by Linda Howard
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching for her because she looked as if she would collapse at his feet. Alarm made his tone rough.
“No, don’t touch me!” she cried in panic, shrinking away from his hand. The movement brought more pain, and though she bit her lips to keep from crying out, a moan sounded low in her throat. When she had control of herself again she said, “I fell out of the barn loft. I’m too sore to do anything.”
“Come back inside and let me shut the door,” he said. He didn’t make the mistake of trying to help her, even though she could barely move. He suppressed a strong urge to yell at her because if she didn’t insist on living by herself and doing a man’s work she wouldn’t be hurt, but that would wait. He entered behind her and closed the door, then crossed to the fireplace and quickly added a couple of logs, using the poker to stir up the coals.
“When did you fall?” he asked curtly, turning back to her.
“Late yesterday afternoon.”
At least she hadn’t been lying helpless for days. It had been a week since he had seen her, so she could easily have been injured all of that time.
He tossed his hat aside and knelt on one knee beside her. “This will hurt, but I’m going to check for any broken bones. Just stand there as still as you can so I can get it over with.”
“I don’t think there’s anything broken,” she protested. “But I’d be grateful if you’d take care of the animals today. I’m just bruised, so I’ll be able to take care of them tomorrow after I get the soreness worked out.”
“Don’t worry about the animals. And I’ll see for myself if any bones are broken or not.”
His mutter was rough, his face grim. He had decided what he was going to do, and she knew she wasn’t in any shape to stop him. Dee clenched her fists as he put his hands under her nightgown and ran them up her legs as briskly and efficiently as if she had been a horse. His probing fingers were necessarily less than gentle, and she sucked in her breath as her sore muscles protested. He looked up, blue eyes narrowed, at her intake of breath.
“My legs are just sore from work,” she gasped in explanation.
His hands went higher, to her thighs. The hem of her nightgown bunched over his arms. His touch was hot, his callus-roughened palms and fingers hard on her silky skin. She was acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the thin cotton, and of the heat of his big body as he crouched so close to her that her thigh was practically nestled into the curve of his broad shoulder, and his face was almost against her belly. “Stop,” she whispered.
He looked up, and she saw that he was enraged. His eyes looked like blue fire. “Stop, hell,” he snapped. “You can forget about your modesty, because this damn nightgown is going to have to come off.”
“No.”
He rose to his feet with savage grace. “That’s what you think.”
She lifted her chin in a stubborn movement. “I can’t take it off. I’ve tried, but I can’t raise my arms.”
He glared down at her, then abruptly pulled his knife from his belt. She couldn’t move fast enough even to begin to evade him. He grasped a fistful of cloth in the front of the gown, pulled it out from her body, inserted the knife point, and sliced upward. The garment gaped open.
Dee made a futile effort to grab the edges together again, but in her present condition she was no match for him. He simply brushed her hands aside, then pulled the nightgown off of her shoulders and down her arms. The material caught for a moment on the curve of her hips, then slid downward of its own accord to pool around her feet.
Panic and humiliation combined to engulf her in an enormous flood. A strange gray mist obscured her vision, and her ears began to ring.
“Goddammit, don’t faint,” Lucas barked, putting his hands on her waist to catch her in case she did. “Take a deep breath. Breathe, goddammit!”
She did, because pride refused to allow her to faint like a ninny. The sickening gray mist faded, and she focused on his face, set in lines of pure rage. A strange sort of relief spread through her, because his anger gave her something to concentrate on.
“Don’t swear at me, you bastard! You cut my clothes off of me!”
His hard fingers clenched her waist as he fought the urge to shake her. Only the knowledge that she really would faint if he did kept him under control. Damn her, didn’t she know when to quit fighting? She was hurt, and someone had to take care of her because she couldn’t do it herself.
But color had rushed back into her white face, and that curious panic was gone from her eyes, which had darkened to emerald with her anger. Despite his own temper he almost grinned, because if she were well enough to be angry she probably wasn’t hurt too seriously. Besides, Dee’s anger was exhilarating, intensifying her color and reassuring him of her strength. If he had cut a nightgown off of any other woman he knew, he’d have been faced with screaming hysterics. But Dee had sworn back at him and matched his anger with her own even though she was as helpless as a kitten.
“Shut up and let me see what other damage you’ve done to yourself,” he said, thrusting his face close to hers.
Dee swayed on her feet, painfully aware of her bareness as the cool air brushed over her skin, but she couldn’t fight him, couldn’t run from him, couldn’t even manage to wrap herself in a blanket. She loathed being helpless, but reality made her admit that she was. He was looking her over good, and she moved her hands in an automatic attempt to shield herself. A flush pinkened her torso and face.
“For God’s sake, I’ve seen naked women before,” he snapped, putting his hands on her rib cage and forcing his attention to the tracing of each rib, probing for breaks.
“I don’t care what you’ve seen,” she snapped back, carefully not looking at him. If she didn’t watch him examining her, she might be able to preserve some small mental distance. “I’ve never been naked in front of a man before.”
“I’ll pull off my own clothes if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Lucas!”
“Dee!” he mocked in the same tone of voice, then he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. The thick mane had veiled her breasts, which were now revealed to be high and creamy, conical in shape, lushly rounded and tipped by small pink nipples. His stomach muscles contracted, and a rush of blood to his groin made his shaft thicken. Damn, she was pretty, all slim and firm and rounded in exactly the right places. He grimly tightened his control, but his nostrils flared at the sweet warm scent of her, and his fingers ached to slide into the notch between her legs. If she hadn’t been hurt. . .
He fought for sanity. If she hadn’t been hurt, she wouldn’t be standing naked under his hands now. She would be outside doing her chores, encased in clothing, her wild tumble of hair sternly twisted into a knot. But she was hurt, and he had to remember that.
Her collarbones were straight, without any telltale lumps to signal breaks, and she didn’t flinch at his firm touch even though he carefully watched her face for any sign of pain. He felt her neck and told her to turn her head from side to side, which she did with some care but no great difficulty. Then he walked around behind her, gathered the great mass of hair which fell to her hips, and looped it over her shoulder.
He swore softly between his teeth.
“I figure I’m bruised,” Dee said, staring into the fire. “I landed on my back.”
Her shoulders appeared to have taken the brunt of the fall, because a great black and purple welt stretched from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Her lower back was also bruised, the discoloration extending down to the twin dimples of her buttocks.
Gently he checked her ribs and found them sore but not broken, as was the case with her arms. All things considered, she was lucky to have escaped with such minor injuries.
He began thinking of all the things that needed to be done. “I’ll fix you some breakfast,” he said. “Do you want to go back to bed or sit here by the fire?”
She turned her head and gave him a baleful look. “I can’t sit around like this
.”
“I don’t object. The scenery looks good from my view, except for the strange colors.” He lightly patted her bottom, taking care not to touch her bruises.
She moved jerkily, painfully away from him, and he was briefly ashamed of himself for teasing her when she couldn’t fight back. He went into the bedroom and pulled a blanket off the bed—a double bed, he noted—then returned to her and folded it snugly around her. She hugged it to her with a look of intense gratefulness and relief, and he realized how difficult it had been for her to be unclothed in front of him. He wanted to kiss her and tell her that it would be all right, that soon she would be accustomed to him, but it was never good tactics to let your adversary know your plans in advance.
He helped her to the big, well upholstered chair before the fire, but sitting down was something she had to do at her own rate. When at last she was as comfortable as she could get he turned his attention to the wood stove.
Cooking was something he had learned by necessity, and he was competent with the basics. He put on a pot of coffee, deftly made a pan of biscuits, and sliced bacon to put on to fry. After satisfying himself that the stove wasn’t too hot, he went outside and gathered enough eggs for breakfast. He had eaten some biscuits and cold beef before riding over, but now his stomach was demanding more.
When he returned to the house Dee was still in exactly the same position she’d been in before he’d gone outside. The blanket had slipped away from her bare feet. He went over and knelt down to cover them, wrapping them more securely in the folds.
“Thank you,” she said. Her frustration with herself was plain in her eyes.
He patted her knee. He knew how being sick or hurt grated on the nerves. The few times in his life that he had been confined to bed, even as a child, he had raised such hell that everyone around him had breathed a sigh of relief when he began to mend.
He finished breakfast, put everything on the table, and returned to her chair. “I’m going to pick you up,” he said. “I’ll put my arm around the middle of your back, where you aren’t so sore.”
“I have to get dressed,” she said irritably. “I can’t eat with this blanket wrapped around me.”
He slipped his arms around her, one across her back and the other under her thighs, and lifted her easily. His muscled back and arms barely felt the strain. “I’ll take care of the blanket. Don’t worry.”
By the time he had her settled her cheeks were hot again, because by necessity the repositioning of the blanket had caused her breasts to be exposed. When he finished she was wrapped in a roughly fashioned toga, with her right arm and shoulder completely bare. She found that if she moved carefully, she could feed herself by moving her arm only from the elbow down. It was movement from the shoulder that was excruciating.
“Do you have a bathtub?” he asked, taking generous portions for himself.
“I use a washtub.”
The washtub would have to do, Lucas thought. It wouldn’t be as comfortable for her as a bathtub that she could recline in, but he would manage.
As soon as they had finished eating he redeposited Dee in her chair before the fire, then cleaned up the dishes and hauled in buckets of water to begin heating on the stove. “I’m going to feed the animals while the water’s getting hot,” he said, and he left the cabin.
Dee tried to find a more comfortable position. Tears of frustration prickled her eyelids, and angrily she blinked them back. She refused to let herself bawl like a baby despite her predicament.
Only part of it was because of the pain and helplessness, which was galling enough. Her nakedness in front of Lucas was more distressing to her, assaulting her modesty and adding to her sense of vulnerability. It would have been bad enough with any man, but when Lucas looked at her she felt as if he were stroking her in all of her private places.
It was an hour later when he returned to the house. He replenished the fire, then dragged the big washtub inside and positioned it in front of the fireplace. Dee watched as he carried in more water and began filling the tub, then dumped in the hot water until steam was rising.
“All right, in you get,” he said, rolling up his sleeves.
She clutched the blanket tight with her fist, gazing longingly at the steaming tub. A long hot soak would be heaven for her sore muscles, just what she needed, but her nerves had been stretched almost to the limit by her nudity before him that morning. “I think I can manage on my own,” she said. It would hurt, but she would bear the pain for the pleasure of that wonderful hot water.
For an answer Lucas tugged the blanket free and pushed it aside.
“Damn you,” she said between clenched teeth as he lifted her.
“For once, would you just shut up and let me help you?” Her stubborn independence made him angry all over again, but he handled her carefully as he knelt and lowered her into the water. She sucked in her breath at the heat of it but made no more protest. Her common sense told her that at this point it would be a wasted effort.
He left her sitting in the water while he found two strips of toweling. He folded them and placed one on the edge of the tub behind her head. “Lie back and let your head rest on this,” he ordered. “Get your shoulders underwater.”
Gingerly she did as he said, wincing at each movement. He placed the other towel across the rim at her feet and lifted her legs out of the water, resting them across the towel. Then he brought more hot water and slowly poured it in until the water level rose almost to the edge.
Dee closed her eyes against the picture she knew she must make, lying there in the clear water, completely nude like a wanton.
The sight of her was making it difficult for Lucas either to move or to sit, with his hardened shaft cramped beneath his pants as it was. Her breasts bobbed gently in the water, making him think about sliding an arm under her back and lifting her up so that he could take those sweet nipples in his mouth.
Though her eyes were closed and he couldn’t read her expression, he knew that the redness of her cheeks wasn’t due entirely to the heat of the water. He ran his fingers through the length of hair hanging down the side of the tub to pool on the floor. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he murmured. “You’re too pretty to be ashamed of being naked.”
Dee swallowed but didn’t open her eyes. “You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“Even though you’re hurt? Don’t be silly. If I were shot in the leg, do you think you wouldn’t have to take my pants off so you could tend to me?” He continued to gently stroke her hair. “You’re just damn lucky I came by today. What would you have done on your own? What about the animals?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, then honesty prodded her. “I’m grateful to you, truly, but this is—it’s scandalous.”
“If anyone knew about it,” he agreed. “But it’s between us, and no one else is going to, know. I suppose I could have gone into town and tried to get some woman to come out here and take care of you, but I’m strong enough to pick you up without hurting you. And I like looking at you,” he admitted quietly. “If you weren’t hurt, I’d be trying to get between your legs.” He paused. “Are you afraid I might force you while you’re helpless?”
She did open her eyes then, her look somber and searching. “No. You wouldn’t force me. You aren’t that type of man.”
His mouth twisted wryly. “Sweetheart, don’t put it to the test when you’re in good shape again. I’m so hard right now my guts are hurting.”
No man had ever talked to her like that before, but she had seen the animals mating and knew what he meant. And when it came down to it, she felt more comfortable with his bluntness than if he had pretended to scruples she couldn’t trust.
He kept her in the tub for almost an hour, dipping out water when it cooled and replacing it with hot water fresh from the stove. Her skin was red and wrinkled when he finally lifted her out and stood her, dripping, on the rug. She found that some of the soreness had eased, and she could move her arms a bit more. He dried her wi
th one of the towels, his hands moving over her bare body with excruciating attention. Then he carried her back to the bed and placed her face down on it.
Dee bit her lip and kept her cries locked inside while he firmly rubbed a strong-smelling liniment on her aching muscles. The resulting heat was almost worse than the original pain, but again she held back her protests.
Sweat beaded Lucas’s forehead when he was finished. He asked, “Do you have any of your pa’s shirts left?” He had had almost all he could endure. If he didn’t get her covered up, he might end up on that bed with her despite his best intentions. Her soft round buttocks, creamy white and perfect, would feel wonderful against his lower belly, or cupped in his big hands.
“No, I got rid of all of his things.”
Damn. He stood and pulled his own shirt free of his pants, then unbuttoned it. Like most shirts, it only buttoned halfway down, and he pulled it off over his head. “You should be able to get into this,” he said, straightening the garment and placing it on the bed before helping her to her feet again. Then he knelt and held the shirt for her to step into, and he worked it up her hips. The position brought his face very close to her soft body, and his breathing grew quicker.
He guided her arms into the sleeves and eased the cloth into place. The shirt engulfed her, hanging almost to her knees, the sleeves dangling past her hands. He buttoned it, then rolled the sleeves back until her hands emerged. “There, you’re decent again,” he said with a strained look on his face.
Not quite, since her lower legs were still bare, but she was painfully grateful to him for the covering. The shirt was warm from his body and carried his scent. She felt surrounded by him, and the sensation was remarkably pleasant.
She found herself staring at his chest. It was broad and muscled and hairy, the dark curls crisp-looking against his tanned skin. He evidently spent a good bit of time working without his shirt. “How will you explain going home without your shirt?” she whispered, not raising her eyes.