darkened, and she traced a line down his arm, then up to his face, fingers stroking through his beard. It was a little tangled and thick. He usually kept it clipped and groomed. He needed to tend to it. “It felt like I needed to be home tonight,” she said. “The closer I got, the more urgent it felt. Then I saw you on the floor…”
She was sensitive to moods, and had a way of gravitating toward customers who might not be having the best day, lifting their spirits. He didn’t typically believe in psychic intuition, but he knew one thing for sure. If Daralyn hadn’t come home when she did, he would have been in far worse shape. The thought brought a harder twist of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She put her chin on the back edge of the sleep chair, her fingers sliding up and down his arm, up and down. Back to play in his beard. “What happened?”
He stared at her. “I’m not as strong as you are,” he said simply. “I thought I was. I was wrong.”
Her brow creased. “That’s not true,” she said quietly. “Everyone stumbles. You just stumbled.”
“Daralyn, I can’t walk. I can’t stumble.”
The lines around her hazel eyes creased in response to her small smile. “You know what I mean.”
There seemed to be this bubble of softness around them, making everything okay to say, but he still hedged on it. “Thanks for making sure my mom didn’t come home,” he said. “She was really looking forward to that trip. Didn’t mean to put taking care of me on you, though. Once I get out of here tomorrow, I can handle things. I’m not looking to turn you into a nurse.”
That was the last thing he’d ever want to ask of the woman he loved. Yeah, when he hit middle age, things might happen where he’d need more help, but that was all down the road, a different version of the same challenges that everyone faced as they got older. Not right now. But something like this cast doubt on that, would drive most women off. Or attract the ones who had an unhealthy and excessive need to be needed.
Or make a natural submissive believe that caring for her Dom’s physical needs was the main role he wanted her to serve.
Hell, he was stirring up a variety of unpleasant feelings. Now wasn’t the time to deal with this.
Daralyn studied him, then she rose, circled around the bed. She slipped into it, scooted close so she could curl her body up behind his. She slid an arm over his chest, letting him find and hold her hand, tangle their fingers together. Fuck, she felt so good, pressed up behind him.
She laid her head between his shoulder blades, her lips on the bare skin revealed between the ties of his hospital gown.
“You are so stupid,” she said distinctly. “I love you.”
He slept fitfully, woken by those harrowing coughs, interfering with his need to breathe. Each time he roused, Daralyn stroked his hair, his back, until he settled, dropped into sleep again. He was reluctant to let go of her hand, held it against his chest. Her fingers moved slowly over the cotton of the gown, feeling the man beneath. It was the first time she’d ever known him to be cold, and he alternated between cold and hot, still battling fever.
Even with the worries all that caused, the second she’d laid down in the bed behind him, the tight fist around every vital organ she had eased. She was back where she needed to be.
It had been a long time since she’d felt the kind of fear she’d experienced when she saw him crumpled on his bedroom floor, the blood on his face, and heard that horrible struggle to breathe as he tried to speak to her.
Though he probably didn’t realize it, she was now almost as familiar with his daily health requirements as he and Elaine were. She’d always paid close attention, and being more intimate with him had only expanded her knowledge.
She knew he wasn’t aware he’d soiled his bed, his clothes. That had frightened her the most, how disoriented he’d seemed. But once the doctor looked him over, and they had cleaned him up, gotten him into a hospital gown, put an IV in to hydrate him, he’d started talking more lucidly. It had made her feel better. It was also good that it had happened before she made the calls. Otherwise she would