Chapter 36 Fever
fever
ROXANNE
“Are you trying to kill me?” Duke shouts from behind me.
I turn, wring out my hair and tilt my chin toward him. “Oh, Duke, I didn’t see you there.”
“Cut the shit, Roxanne, you’re runnin’ around here looking like—”
“Looking like what?” I ask with a smirk.
“Looking like …”
Something breaks in his expression, like restraint giving way to something darker and deeper.
He grabs my arm—not rough, just fast, and pulls me into the wet sauna next to the outdoor shower.
He pushes me up against the wall. The door clicks shut behind us and he releases me, but he’s still standing so close that I can feel his breath.
“Damn it, I can’t think straight around you.”
“That’s good,” I say, stepping up to him.
“No, it’s not! You’re beautiful when you’re laughing, when you’re crying, even when you’re stomping around my place in flannel pajamas, but this?
” His gaze drops for a second, and when it returns to mine, it’s practically burning.
“This bikini, drippin’ wet, with every man on this ranch catching a look—”
“I was only trying to get your attention.”
His eyes drag over my body, and he licks his lips. “Well, you’ve got it, now what can I help you with?”
“I want to talk to you.”
He takes another tiny step toward me but doesn’t say a word. He just stands there, wild-eyed, chest rising like he’s trying to calm something that’s been pacing inside him for weeks.
“Really?” His voice is low and ragged. “Is that all you want?”
I don’t waste another word. My lips claim his mouth, and I’m kissing him with more energy than when I ran from a dingo in Australia. I gasp when he snatches both my arms again.
“Now you wait just one damn minute!” he protests.
I give him a lazy smile and with a couple tugs, my string bikini top falls to the steamy cedar floor of the sauna. “I want you to kiss me.”
His eyes walk down my body, darkening like the Colorado skies before a storm. “Fuck it.”
Before I can speak, his mouth crashes on mine and his hands are at my waist, gripping like he needs to feel that I’m real. He lifts me with one swift motion and sets me down on the extra wide bench behind me. My thighs part to steady myself, and he steps between.
“Lord, your body, Roxanne,” he murmurs, his words vibrating through the air as his hand cups my breast, sending shivers across my skin. His lips trail fiery, electric kisses down my neck. I feel the powerful flex of his back muscles under my fingers.
His mouth trails lower, tasting the curve of my shoulder before following the line of my collarbone.
Each breath he takes skims my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
His tongue teases my nipple, a tantalizing torment, and when he finally takes me fully into his mouth, a desperate whimper escapes me as an intense wave of pleasure pools deep and hot within my core.
My hands tangle in his hair, but he suddenly glances up and pulls away. “We have a problem.”
“The only problem here is that you’re stopping,” I say.
“We don’t happen to keep condoms in the sauna.”
“I’m on birth control and I’ve been tested.” I grab his face with both of my hands and kiss him.
He stops again. “I have too, but what about keeping things professional?”
“I will, I can,” I say in between kisses. “I need this, we need this. We can’t go on with all this pent-up tension between us.”
I suck on his bottom lip before he gently pushes me back again, his eyes rolling back for a second. “Roxanne, I’m not exactly a use ’em and lose ’em kind of person.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. I feel drunk, high off all the pheromones coming off his body, which is shiny and hot.
I know what he’s trying to do, but I’m done talking, done overthinking.
Right now, I want him, need him to ruin me.
“Are you going to kiss me or do you want to try a few more excuses?”
His wet lips curve into a smile. “I guess I’m fresh out.”
That’s when the barrier between us crumbles. What’s happening is not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s frenzied and rough and that’s exactly the way I want it. The sauna’s not even on, but the room is already flush with steam and everything boiling over in us.
My hands concentrate on removing every piece of fabric from his body. I fling his shirt over his head and frantically work on his gym shorts, which he pushes down in one swift motion.
He’s so beautiful.
Not in that clean, magazine-cover way. He’s raw and carved.
All power and muscle that look earned, not sculpted.
His shoulders are built to carry things no one else would.
His stomach tightens when he exhales, every ridge of him pulled taut under damp skin.
He moves over me like a man who knows what he wants and knows how to get it.
There’s no more hesitation, just him on top of me, kissing and licking every inch of skin I have.
“I’ve been trying,” he rasps against my mouth. “Trying to stay away from you. Trying to do the right thing and give you space.”
“Maybe this is the right thing,” I pant.
“Then, you need to tell me, Roxanne,” he says, his fingers skimming the inside of my thigh. “I’m not going to move another inch until I hear it from you.”
I’m already gasping, dizzy with the steam and the way his hands are everywhere, firm and trembling at the same time.
“I …”
Every brush of his fingers winds me tighter, like I’m made of silk stretched across fire, and the closer I get, the more unbearable it is to be almost there, held, wanted, but not yet taken. He kisses me again and I moan, arching into him.
He hovers over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other still tormenting me with slow, deliberate pressure. “I need to know this isn’t just lust and pent-up frustration. I need to know this is you wanting me, wanting this.”
I reach up, thread my fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck, and pull him just close enough that our foreheads brush. “This is me, with you. I want this … I want you.”
I kiss him again and his groan vibrates everything in me.
“Then say it. Say you want me inside you.”
I pause, not because I’m unsure, but because I’ve never been this sure.
“I want you inside me, Duke. Right now.”
“I’m going to have a little fun first.”
He hooks a finger in my bikini bottoms, tugging just enough to make my breath catch before easing them down my legs. They hit the cedar floor with a soft plop, the steam curls around us like fog.
His palms slide up my ribs, then drift lower, tracing the dip of my waist before settling on my hips. His mouth follows, kissing his way down my chest, over the center of my stomach.
Each slow press of his lips leaves a trail of warmth that makes my back arch off the bench. His mouth finds the inside of my thigh, a slow, reverent kind of worship that steals the air from my lungs.
“Duke,” I whisper.
“Hmm?”
“You’re torturing me.”
He smiles against my skin. “Good.”
“I swear, if you don’t—”
“Patience, Trouble.”
My pulse jumps. “I’ve been patient,” I say, curling my fingers into his damp hair. “I want you to fuck me right now.”
He lifts his head and blinks. He’s startled—and then his expression shifts. “Yes ma’am.”
The kiss that follows is a collision—hungry, and a little wild.
His weight presses me deeper into the bench, his body hot and solid against mine.
His hand slides under me, tilting my hips just so, and when he pushes inside, I gasp.
The world narrows to heat and heartbeat—skin against skin, breath against breath, each spark of contact flickering between us like a thousand fireflies lighting the dark.
“Mercy, you’re so wet …”
“You feel so good,” I say through my moans.
His thrusts become more demanding, more primal, more desperate. Our bodies move together, perfectly in tune as my heart hammers in my chest. My breath comes fast and shallow, trying to keep up with everything I’m feeling.
I drag my nails down his back and he groans, quickening his pace.
Every last piece of me starts to unravel and when his teeth graze my neck, my skin hums like a struck chord against his.
We stop being two separate people, we are one, rising and falling, crashing and separating until we finally melt into one another.
“I want you to come,” he says. “I want to feel you …”
Each time he pushes into me, pleasure pulses through me like fire and light and something I didn’t know I was holding until it broke.
I fall over the edge with a cry I don’t recognize, every muscle pulls taut, every part of me reeling.
It’s not just release, it’s rapture, it’s revelation. It’s Duke, everywhere, all at once.
My eyes peel apart as I’m gasping for air while Duke’s eyes squeeze shut, jaw tight—he’s coming undone from the inside out. He finally lets go with a moan. He doesn’t hold back, and it’s breathtaking watching a man who’s always in control surrender.
I wrap my quivering arms around him as he goes limp on top of me.
He stills and he rolls to his back beside me. I feel his heartbeat slow, matching mine until there’s nothing left between us but the sound of our breaths.
“That was amazing,” I say.
He rests his arm over his forehead. “Yeah, I need a minute.”
After a short beat, he shifts to one side, his thumb traces lightly along my jaw. “You’re something I’ve been missing for a long time.”
I swallow hard as my heart stutters.
“How the hell am I supposed to be okay with you walking away after this?” he asks, staring at me in a way that makes me feel exposed and vulnerable because it’s the painful reality that threatens to bring frost into the sauna.
My mouth opens, and for once, the truth spills out. “You’re not the only one scared of that.”
His eyes soften, but I can see the storm still flickering behind them.
“I wasn’t just trying to get your attention, Duke,” I add quietly. “I hate being away from you. I miss you and your coffee.”
“Hmmm, so this is just about my coffee?”
“I’m no good without a fully automatic espresso machine.”
He chuckles and his thumb brushes the edge of my jaw, his gaze dipping to my mouth, then he kisses me once more, softly. We stay like that for a long moment, close, tangled up in steam and truth and the ache of what comes next.
Eventually, he rolls to his side, getting up to get towels for both of us. We don’t rush to dress, we just sit on the bench, wrapped in towels, our knees touching, breaths still slowing.
“I may not know what this means yet, but I know that … I’m falling … too,” I say, wrapping my hand in his.
He swallows and smiles at me. “That’s a really good thing. I’ve got to say, though, that I lied about something before.”
And that sends my mind into a spiral, but I gulp and say, “What about?”
“I do organize my cutlery drawer.”
I giggle. “That’s exciting.”
“Well, if that’s all it takes to get you excited, then this is going to be fun.”
“This?”
“Whatever this is now,” Duke says. “And we don’t even have to figure it out yet. The summer’s not over.”
I can’t help but smile. I need to enjoy these moments with him and let the rest of the summer unfold as it’s meant to. I’m adjusting my towel around me when the door creaks open suddenly. A young ranch hand and another woman step in.
“Oh, hi,” she says, taking a seat opposite Duke and me.
“Hey,” the man says. “Oh, that’s interesting.” He looks at the sauna control and fiddles with it.
“It’s already so warm and steamy in here,” the woman says, putting her hair in a ponytail.
“Yeah, and the sauna’s not even on,” the man says.
“We run hot,” Duke says, winking. He takes my hand, stands, and we gather our things, giggling on our way out. I pick up my robe and wrap it around me as Duke shimmies back into his shorts under his towel.
“I don’t suppose you could give me lift back to your house?” I ask.
“Of course.”
We grab one of the golf carts and I hop in.
“So, what do we do now?” I ask. “Are you and Jameson going to move back into your own house or do I have to come get your things and do it for you?”
“I will as soon as I get back.”
My head tilts. “Get back?”
“Charlie is picking me up tonight after the Nook dinner.”
I was so preoccupied with trying to figure out how to flirt with Duke, I completely forgot he is going to LA to get more funding. “Because you still don’t think I can get us the win?”
His gaze softens. “Not at all, but if I’m being honest, we’ve put all our eggs in one basket before. We’ve had people promise to help and then change their minds.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“I know you won’t.” He reaches for my hand. “But Charlie’s good at fundraising. He’s got some people lined up for me to meet. My parents want me to go with him to try and help the ranch, but more to help our relationship.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, ever since he became Mr. Hollywood, we don’t get on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
He pulls up to his house and walks me to the front door. His hands cup my face, and he plants the sweetest, most gentle kiss on my lips. We linger in the doorway, our still-warm bodies pressing against each other. When we part, his eyes are bright, but dreamy.
“I’ve got to admit, Trouble, didn’t expect you to talk that dirty back there.”Duke’s smirk stretches from the house back to the lodge. “Mercy, I had no idea you had that in you, Miss I Like To Keep Things Professional.”
I laugh, cheeks still flushed. “You didn’t seem to mind.”
“I’m still recovering.”
“Guess you bring out the worst in me.”
“Oh, I think that’s your best,” he murmurs, brushing his lips against mine. “I want to take you upstairs right now.”
“Then do.”
He presses his forehead to mine for a moment, then lets go. “Can’t. Too much shit to do before I leave tonight, but I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
“See you at dinner, beautiful.”
I float through the rest of the day like someone lit a candle under my ribcage and forgot to blow it out.
The rush of the morning hasn’t left me …
the sauna, Duke, the way he looked at me like I was something holy and forbidden all at once.
I can still feel his rough hands and still hear the catch in his breath when I blurted out my command.
Shit, I can’t believe that was me.
Is this how it’s supposed to feel? The fever of it all? The endless butterflies and consuming thoughts?
One thing I can confirm—this is not indigestion.