Chapter Eighteen #2
I was so, so cold. Surrounded by heat and shaking with cold. Jacob's weight shifted on the mattress, and he pulled me into his lap, bracketing my body with his legs and wrapping his arms around me.
For a moment, I sank into his warmth, letting the touch of his skin chase away the cold, before I started to struggle.
"Shh, Shh, Abigail, settle down," he said, holding me tighter.
"No, Jacob, no. I don't want to get you sick," I protested, too weak to break his hold with my feeble struggles.
"Sweetheart, stop."
His arms tightened like iron bands around me, holding me still.
"If you haven't already gotten me sick, I'm not going to get sick. Understand? I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here, and I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
"But, what if—"
"I'm not going to get sick. I promise. I've been around you since this first hit, and I feel fine. I'm getting plenty of sleep and taking my vitamins. You're not going to get me sick. Just relax."
"Promise?" I whispered.
I couldn't stand the thought of Jacob feeling this miserable. It was bad enough that he had to take care of me, bad enough that Big John's guys had shot at him and he had to lock his building down.
I'd caused enough trouble already.
I wondered if it would be too much. If he was just waiting for me to get better and then he'd send me on my way.
Jacob didn't do complications.
I was supposed to be easy. A regular check to Shaded Glenn, and sex whenever he wanted it. This—the juice, braiding my hair, holding me while I shook with fever—was so far outside our agreement, I didn't know how to make sense of it.
Maybe I was hallucinating. That would make more sense than Jacob's solicitous care of his sick mistress.
So tired. My cheek fell onto his shoulder as I relaxed into his solid strength. He seemed very sure I wouldn't get him sick, and I didn't have it in me to argue anymore.
Thoughts flitted through my mind and drifted away, the worries and pains and anxieties momentary until they circled back to haunt me again.
Eventually, I drifted off as the chills slipped away. I woke once in the night to take more pills, drink more juice, and use the bathroom again.
This time, Jacob followed me all the way in before I waved him away, mulishly refusing—even mostly asleep—to sit on the toilet while he was in the room.
The next day, I drifted in and out of sleep, my brief periods of wakefulness dreamlike and blurry.
Jacob was there, always there with the ever present tablets and juice. With warm tea thick with honey, so soothing on my raw throat. I woke more than once to find him stretched out in the bed beside me, his computer open on his lap.
I was never aware of being alone. The fever went in and out, always better after the pills. The chills came one more time, leaving me so cold I was in tears, only the heat of Jacob's body able to chase them off.
I heard him once, out in the hallway, his footsteps pacing, his voice barking into the phone. A while later, vaguely familiar sounds, a voice I knew, strange hands, cold metal on my chest and my back, before I was alone again.
It didn't register until after they were gone that Jacob had called the doctor.
How sick was I?
I couldn't be that sick, because they left me in bed on the same regimen of pills—I thought Tylenol—juice, and tea. At some point, on the third day or the fourth, Jacob brought me salty, rich broth.
Warm, but not hot. He'd asked a few times, but I denied all interest in food.
My throat hurt so badly that the thought of chewing and swallowing anything solid was revolting. Honeyed tea and juice were bad enough.
The broth was delicious. I drank the whole mug in greedy but pained swallows before handing it back, then immediately realized I had to pee again.
I hated being sick. I hated for Jacob to see me like this. That time, he let me go by myself, but I sensed his eyes on me, alert for any indication that I wasn't steady on my feet.
I made it to the bathroom and back, even managing to wash my hands and brush my teeth without falling over. Progress. When I got back to the bed, Jacob was waiting with my comb and a fresh T-shirt.
Arranging my limbs like a child, he changed my clothes and sat me on the edge of the bed while he unfastened my now loose braid, combed my hair, and re-braided it. By then, I was exhausted.
My head was pounding less than it had been, and I didn't feel quite as hot, but every muscle in my body was weak. I let Jacob tuck me back under the covers after swallowing two more tablets.
He stretched out beside me and tucked me into his body, pulling my head to rest on his chest. The thump of his heart beneath my ear lulled me to sleep almost immediately.
It was another day before I was well enough to get up on my own. Jacob found me standing in the bathroom, testing the water of the shower.
"What do you think you're doing?" he barked, crowding into me and glaring down. I raised my chin and met his silver gaze with my own stubborn one.
"I'm taking a shower," I said. "I'm filthy. I feel disgusting."
Disgusting didn't even cover it. My fever had broken the night before, leaving me soaked in sweat.
I vaguely recalled Jacob picking me up and putting me in the arm chair in the corner of the room, then carrying me back to bed and tucking me into clean sheets sometime later.
I'd been grateful that I hadn't slept in the damp, sweaty bed linens, but the T-shirt I was wearing felt stuck to my skin and I was afraid the ripe scent wafting to my nose was me.
"You are in no shape to take a shower by yourself," Jacob said.
I raised my chin a little higher and didn't say anything. I didn't have the energy to argue with him, and I was taking a goddamn shower. If I had to sit on the floor, I would, but I was not going to smell bad for a second longer.
Jacob gritted his teeth and stuck his hand under the spray. He adjusted the temperature before he set his hands on his hips and said, "Fine. We'll take a shower, but then, you're going back to bed."
"Fine," I said.
I had no illusions that I would be in any shape to do much but sleep once I got myself through a shower, but at least I'd be clean.
Jacob stripped off his clothes with brisk efficiency, barely giving me time to admire the cut lines of his torso and the perfect curve of his tight ass before he was pulling the shirt over my head and ushering me beneath the warm spray of the shower.
I did little more than stand there. I was alarmingly weak. Jacob squirted my body wash onto a shower pouf and scrubbed every inch of me.
When I reached for the razor to shave my armpits, he plucked it from my hand and did it himself, ignoring my eyes squeezed shut with embarrassment. No way would I ask him to shave anything else.
His hands lingered on my body, gentle and arousing in a distant way. He smoothed soap over my breasts, lingering for only a moment on my nipples, cleaned me between my legs, touching but not trying to turn me on.
My brain struggled to adjust. I wanted his hands on me, felt the jut of his hard cock against my back as he stroked his hands over my breasts and down my stomach, but I couldn't seem to muster the will to do anything about it.
Sex and orgasm were a distant dream. Reality was my legs shaking after holding me up for an entire fifteen minutes after days in bed.
Done cleaning my body, Jacob sat me on the bench in the shower and stood beside me to wash my hair, using the hand-held shower head to rinse the shampoo and then the conditioner.
I sat there, acquiescent and deeply grateful he'd thought to wash my hair. I rested my head against his hipbone as he worked, my eyes fixed on his thick cock shifting in front of me, close enough to touch with my mouth if I moved only a little.
I wanted it, but I didn't have the energy to do anything about it. He hung up the sprayer and looked down at me, a wry smile on his face.
"You're killing me, sweetheart," he said. "You're looking at my cock like it's a lollipop."
Involuntarily, I licked my lips.
Realizing what I'd done, I blushed and turned my face into his hip, hiding my eyes.
I had been.
I'd been staring at his cock like it was a lollipop. I'd been thinking how much I wanted to lick it.
How did he always know what I was thinking?
Pulling me to my feet, he wrapped a fluffy towel around me and said, "Later. Maybe when you can stand for more than a few minutes without your knees knocking together."
I knew I was getting better when the thought of licking that magnificent cock stirred a wisp of desire between my legs, the most alive my body had felt in days.