Rachael laughed softly. “You’d better put on clothes then. I don’t think anything else is going to help.”
“Do you even know what you’re saying?”
She frowned at the tone of his voice. “I don’t know. Should I lie to you?”
“Do you always tell the truth?” It was a challenge.
Her eyes met his. “When I can. I prefer the truth. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. You just seemed so at home without clothes. I didn’t think you could be real. I thought I made you up.” Her gaze drifted over his chest, dropped lower to inspect his flat stomach, the dark brush of hair and his thick shaft, moved over the strong columns of his thighs. “I’m not actually certain where I am or how I got here. Isn’t that strange?”
She sounded lost. Vulnerable. His belly did that strange somersault he was beginning to associate with her. “Never mind.” Rio wiped her face with the cool damp cloth. “You’re safe with me and that’s all that matters. I don’t care if you want to stare at me. I suppose it’s flattering to have a woman like you admiring me.”
“What kind of woman am I?”
“A sick one.” He peeled back the cover, wishing he hadn’t fed the fire in the fireplace, not even for hot water needed to cleanse her wounds. For both their sakes he needed to cool the room down. “I’m going to open the door for a few minutes. The wind should help. Don’t move.”
“I wasn’t planning on it. I feel odd, sort of heavy, like I can’t move.”
Rio ignored her comment, opening the door to allow the wind to clear the room of the smell of blood and infection. Of flowers. Of the scent of a woman. The cool air rushed through the room, whipped at the blankets covering the windows, tugged at Rachael’s hair. In the soft glow of the lantern, he could see that her face was flushed, her body too hot.
“Rachael,” Rio said her name softly, hoping to bring her partially back so she understood what was happening to her. “I’m going to open your shirt. I’m not making a pass at you, I’m just trying to cool your body down.”
“You look so worried.”
“I am worried. You’re very sick. I don’t have a lot of medicine with me. I have a small knowledge of herbs, but I’m not near ly as good as the local medicine man from the tribe.” He sat in the chair and leaned over her, his fingers brushing soft skin as he slipped the buttons from the holes to open her shirt.
Her full breasts beckoned to him, the call much stronger than he had anticipated. Touching her felt familiar and right. Rio dipped the cloth in the water and bathed her skin, trying to be impersonal when nothing about touching her seemed impersonal.
“My leg hurts.” Rachael tried to reach down to feel the wound, but Rio caught her hand.
“That won’t help, try to think of something else.” He needed to think of something else. The cold water turned her nipples into hard, inviting peaks. “Tell me what you’re doing here.”
Her eyes widened. “Don’t I live here?” She looked around her, her gaze moving over the room and back to him. “Didn’t we move here? I thought you wanted to live someplace where we could be alone and stay naked all day long together.”
Her words struck a chord deep in his memory. A vision of another time and place. Rain falling softly against the roof. A breeze ruffling the curtains at an open window. Rachael turning over in an ornately carved bed, her dark, chocolate eyes filled with love. With that same honest admiration. Soft laughter played like a movie in his head. Her voice. Soft and sultry and sinfully tempting.
Emotion choked him. He didn’t know what he felt, only that it was all-encompassing. “Did I say that?”
The cloth moved over the swell of her breast, lingered in the valley and slipped along the soft underside. “I surprise myself sometimes. It sounds like a very good idea.”
“When I look at you, there’s a light surrounding you.” Her expression was mischievous, teasing. “I’d say a halo, but certain parts of your anatomy seem to be keeping you from sainthood.”
“Or elevating me to that status.” He had no idea where the words came from, or that teasing, familiar tone. He was always gruff and surly with strangers, yet Rachael didn’t feel like a stranger to him. He dipped the cloth in the bowl of water and allowed it to trace the soft swell of her breast. Even that felt familiar to him. He knew her body intimately. He knew there would be a small birthmark right above her buttocks on the left side if he turned her over. He knew the feel of dipping his tongue into her enticing belly button and making a slow foray lower. He knew exactly what she would taste like. It was in his mouth, a honeyed spicy tang that always left him craving more.
“Do you know me, Rachael?” He leaned close, his gaze capturing hers. “When you look at me, do you know me?”
She flung out her hand so that her fingertips rested intimately on his bare thigh. “Why do you ask me that? Of course I know you. I love just lying in bed with you, your arms around me, listening to the rain. Listening to the sound of your voice and the stories you tell.” Her smile was far away, dreamy.
“It’s always been my favorite thing to do.”
She was burning up with fever. Her body was so hot to his touch he was afraid the cloth was going to burst into flames. He bathed her wrists and the back of her neck, beginning to feel desperate. The wind cooled the room but her body was flushed a bright red. Her leg was a mess, swollen and infected, blood oozing from the wound. His stomach lurched.
“Rachael.” He said her name in despair. Her palm was burning a hole through his skin where it rested.
“You’re afraid for me?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly. Because he was. For both of them. He was as confused as she was.
Abruptly he rose and prowled across the room to stand in the open door. The wind was dying down, a lull before the next wave hit. He was moody and restless and uncomfortable in his own home. The forest beckoned, the treetops swaying, leaves nearly silver as they rustled all around him with their own strange melody. He found the sound soothing in the midst of his uncertainty.