“So you’re not concerned about his motivations?”
“No.” She shook her head, wrapping her cup with both hands and bringing it to rest on her knee. “I suppose what you describe is possible, but I don’t believe so. We’ve only had a short time together, but he appears forthright. He’s been as honest as he is able. He is certainly conflicted.” She dropped her gaze. “He’s built a new life but still feels the weight of his past responsibilities. I do not believe his purpose here is entirely clear to him. There are regrets…about his long absence. And his memory of Leonard is clouded by assumptions made a long time ago when he was little more than a child and still mourning his mother.”
“He’s made an impression on you.”
Dylan’s peculiar tone drew Lillian’s attention.
“Yes, I guess he has,” she admitted.
“So why not sleep with him?”
“He’s Leonard’s son.”
“I don’t see how that matters.”
“How can you say that? Leonard trusted me to…” Words failed her.
“To what?”
“To keep his estate intact.”
“But you’ve done that. And you’ve committed to continue doing it despite there being no official obligation for you to do so. You’re consenting adults. There would be no legal repercussions if you were to have an affair with your late husband’s son.”
“What about the moral implications?”
Dylan shook his head as he barked a dismissive laugh. Looking down at his cup, he raised it to his mouth. When he lifted his gaze to hers, the bemused glimmer in his eyes went dark and serious. He lowered the mug without having taken a drink, leaning forward to place it on the coffee table.
“What in hell is going on between the two of you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Christ! Are you kidding me? You’ve never given a moment’s thought to the petty dictates of society, especially as it pertains to sex. Did Leonard indicate he didn’t want you to have a relationship with his son?”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “Why would we even discuss such a thing? It never occurred to us…never occurred to me it would be an issue.”
“Well, apparently it is.” He peered at her intently. “Perhaps the one you’re trying to fool is yourself.”
The thud of her mug as it hit the coffee table resounded in the ensuing silence.
“This was a mistake.” She slid forward in her seat, preparing to escape.
“Wait.” Dylan stood and came to her side, kneeling next to her chair and resting his hand on her knee. “You obviously came here looking for my help. I’m sorry. I just…It threw me to have you asking for my advice. It’s usually been the other way around for us.”
His self-deprecating grin disarmed her. She covered his hand with both of hers.
“For what it’s worth,” he told her solemnly, “I don’t see anything wrong with you acting on your attraction. Lenny’s gone. Who’s it going to hurt?”
The odd tableau in the limousine sprang to her mind: she and Griffin sitting side-by-side, her hand up against his unnecessary and bumbling apology, his fingertips pressed to the pulse in her wrist. The simple touch had been disturbingly erotic, her response immediate and absolute. Unleashing such a power would surely result in casualties and there was far too much at stake. She could not, in good conscience, risk it for the sake of something as inconsequential as physical satisfaction.
She wrapped her fingers around Dylan’s hand and stood, pulling him up to stand beside her.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being a good friend.”
“I’m not so sure I was.” His forehead creased with concern as he put his warm hands on her shoulders. “I know you’re not a big fan of sentiment, but, Morgan and I, we love you. You know that, right?”
The unsolicited declaration prompted a small, but not unpleasant, jolt of surprise in her.
“Thank you,” she repeated, reaching up to smooth his troubled brow. “I’m very fond of all of you.”
“We’re here for you if you need us.”
“I know.” He appeared unconvinced. “I do,” she affirmed. “As you said, it is only a matter of a few weeks. I’ll be fine.”
“You always are.” His anxious smile contradicted his confident words.
“Yes.” She nodded her agreement. “I always am.”
Chapter 5
Whatever had woken Lillian had drawn her to Griffin’s door. The reality of the antique brass knob in her hand brought her wide-awake and made her pause. She pressed an ear to the cold wood surface. There was only silence.
Straightening, she rubbed at her arms trying to warm the skin beneath the satin robe she wore. She looked up and down the corridor. There was nothing to see. Facing front, she surmised whatever had disturbed her was behind the door. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.
“Griffin,” she whispered into the darkness. “Are you all right? Griffin?”
There was no answer, so she stepped into the room. After the muted lighting in the hall, she had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. It didn’t take long to see the bed was empty, the tangled white sheets reflecting the moonlight coming through the double French doors leading to the balcony.
Then she heard a soft moan.
She turned to the sound and saw a form sprawled between the carpeted floor of the bedroom and the marble tile of the bathroom. A hasty flick of the switch on the wall behind her flooded the space with light. Squinting in the sudden brightness, she hurried to his side.
He held a hand over his face and seemed to be trying to push himself up on the opposite arm.
“Be still!” she demanded, restraining him by the shoulders.
He lay back without a fight, making her more worried than she had been on discovering him on the floor.
“What happened?”
He took his hand away from his face and looked at her with glazed and questioning eyes. She pressed the heel of her palm to his forehead. Fever burned his skin.
“I’m going to call an ambulance,” she explained as she began to straighten.
“No,” he insisted grabbing her by the wrist.
“You’re very ill.”
“Flu, it’s just the flu. Goddamn plane.”
He tried, again, to sit, but Lillian eased him back with a hand at the center of his chest.
“Lie still.” She sighed. “You may have hit your head when you fell. At least let me check.”
He closed his eyes which she interpreted as assent. Bringing her hands to his head, she tenderly probed the sides and back of his skull. There was neither blood nor swelling nor any other indication of trauma.
“Griffin,” she called to him, her hand at his cheek. “Griffin.” When he opened his eyes, she continued. “I’m going back to my room for a moment to get a few things. Promise me you’ll stay here until I return.”
“No ambulance?”
“No.”
“All right,” he mumbled as his eyes drifted shut once more.
She returned to her bedroom. Her training took over once she stood in front of the medical cabinet installed in the master bath. With calm efficiency, she gathered everything she thought she might need, placing each item precisely on a surgical steel tray, and then carried it to her patient.
Her relief at seeing him resting where she had left him was replaced by mild shock at the startling realization he was naked. The detail had gone unnoted in her initial assessment. She shrugged it off, bending to place her supplies on the floor next to him before straightening. Going to the king-size bed, she stripped off the down comforter and half-carried, half-dragged it across the room, laying its weight over the lower half of his body. Then she kneeled beside him.
Reaching for his wrist, she pulled his arm straight over her lap. She took his pulse, consulting the pocket watch from the tray. It was elevated but within the normal range. Next, she placed a tympan
ic thermometer in his ear. His temperature was a concerning 103.5 degrees.
“Too high,” she muttered, locating the tourniquet among the items by her hip. “Are you able to take acetaminophen?”
His eyes opened when she cinched the rubber strap low on his bicep.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to give you an injection. I need to get your fever down quickly.”
“What?” She realized he was in no state to understand any complex statements.
“Are you allergic to any medications?” she asked in a no-nonsense tone.
“No,” he answered the standard medical question automatically as she’d hoped he would.
“How much do you weight?”
“Two ten,” he offered sleepily, his eyelids sliding down once more.
She unerringly retrieved what she needed from the medical tray, laying each item within easy reach along her thigh. She palpitated the skin in the crease of his elbow. His median vein was prominent. She swabbed the area around it with a disinfectant pad. After putting on rubber gloves, she took the syringe out of its protective covering and inserted its needle into a small vial, drawing in the appropriate dose by pulling back on the plunger. She reversed pressure to excise any trapped air and then, with the tip of her pointer finger, marked the point of entry.
“Slight pressure,” she warned as she slid in the needle.
With a practiced flip of her wrist, she released the tourniquet and injected the medication. Griffin didn’t as much as twitch from the fleeting invasion. She replaced the needle tip with a square of gauze, bending his arm to hold it in place.
“Well done,” she told him. “Now you can rest.”
After gathering the used supplies onto the tray, she lifted it between her hands and then stood and stepped over his prone body to enter the bathroom. She put the tray on the vanity, turning on one of the taps and letting it run while she went to the linen closet. She got out a face cloth and returned to the sink to fill the ceramic basin she had brought from her room with bracingly cold water.
She carried the large bowl back out to her patient, placing it on the floor. She submerged the face cloth into the icy water and then wrung it out before folding it and placing it over his forehead. She pressed one chilled hand to his cheek, the other she curled around the back of his neck.
“Feels good.” His mumbled words startled her.
“You’re still awake.”
A shudder ran through him and his teeth began to chatter. She waited for his muscles to quiet before taking the cloth from his head and rewetting it. He looked up at her as she placed the compress to his skin once more.
“I think I can get up now.”
“And I think you should wait a little longer,” she countered, sighing at his frown. “Give me a moment.”
Without waiting for a response, she returned to the bed and ran her hands over the sheets. As she suspected, they were damp with his perspiration.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she stepped over him on her way back into the bathroom.
“Getting clean sheets,” she explained as she located a clean set.
“You don’t have to do that,” he told her as she went back to the bed.
“You’ll be more comfortable.”
She replaced the bedding, moving briskly around the large mattress. She sensed his eyes on her as she worked so was not surprised by his stare when she re-entered the room after placing the pile of soiled linens in the hall.
“You’re good at that.”
“You’re impressed I know how to make a bed?” she wondered, her eyebrows lifting.
“I’m impressed you’re so efficient about it.”
“It is a compliment, then?”
“It is.” He grunted as he pushed himself up to a seated position.
“Go slowly.”
“I don’t think I have much choice.” He hung his head, his hands palm up in his lap, his breathing labored. “Give me a sec.”
“Take as long as you need.”
“Yeah.” He raised his eyes to look up at her. “I’m sure this is just how you wanted to spend your night.”
“Hush. You’re ill.”
He grunted at her explanation.
“Come closer.”
She complied without question, reaching her hands out to him. He grasped both of them in his and, with a firm tug, came up on his knees. The comforter slid down the front of his body.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” she asked with concern, tugging her hands from between his to steady him by the shoulders.
“No clothes.”
She wanted to tell him not to be foolish; she’d seen plenty of naked bodies. But the sensual slide of his hands up the length of her back had her pressing her lips together against the moan threatening to escape her. He hooked his fingers over her shoulders and, bending one knee to put his foot flat on the floor next to hers, pulled down on her with an intensifying pressure as he rose to stand.
And then he surrounded her, his legs outlining hers, his arms banded along the length of her back. Her peignoir provided scant protection from his every edge and ripple, his arousal evident along the plane of her abdomen. Without thought, she ran her hands down his chest, bringing them to rest—fingers splayed—on either side of his rib cage.
“Lillian,” he called to her, cupping her head.
The temptation to respond to the sleepy proposition plain in his voice was fierce, but she resisted, pressing her face into the hollow of his shoulder. He smelled of cotton sheets and sweat and the promise of sex, and her body reacted in spite of her mind’s admonition. Her hands traveled the well-developed striations of his lats, coming together to splay in the recess of his lower back, pressing him close.
Maledizione! Her breath came harsh between her lips as she realized she wanted him with a reckless abandon she worried she would be unable to deny. He is ill, a stranger to you and Lenny’s son. For pity’s sake!
Turning within the circle of his embrace, she pulled his arm along the length of her shoulders and grasped his hand with both of hers.
“You should lie down.” Giving him little choice in the matter, she offered as much support as she could as they slowly crossed the room.
A few steps away from the bed, he disentangled from her hold and stumbled toward the mattress, collapsing on its edge.
“Thank you,” he panted. “I’ll be fine now.”
“You want me to go.”
“Yes.”
Lillian considered him carefully. He hadn’t bothered to lift his head to look at her while sending her away. Feverish and ill, he needed to be monitored. She couldn’t let her ridiculous reaction get in the way of properly caring for him.
Straightening her shoulders, she stepped forward, coming to stand between the spread of his legs. With a gentle touch on his shoulders, she guided him back onto the clean sheets. She covered him to the waist and looked down at his flushed face.
“I will go,” she promised. “When I have finished.”
She headed back to the bathroom, grabbing up the basin on the floor on her way through. She emptied it before refilling it with warm water. She got a new facecloth from the linen closet, the watch, and thermometer from the steel tray. Then she lifted the nearly full basin and carefully made her way back.
He stirred when she placed the bowl on the nightstand. She turned and saw he was watching her with a peculiar light in his eyes.
“You should go.”
It sounded oddly like a warning, but Lillian chose to ignore him, leaning over to take his temperature once again. While she waited for the number to register, his hands curved her hips.
“102,” she reported, choosing not to comment on his presumption or the deliciously erotic feel of his hands on her body. “Much better. I’ll give you another dose in about four hours.”
“Now you’ll go,” he said gruffly.
“Not just yet.”
His fingers tightened. L
illian shifted within his hold, reaching for the face cloth floating in the cooling water. Wringing it out, she wiped it over his brow and cheeks, pushing his hair away from his face. His eyes rolled up; his lids shuttered them from view.
She lifted one of his hands away from her hip, sponging the fever sweat from his skin before laying his arm on the bed beside his body. Then she attended to the other in the same manner. She rinsed the cloth before passing it from side-to-side down the length of his torso, pausing at the fold of the sheet lying low on his hips.
He was a gorgeous man. Bronzed skin taut over toned muscle, a certain challenge to her professional dispassion. She fought the urge to toss aside the face cloth and trace her bared fingers over his abdomen, mortified at having to remind herself what she was doing was for his benefit.
With a hand on his shoulder, she guided him onto his side. His arm came up and wrapped her waist as she toweled the considerable expanse stretching from the base of his neck to the rounds of his behind. He released her easily when she urged him onto his back, freeing her to sweep aside the sheet with a snap of efficiency.
“Damn, Lillian,” he cursed her in a strangled whisper.
She turned to look at him, an apology on her lips for whatever she had done to cause the pained twist in his voice, but only got as far as his erection.
“Almost done,” she assured him before dragging her attention to his lower half.
She wiped down his legs, the tremor in her hands a curiosity though she resolved to neither linger nor rush. Only when the job was done to her satisfaction did she return the cloth to the basin and pull the sheet up over him.
He’d turned his head on the pillow, facing away from her, his eyes closed. The anxious tick in his jaw gave further evidence he did not rest as if his insistent erection were not enough. Even still, she lifted the basin carefully and carried it through to the bathroom as quietly as she could.
After rinsing the bowl, she set it on the vanity and then wrung out the face cloth, folding it over the edge to dry. Damp hands on her hips, she faced herself in the mirror. Her peach robe gaped, revealing the plunging neckline of the matching negligee. Dark patches bloomed on the material covering her abdomen and breasts, the spots where her body had brushed his wet skin. Idly, she pressed her palms to her rigid nipples before untying her belt and cinching her robe closed. She retied the sash and then ran her fingers through her hair, noting the high color in her cheeks and the longing in her eyes. Twisting to look into the bedroom at her patient, she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly through slightly parted lips. Ill as he was, he’d provoked her into her current state. She didn’t like to think of the effect he might have on her once he was back to health.
Gilding Lillian Page 4