he told her.
‘You can’t? But…’
Since he was already sitting on the side of the bed, Claire was puzzled by his refusal, until he informed her softly, ‘In order to get into bed I’ve got to take this robe off first, and if I do that…’ He paused deliberately, and as she unwittingly focused on the bare V of warm brown flesh in front of her, with its soft, tantalising tangle of silky dark hair, she suddenly realised what he meant: that he was naked beneath his robe.
Her soft, betraying ‘Oh’ and the quick flush of colour that stained her skin made Brad ache to reach out and take hold of her, to pull her down against his body and…
Stop that, he warned himself, stifling a low groan of unexpected arousal. There were some things that even the threat of a feverish chest infection couldn’t keep down—quite literally, he realised in wry self-mockery.
‘I… I’d better go downstairs,’ Claire mumbled awkwardly. ‘I was wondering… if you’d like a hot-water bottle,’ she added, and then wondered what on earth had made her make such a patently silly offer. He was an adult, not a child, and, unlike Sally, he—
‘A hot-water bottle…’ Brad closed his eyes and gave a long, appreciative sigh. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more…’
Oh, yes, he could, he corrected himself as he watched Claire disappear. He could think of something he’d quite definitely like very, very much more, and that was holding Claire’s body next to his own… a real, live comforter.
Ten minutes later when Claire returned she was concerned to see how much more hectically flushed Brad was, his breathing painfully rasping and laboured. As she leaned across the bed to hand him the hot-water bottle she could feel the feverish heat coming off his body. Concerned, she asked him, ‘Would you like me to send for a doctor? Your breathing… I’m—’
‘No… I’ll be OK,’ Brad assured her. ‘It sounds worse than it is.’
‘Are you sure?’ Claire queried doubtfully. ‘You—’
‘I’m sure,’ Brad told her firmly. ‘A good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine.’
It might not strictly speaking be the truth, Brad acknowledged ruefully as he watched Claire walking away from him, waiting until she had closed the door behind her to let his body relax into the racking fit of shivers he had managed to suppress whilst she was there, but he knew these feverish bronchial attacks of old and they always seemed worse to the onlooker than they actually were.
Claire made an irritated sound of self-criticism as she got out of the bath and remembered that she hadn’t locked the back door. Reaching for her towelling robe, she pulled it on over her still damp body, acknowledging that she had better go and do so before she forgot—again.
The back door securely locked, she had almost reached her own bedroom when she heard a noise from Brad’s room. She paused, and heard him cry out. Something was wrong.
Quickly she hurried into his room. The bedside lamp was switched on, a glass of water which Brad must have fetched from the bathroom earlier next to it. Brad was lying on his side, facing away from her, muttering something hoarsely under his breath. As Claire strained to hear what it was she automatically reached across the bed towards him, saying his name with anxious urgency.
When he didn’t make any response her anxiety increased. She touched his bare shoulders lightly, wincing as she felt the heat coming off his skin, and listened to the harsh bark of his cough. This time he registered her presence, turning over to face her, saying something that she couldn’t catch and then calling out sharply, ‘No… No… It isn’t true… Dad…’
Claire shivered as she heard the pain in his voice and realised that he was talking in his sleep—a very feverish and restless sleep, if the tumbled state of the bedclothes and the low, emotional sound of his voice were anything to go by, she recognised.
Did he dream of his dead parents often, she wondered compassionately as she heard him whisper his father’s name a second time, or was this just a side effect of his fever?
As he’d turned over the duvet had slid down his body, exposing his torso, warmly tanned and firmly muscled, but it wasn’t sensual feminine appreciation of his maleness that Claire felt most strongly as she looked at him but anxious concern as she saw the sweat-soaked dampness of his body hair and the hectic heat of his skin. She watched as, despite the heat, he started to shiver convulsively, another spasm of the harsh, dry cough she had heard earlier racking his chest so painfully that her own actually seemed to ache in sympathetic response.
Automatically she reached out to pull the duvet back up over him, instinctively soothing him with the kind of low-voiced, gentle comfort she had always given Sally as a child. The intensity of the fever worried her and she regretted not insisting on sending for a doctor earlier.
As she tried to tuck the duvet more securely around him her fingertips accidentally touched his skin. Its heat shocked her, fuelling her anxiety. She placed her hand against his forehead. His skin felt burning hot, his hair soaked with sweat.
He was talking in his sleep again, protesting about something or someone—she couldn’t tell.
‘It’s all right, Brad,’ she told him gently. ‘Everything is all right.’
‘Claire…’
Claire froze as the eyes she had thought closed in a deep, fever-fuelled sleep abruptly opened, their gaze focusing on and then fusing hypnotically with hers.
Claire found herself becoming slightly breathless and dizzy as she tried to wrench her eyes away from the hot, mesmerising glitter of Brad’s and discovered that she could not do so.
‘Claire,’ he said again, his voice lower, huskier, the sound of her name something between a growl and a groan. Then he said huskily, ‘You’re here… I thought you were just a dream… Come closer.’
‘No, Brad, you don’t…’ Claire started to protest, but with surprising strength Brad reached for her, one hand encircling her wrist, the other wrapping around her as he sat up and half lifted and half pulled her with firm insistence onto the bed next to him.
‘I thought you were just a dream,’ he whispered throatily as his hands framed her face. ‘But you’re not. You’re actually here, and real… very, very real.’
Claire knew that she should say something, do something, but somehow she couldn’t, didn’t, her body shocked into immobility as Brad breathed the last three words against her lips before gently brushing his own against hers in a kiss that was so tenderly sweet with gentle promise that Claire felt her whole body ache with yearning for him.
This was no brutal, selfish assault on her body, fuelled by a male sexual desire that was completely without emotion or any recognition of her as a person, a woman with needs and emotions of her own.
This was the kiss of a man who knew, who understood, who even in what Claire could only suppose was some fever-induced physical desire for her was still carefully tender and mindful of her vulnerability.
Claire could feel her body start to tremble as Brad cupped her face in his hands and continued to caress her lips with his, brushing gently over them again and again until they felt softly moist, pliantly eager for a more lingering and intense caress.
Without
