by Elise Faber
Like a moron, she didn’t look through the peephole.
Instead, she flung it open and—
Tanner was there.
“You look like shit,” he said.
Kels rolled her eyes, but the movement made her already wavering body falter more, and she stumbled.
“Shit, sweetheart.” He rushed forward and grabbed her arm to steady her.
She batted him away, almost fell backward in the process.
“Right,” he said, using his foot to close the door before sweeping her up into his arms. The lock clicked a moment later, and then they were moving toward her bedroom.
Totally different walk than she’d wanted the last time he was in her apartment.
“You’re burning up,” he muttered. “When did you take some medicine?”
He was slipping her beneath the covers of her bed and goodness that was lovely, so lovely, in fact, that she closed her eyes and burrowed deeper. Tan brushed her hair out of her face. “Babe. Medicine?”
“Don’t have any,” she said, and when he cursed, added, “Instacart. Should be here in twenty.”
A sigh. “Okay,” he said. “But if it’s not here by then, I’m going out to get some.”
Great. Now he just needed to shut up so she could sleep.
“Want a cool cloth for your head?” he asked softly.
Since that sounded like nirvana, she nodded, though she instantly regretted the movement when her head spun.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, brushing his fingers on her forehead. They were cold, and it was glorious enough that she leaned up slightly to prolong the contact. But then he broke the contact, telling her, “Be right back.”
Eyes still closed and much more comfortable now that she was in bed, Kels let her body relax and slip toward sleep again.
But she wasn’t so far gone as to not hear the conversation in the other room.
“Hey, Bas,” Tan said. “No, she’s really sick. Fever, chills, cough. You’d better stay away and tell Rachel to do the same. The last thing either of you needs is to be sick for your own wedding.”
A pause. The sound of a faucet turning on and off.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think it’s serious. I’ll get some medicine in her, and I’m sure she’ll be better in no time.”
Another blip of quiet then, “Yeah, I’ll call you if anything changes. Tell your mom to call off the dogs, okay? We’ll try to keep this contained and not bring the plague to your wedding.”
“Okay, talk to you later,” Tan’s voice rose in volume, and then the cloth was on her forehead and it was the best sensation of her life. “Rest, sweetheart. I’ll be here.”
Kels didn’t make the mistake of nodding this time, but she did let sleep take her under.
The next twelve hours were a blur.
She remembered Tanner waking her up briefly to take some medicine and drink some water before she passed out again.
By the time she woke up, it was dark outside her windows and she was a sweaty, shivering mess, her blankets soaked, her clothes sticking to her body. Tanner was there, helping her unbutton her blouse and change into fresh pajamas he must have gone pawing through her drawers to find.
“Not the way I’d imagined you undressing me,” she rasped.
“Me neither,” he agreed before tucking a blanket around her and carrying her to the couch. He disappeared for a few minutes then reappeared with a cup of soup, coaxing her to drink.
After she’d managed a few sips, he gave her more medicine and carried her back to bed.
That’s when she fell in love with Tanner Pearson again.
He’d changed the sheets.
She felt like shit, but he’d made her soup and changed her sheets and—
He tucked her in, placed a fresh cold cloth on her forehead, and started to straighten, but she caught his hand. “Tanner?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Maybe it was the soup and sheets, or maybe the cold had just filed down her defenses enough to allow him in. Or perhaps, Kelsey was just giving in to the inevitable. She squeezed his fingers lightly.
“Will you stay?”
A squeeze back. “Not going anywhere, babe.”
“No,” she whispered because her throat was on fire. “Will you stay? Will you hold me?”
His face clouded, and her stomach rolled over.
“Never mind,” she said quickly, slamming her eyes shut. “I shouldn’t risk you getting sick any more than you already are after being stuck here with me all day.”
“Not stuck,” he replied, and his voice sounded funny.
Kels opened her eyes. Turned out that was because he was bending over to take off his pants, his shirt already having hit the ground.
Too bad she wasn’t in any position to enjoy the view.
“You still have a fever, sweetheart,” he said. “Sure you want me in bed with you?”
In bed with Tanner, let her think about that.
She must have snorted, because his gaze found hers and he smiled. “Trying not to perv on you while you're sick here, Kels. Gonna give me a break?”
“When have I ever given you a break, Tan?”
He smiled, rounding the bed to slip under the covers on the opposite side. “You’ve already given me too much, baby.” Carefully, he slid an arm under her middle and tugged her back against his chest. His breath ruffled her hair and he was warm, but it was still the most comfortable she’d been in her entire life.
Especially when he pulled her just a little closer and whispered, “Sleep now, baby. I’ve got you.”
Fourteen
Tanner
Considering the close proximity he’d had to plague-ridden Kelsey, Tanner had expected to wake up the following morning feeling like shit.
Instead, he woke with a beautiful woman drooling on his arm.
God, even that was cute, he realized, using his free hand to retrieve the damp cloth from the night before and wiping his arm.
Kels would probably die of embarrassment if she realized she’d left a puddle on his arm, but Tan had spent more than enough time in some pretty rough places around the world to not get all worked up over a little saliva.
He brought his fingers to her forehead, relieved to find it was much cooler than the day before.
Then he slipped carefully from the bed and walked into the bathroom.
The strangling noise from the bed had him whipping back around in alarm.
But then he saw Kels’s face, saw that she wasn’t choking on her own spit and hadn’t managed to strangle herself in the sheet in the last ten seconds. Instead, her color was high like it had been when she’d been burning up with fever, and her eyes were on his groin.
Tan glanced down.
Whoops.
His boxer briefs weren’t hiding much, and he was sporting major wood.
“Kels?”
“Mmm-hmm?” It was garbled, and not because her voice was raspy. Then she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, and Tanner just about died. Or at least nearly passed out due to a loss of blood flow.
“Eyes up here, sweetheart.”
Now it wasn’t tongue but teeth on that bottom lip, and Tanner clenched his hands into fists at his sides, trying to stop himself from going over there and showing her exactly what he thought of her using her teeth and tongue.
Mainly that he wanted them off her lip and on his cock.
Instead, he sucked in a breath and asked, “Feeling better?”
She nodded, sat up. “Yeah, baby.”
Baby.
Fuck him.
Literally, please, God, would she let him come over there and fuck her?
“Good,” he said with a nod and took a step back. A tactical retreat because he was getting very close to forgetting why he couldn’t just go over and show her that he never intended to pass up another opportunity like last Wednesday. But she was sick, or at least still recovering. She needed care, not fucking.
No matter what her eyes wer
e saying.
“I’m going to shower,” he announced. Mostly to convince himself that was what he was going to do.
“Okay,” she said and lay back down.
Tan stood in place for a long moment, torn between returning to bed and trying to do the right thing. He did the right thing because Kelsey deserved that much. He’d discovered the shower was through one of the two doors in Kels’ bedroom. The other one led to a walk-in closet that was bigger than he had expected for a one-bedroom apartment in the city.
Not that Kels had filled it. Her wardrobe seemed to consist mostly of T-shirts and jeans, with a small collection of work clothes. Though she did seem to have an inordinate amount of Converse—one in almost every color of the rainbow—and an affinity for lacy lingerie. The latter of which he’d discovered after searching for some fresh pajamas for her in the tall dresser that took up one wall of the closet. The top three drawers contained all manners of lace, and he’d be a liar if he hadn’t said he’d explored. He had. The deep purple set had been his favorite.
Now, just to convince her to wear it for him.
Forcing his thoughts from lace and the temptation of Kelsey, he picked up the tube of toothpaste. He wasn’t about to snoop while she was conscious, so he just had to content himself with squirting some on his finger. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d gone without a toothbrush, but at the very least, he had toothpaste and could do a minimal job at controlling his morning breath.
Morning breath. Morning wood. Ha.
Shaking his head at himself, he unscrewed the cap, and—
The door opened.
Kels walked in.
“Morning,” she murmured, brushing by him and reaching into a cupboard to hand him a packaged toothbrush, as though she just opened the door and found him in her bathroom every day.
“Morning,” he repeated dumbly.
She picked up her own toothbrush and made short work of brushing her teeth, then crossed over to the shower and cranked it on. Water was barely hitting the pan before she turned and pulled a stack of towels out from a cupboard. Enough to dry a small army.
Then she tugged off her pajama top.
Now it was his turn to make a garbled sound.
Especially when her pants followed the shirt.
“Umm.” Not his finest moment.
Kels rotated back to face him, raising an eyebrow as she stepped into the shower stall. “You coming?”
No, but she would be.
His boxers hit the tile.
Fifteen
Kelsey
Her heart pounded, her brain was as hazy as when she’d been sporting the fever, and . . . she couldn’t believe she was doing this again.
Couldn’t believe she’d stripped down in front of Tanner, again.
That she’d risked sending another invitation over her shoulder to him.
What the hell was wrong with her?
Too impulsive by far—
The shower door opened, and suddenly Tanner was there, pressing against her spine, hot and hard . . . and hard.
“Hi,” he whispered, lips at her ear.
“Hi, baby.”
Baby. Again. Just slipped out. And yet she loved the way his arms tightened around her when she said it. But most especially, she loved the way he spun her around, nudged her a little further into the water, and then dropped to his knees.
“Um, Tan?”
“Shh.”
He lifted one of her legs and tossed it over his shoulder.
She gasped, but then his mouth was on her, his tongue finding her clit with short, firm flicks. Her gasp turned into a moan and shit, he’d learned a few tricks over the years.
The water sluicing down her back, the heat of his mouth, the tight squeeze of his hand on her hip, her thigh, all had her spiraling higher and faster than she’d even spun in her life.
“Tan!” she exclaimed when he hit just the right spot.
Thankfully he didn’t stop, didn’t stop or shift away at her exclamation. Instead, he seemed to redouble his efforts, tongue moving quicker, finger slipping inside and pumping slowly.
Oh . . . holy . . . fuck.
“Oh God,” she moaned, hips bucking, her orgasm right . . . there.
Pleasure exploded from her center, spreading out along her limbs, and her eyes drifted down, half-expecting to see that her body had been set on fire. But it was intact, and the sight of Tanner’s head between her legs, his chocolate eyes burning up at her was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.
“Hi,” he murmured, carefully slipping her leg from his shoulder and holding her steady at her hips.
She bit her bottom lip.
He was on his feet in an instant, his mouth on hers, his tongue in her mouth. He tasted of her, and somehow that was more intoxicating than she would have expected.
Or maybe that was just Tanner and the chemistry they shared.
Eventually, he pulled back and Kels rested her head on his chest as she caught her breath, dizzy from the orgasm and the kiss and from the bug she’d had. “I think that kiss probably just got you sick.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Worth it,” he murmured. “Been thinking of doing that since I first saw those teeth digging into that pretty lip of yours.”
Her breath caught, her hand slid down his chest.
He snagged it, brought it back up. “Not this time.”
“Tan—”
“Shh.” Wrapping one arm around her waist, he used his other to reach for what turned out to be her bottle of shampoo, squeezing some on the top of her head then massing it into her roots.
Not the most efficient way to wash her hair, but probably the only time in her life that she felt cherished while doing so.
He repeated the process with conditioner then soaped her up.
All the while, he kept her in the warm water, only nudging her aside to briefly rinse the shampoo from his hair, the soap from his body. Then she was back under the stream, barely having a chance to get cold.
On the other hand, it was probably the coldest shower that Tanner had ever had.
Not that he seemed to mind, and paired with the gentle way he handled her, the soft words and sweet smiles, and if she hadn’t already fallen back in love with him, that would have done it.
Or maybe it was that she’d never fallen out of love, and now she just felt safe enough to admit it.
The water turned off, a towel was wrapped snuggly around her, but when she went to step out of the shower, Tan stayed her. “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he said, tucking a towel around his hips.
“I can walk,” she said, though her eyes were drooping, and fatigue was sweeping back over her.
“I know.” His palm cupped her cheek. “But this time, let me take care of you.”
Could she?
Dare she?
In the end, with the past and the present all tangled up, with her emotions and love so raw, how could she not?
Tanner carried her to bed and held her close as she drifted off to sleep.
Kelsey woke late in the day.
She was no longer wrapped in Tanner’s arms, and when she pulled herself from beneath the covers to peek into the front of the apartment, she saw she was alone.
Alarm blipped through her, but she pushed it down.
Tanner wasn’t going away.
At least not until after the wedding.
Way to go pessimistic, Kate would have said.
And Kate would be right. Kelsey loved the man. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew that even when she’d hated him, she’d loved him.
Sighing, she walked to her closet and snagged her fuzziest socks and the sweatshirt she’d stolen long ago from Tan. It was raggedy, with holes all along the seams, and she wore it more for comfort now than warmth.
Hell, who was she kidding? She’d worn it for comfort back then, too.
Regardless, she tugged it over her head, slid the socks on, then went to brush her teeth even though she felt tired e
nough to go back to sleep again.
A virus and an orgasm.
Who knew that was the way to keep Kelsey Scott down?
But she was hungry in addition to tired, so she made her way to the kitchen to rustle up some dinner or whatever meal she was currently awake for.
Her eyes found the clock, and it told her the time was just after four in the afternoon. So dinner, that was what she was making herself. Then maybe she’d force herself to stay up an hour or two so she wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night.
And if all her plans went well, she’d be back at work tomorrow, playing catch up because her four-day workweek had now become a two-day workweek. So focused on her rustling of the cabinets, she didn’t hear the front door to the apartment open, nor the footsteps as they crossed the floor.
But she did feel the hands on her waist.
She shrieked, spinning around and elbowing, colliding hard . . .
With Tanner’s jaw.
“Fuck,” he growled, hand coming up to cup the injured part.
“Shit,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t— You startled— Shit!” She patted his face uselessly for a few seconds before getting her head together and sprinting to her freezer for an ice pack. Swear to God, if she’d given Tan a giant bruise just in time for Bas and Rachel’s wedding . . .
She hissed out a breath when she managed to get his palm away from his face.
A red welt was already rising on his jaw.
Shit.
Definitely a bruise then.
She wondered if she could pay the photographer to edit it out of the pictures. Or maybe pose him so the bruise was away from the lens.
Bas was going to kill her.
No, she corrected herself. Rachel was going to kill her. Bas would probably think it was hilarious that she’d bruised Tanner in the first place.
“So, you always abuse the people who take care of you?” he asked lightly.
She groaned. “I’m so, so sorry.”
His warm hands went back to her waist, albeit slowly and from the front this time. “It was my fault, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.”