AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘In that case—’ she rested the tablets on the table, stood back and folded her arms ‘—you can do a raging fever and aches and pains instead. Your choice.’
Leandro held out his hand and she duly put the tablets into it and watched as he swallowed them before settling back down, eyes closed.
‘Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?’
The question hung in the air but by the time she reached the door, he was asleep.
Leandro slept fitfully for the next couple of hours. Celia checked in on him and when, at a little before midnight, his fever began climbing once again, she repeated her tablet routine although, this time, he didn’t argue.
This time, when their eyes met in the darkened room, his were alert whatever the state of his aching body.
He swallowed the tabs but when she turned to leave, he stayed her, his fingers circling her wrist, tugging her gently back so that she half stumbled onto the bed.
‘I should thank you for this,’ he rasped and Celia, hyper conscious of his fingers on her wrist and the pad of his thumb idly gently stroking the tender sensitive skin, muttered something and nothing.
Celia licked her lips and tried a reassuring smile on for size but those small, stroking movements...
They were flooding her treacherous body with heat. She wanted him to stop, wanted to yank her hand away and rub where he’d touched but she didn’t because she was enjoying it too much. She was, oh, so tempted to touch him back and the strength of that temptation terrified her because it was so new.
‘For what?’ She laughed jerkily. ‘All I’ve done is bring you some tablets and water and checked in occasionally to make sure you haven’t...worsened...’
‘It’s after midnight.’
‘I know.’
‘You must be tired and yet you’ve still checked in...’
‘Leandro, has no one ever taken care of you before? I mean,’ she added softly, quickly, ‘when you’ve been laid up? It’s no big deal. My brother’s older than me but we both live in London and, honestly, as soon as he sneezes twice, he calls me and begs me to come over and look after him.’
‘I thought he was a free spirit.’ There was a smile in Leandro’s voice.
This felt so good, so relaxed, their voices low murmurs in the bedroom and the curtains letting in just a slither of silvery light here and there.
‘He’s as free as a bird until he gets a cold.’ She smiled back.
‘You’re very close, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. We are. Small village close to a small town where kids still play outside without supervision and mostly everyone knows everyone else. We went to the same school and, even though he’s older, his friends all somehow seemed to know my friends because they were related or neighbours...so yes...’
‘That’s why you drifted into an engagement that wasn’t right...’
Celia shrugged. She’d already told him about Martin so what was the point in being coy on the subject if he chose to raise it again? She’d opened a door and she didn’t regret it because it had felt like a release.
‘Like I said...’
‘You didn’t tell your brother how much it affected you?’
‘I suppose I was embarrassed...ashamed that I’d been so naïve.’ She looked away and then confessed, in a low voice, ‘And Martin found someone else so fast, someone tall and athletic and pretty and really nice as well...’
Leandro heard the vulnerability in her voice and his heart clenched.
It was one thing to admit to a broken engagement, which she had. She could tell him why it had ended, a simple youthful error of judgement, not that uncommon in the great scheme of things. But now, he could detect the place where it had really hurt and it felt like something twisting inside him.
She had lost confidence in her own sexuality because the guy she’d mistakenly thought she’d end up with had found someone else in record time and someone else who was probably, physically, the polar opposite of her.
He reached out to push her hair back and then let his hand linger, tangled in her hair. He felt her breathe in sharply and saw the widening of her eyes but she wasn’t pulling away.
She was still in a jumper and her jogging bottoms, hadn’t changed into whatever it was she slept in. He wondered what it was she did sleep in. In that suite of rooms so close to his.
