something I’m not sure I can explain, even to myself. “Careful,” I demand as he lowers himself into the chair.
“Thanks, Xan.” I know Clark better than most people. I’ve studied him in order to defeat him in the past, but with it, I understand the true Clark Farmer. “Hey, Xan?” he asks.
“Yeah?” I return the question, and baby is on the tip of my tongue.
“How much longer will it be before they find us? It’s Sunday. Surely, the firm has contacted our families.”
This is a vulnerability in Clark he’s never shown me, not with the hours we spent competing against one another in a sport where we were on the same team or in the years we’d been thrust together with college and law school. This is a different side of Clark Farmer.
“It was still snowing as of last night. They may not have been able to get on the roads until it stops.” I walk to the window and am shocked. “Finally, it’s done snowing. So, hopefully they can get out and search for us soon.”
He shoots his eyes in the other direction, and a glint of moisture appears under one of them. “My ma and brother are going crazy, thinking they lost me, too. The grief my mother had after Dad died, she can’t go through it again.”
My mom had a front-row seat to Martina Farmer’s grief, which wasn’t pretty, in her exact words. Raw and ugly was how she described the loss of someone such a fixture in your life, here one day and gone the next.
The logs are starting to burn, releasing just a fraction of the heat that they will once they’re fully engulfed by the flames. I take a few steps toward him, landing on my knees, my hands on his thighs.
“I can’t imagine what you went through.” I can’t because I may shed a tear for my dad because he is my dad at the end of the day, but just by biology. I won’t tell him this, but losing my mother would knock me off my axis, and I’m not sure I’d ever be the same again. “But Marty is one of the strongest women I know, and she hasn’t given up hope on you because you naturally come by that strong Farmer blood. She knows your time on this earth is not finished.”
His fingers thread through my hair, and he pushes my head down to his thigh for nothing more than the physical comfort we’re providing one another.
“You’ve made me see you in a different light, Xan.”
Where I had once hated him calling me Xan, I prefer it falling from his lips now.
