Caleb (7 page)

Caleb’s
sigh stirred the hair at her temple. She brushed the annoying tendril off her
forehead, a tangled strand caught on her first knuckle. She closed her eyes
briefly and worked at the knot. The damn thing held.

It
figured. She finally had Caleb naked and horizontal and her hair was a tangled
mass of knots, she felt like she’d been run over by a Mack truck, and instead
of smelling like the expensive body powder she’d bought just for the occasion,
she smelled distinctly unexotic and overworked. Allie put a question at the top
of what she suspected was going to be a long list. How in heck had she managed
to screw up landing naked with the man of her dreams so badly? There was only
one way to find out.

“If
you slipped me a roofie and had your way with my unconscious body,” she warned
him, “I’m going to geld you with a rusty knife.”

“Why
a rusty one?”

Nothing
in Caleb’s drawl indicated what he was thinking. She wished she could see his
face. “Because that would hurt more and maybe lead to a life-altering
infection, which you would so deserve for having fun without me.”

Another
pause and then his chuckle ruffled her hair. The mattress beneath her dipped as
he shifted his weight. The fingers of his right hand worked between her skull
and the mattress, cupping her head with infinite care as if she’d break with
too much movement. The sheets rustled as he braced himself on his elbow. “You
can rest easy. Neither of us has had a good time.”

A
shiver took her from head to toe, a faint prelude to the more violent one that
followed. Her head ached, her stomach roiled, and she knew, just knew, she
wasn’t going to like the answers to the frantic questions humming in her mind.

“Should
I be treating that as good news or bad news?”

His
thumb rubbed her temple. She closed her eyes as the sickening panic receded.
“You tell me.”

“I
asked first.” It was very hard to lift her lids. “I need a bath.”

Caleb’s
fingers pushed hers aside. “As soon as you feel up to it, you can have one.”

Which
probably meant no time soon, considering that working the snarl had tested the
limits of her strength.

He
demonstrated far more patience with the snarl than she did, untangling it with
a few painless tugs. In her current state of mind that was more of an
irritation than a plus. She didn’t need anything making her feel more inferior.
She batted his hand away. “How did I get here, Caleb?”

His
hand dropped to her shoulder.

“I
brought you.”

“Why?”
She jumped when his fingers touched her upper arm.

“Easy.”
Instead of withdrawing, his fingertips began slow distracting circles on her
skin. “You were hurt.”

“By
what?”

“Something
you weren’t expecting.”

No
shit. She tried to remember and couldn’t. “And what exactly was that
something?”

“Me.”

The
answer lay between them like a living thing, writhing under the enormity of all
it implied. She tried to shrug off his touch. All she succeeded in doing was
stilling the movement of his fingers, but moving or not, Caleb’s touch was
deeply disturbing, creating a sense of connection between them, enhancing the
certainty of the rightness of lying together like this. Which was crazy. It had
to be. She couldn’t have slept through the first time she’d had sex in the last
two years.

Was
she dreaming? A dream would explain everything. The blankness in her memory,
the surreal feel to the encounter, that overwhelming sense that something
important hovered just out of her conscious reach. Those were all classic
symptoms of a dream state. She dug her nails into Caleb’s skin. He felt darned
real for a figment of her imagination, all tough muscle stretched over hard
bone. And warm. Blessedly warm.

Vampire.
The warning whispered in her head. Images of fangs
and blood sprinted across her mind in an indistinct blur, followed quickly by a
flash of pain and betrayal. Her breath caught as she chased the illusion. Or
reality. She couldn’t tell.

The
heavy darkness shifted as Caleb pulled her completely beneath him, the heat
from his body settling over her like an electric blanket, alerting her to the
fact that she was getting cold. In the dark. Naked. With a man she was in lust
with but didn’t really know. Allie braced her hands against his chest, taking
in his warmth even as she attempted to hold him at bay. This was weird. Too
weird. Figment of her imagination weird. “Are you real?”

“Don’t
I feel real?”

Lord
help her, even her figments were contrary. She slapped at the fingers stroking
her arm. “If I could tell that, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“I’m
as real as you can take.”

“Uh-huh.”
Like that told her anything. Allie wished she could see Caleb’s face, but no
matter how hard she squinted, she met that wall of darkness and the absolute
certainty that she must be dreaming. Vampires didn’t exist. And even if they
did, they came with huge honking fangs, decaying flesh, and an accent that
sounded more like Hungary in winter than Texas in the heat of summer. She felt
with her leg over the side of the bed. Her toe didn’t meet the pile of her
clothes that she searched for. It didn’t even meet the floor. She scooted over
a little more, stretching farther.

“You’re
gonna fall off the bed.”

“No
I’m not.” Dream or not, instinct said this was a good time to be making an
exit.

Failing
to touch the floor with her foot, she wiggled some more and let gravity aid her
cause. Her curse followed in her wake as she dropped. Except the floor wasn’t
where she thought it should be. It was a good bit lower and landing on it hurt
her butt almost as much as it hurt her insides.

“Shit!”

There
was a rustle and a disturbance in the air around her. Caleb settled beside her
with what could only be described as a long-suffering sigh.

“You
don’t listen well, do you?”

“I
listen fine when people say something I want to hear.”

She
felt around the floor. There had to be clothes somewhere. Her hand caught on
the trailing end of the sheet. She grabbed it and yanked it toward her. “You
just haven’t been saying what I want to hear.”

The
sheet only came so far. Had he nailed the thing to the bed? She used the
resistance to pull herself more vertical. She got halfway there before blinding
pain in her head dropped her back to the floor. Strong arms came around her. It
was disgusting, the ease with which Caleb pulled her against him. Almost as
disgusting as her natural relaxation into the hard planes of his chest. She was
an independent woman, for heaven’s sake! “As grateful as I am for your sparing
my butt, I really need you to let me go.”

“If I
let you go, you’ll fall.”

She
tightened her grip on the sheet. “Let’s just give it a spin and see how I do.”

From
the little dots streaking behind her eyes, she didn’t think she was going to do
that well, but she had to try. Her gut said so. Caleb muttered something under
his breath. She was reasonably sure it was another curse. Allie scooted to the
side. His hand dropped, brushing her hip. She gave the sheet a big yank.

The
damn thing gave as if it hadn’t stood solid as a rock against her a minute
before. She lurched sideways, hitting the wall with her shoulder and then her
head. She fell to her knees. The two seconds it took to wrap the sheet around
her were all her stomach gave her before it rebelled. Nausea rolled over her in
a violent wave. Never, ever, had she thrown up this hard. It felt like her guts
were turning inside out, but nothing came out. The next spasm sent her tumbling
forward. Caleb caught her, his hand a welcome support against the violent
heaves.

“I
told you to stay put.”

If
she could have spared the energy to turn, and actually had something to throw
up, she would have vomited on his toes. “Shut up.”

“You
need to lie down.”

She
knotted her fist into the sheet and pressed it against her stomach. “I just
need a minute.”

Dear
God, please let this be a dream and do not let me be vomiting in front of the
stud muffin of my dreams.

“A
minute isn’t going to do it.”

If
this was a dream, it was an annoying one. Not to mention embarrassing. “How do
you know?”

“I’ve
seen this before.”

She
caught his hand before he could move it off her hip. “What exactly is ‘this’?”

“Your
body’s just getting shed of the poison in it.”

The
coldness of the next wave of nausea had nothing on the coldness of horror. “I
was poisoned?”

One
palm pressed into her forehead, the other into her stomach. It might have been
her imagination, but the pain and sickness seemed to lessen beneath his touch.
“In a manner of speaking.”

In a
manner of speaking? Had that brief image of her packing cleavage reduced his
impression of her brain power to zero? “There’s no ‘manner of speaking’ when it
comes to poison. Either I was, or I wasn’t.”

“Come
to bed, and I’ll explain.”

“Said
the spider to the fly.”

He
ignored her mutter, just slipped his arm under her knees and behind her back
and lifted her. The swirl of nausea kept her protest trapped in her throat.

“Easy.”

Allie
swallowed hard and gritted her teeth. She had about one intact nerve left and
that “easy” was getting on it fast. “I’m not a horse.”

“Things
would be a hell of a lot easier if you were.”

Well,
that was a heck of a note. A shift in his grip and then the coolness of the
bottom sheet met her spine. She felt along the expanse with both hands. “I know
I came here with clothes.”

“You
did.”

“So
where are they?”

His
hands came back to her head and stomach. “You lost your supper on them.”

Again
the pain and nausea seemed to recede. She should probably leave the horse
comment alone, but damn it, she had to know. “Why a horse?”

“What?”

“Why
would you rather I was a horse?”

“It’s
not a matter of a rather, but convenience. If you were a horse, you wouldn’t
ask so many questions.”

The
bed dipped as he sat beside her. She checked her body’s tendency to roll with
the flow. “And you wouldn’t have to provide so many answers.”

“Yeah.”

Sick
as she felt, the way he said that “yeah,” all low and slow, made her pulse skip
a beat. She grabbed his forearm. The rock-hard muscle didn’t give a fraction
under her frantic grip. “Caleb?”

His
“Yes?” was distracted.

“I’m
too tired and sick for word games.”

“I
know.”

There
was no doubt about it, she was feeling better. And the good feeling was
spreading outward from his hands. Was he a healer? She’d read about healers.
“Please, tell me what happened.”

Beside
her, there was sudden stillness. The hand on her forehead slipped down to her
cheek, conforming to the curve as if he were memorizing the shape of her face.
“I’d rather wait until you’re stronger.”

“And
I’d rather know now.”

His
hand drifted down to her throat, the fingers curving around the base of her
neck, his thumb lingering on the pulse point almost caressingly. She recognized
that touch. She’d been on the receiving end of it too often to mistake it. It
was something men did before they delivered very bad news, like
tonight-was-fun-but-I-met-this-new-woman-and-I’d-like-to-see-her-instead-of-you
kind of news. They always thought making a woman feel physically good a second
before they delivered the crippling blow somehow made it better. Men were so
clueless. She braced her shoulders into the mattress. “You might as well spit
it out.”

“What?”

“Whatever
horrible thing you’re going to say.”

“You
think that’s going to make it better?”

“Can’t
make it worse.” And maybe it would either get this dream over with or onto a
better version. One that had him showing her how well he knew how to use the
hard-on she could feel brushing her thigh.

“I’m
not going to like what you have to say, am I?”

“No.”

“It
has to do with why I feel that I should be afraid of you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Since
I’m halfway there, don’t you think you could throw me a bone and give me the
whole thing?”

“I’ll
think on it.”

He’d
think on it. Huh! She’d give him something to think on. Her stomach churned on
the rush of adrenaline. “I need to get to the bathroom.”

His
palm pressed on her stomach. The nausea subsided. He was definitely controlling
her body’s reactions. Her curiosity piqued. Years ago, during her journalist
period, she’d searched the country for a real healer, chased down every tabloid
rumor, hunted up every new age cult. She’d thought a piece on natural healers
would make a great story for the magazines, but she never managed to find one
whose talents she could verify. She’d come close at one cult, even believed the
quack when he’d told her she had a special energy that needed nurturing, but
when they’d started locking her door at night “for her own protection,” she’d
come to her senses. And now, she was laying next to a man who actually might
possess real healing skills . . . Excitement bloomed. It was difficult to keep
her voice even. “I’m pretty accepting of things, Caleb. I won’t freak out if
you have certain . . . abilities.”