Page 17 of The Awakening
All of her was.
I tried my best not to gawk. She was awake, and that was progress, but was she ill? Had she slipped? I set her down on the bed and pulled the blanket over her naked body concealing her and tucking the edges. Only her head poked out of the cocoon I’d encased her in.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I must’ve run the bath too hot,” she panted out.
If she was too hot, maybe I shouldn’t have wrapped her in a blanket.
Hell, I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Water, please.”
Of course. I raced back into the bathroom, skidding through the pool of water on the floor, but I latched on to the counter and kept myself upright.
Calm down, Gavin.
I wouldn’t be any good to her if I didn’t. I grabbed the cup from the counter, rinsed it, and filled it with the coldest water the tap could manage. Then I made my way back to her, careful of the water on the floor this time around.
She pushed herself up to take the glass from me, and in the process, the blanket inched down, revealing the top of her breasts. My eyes instinctively dropped, but I forced myself to look back up. To distract myself, I pulled the soaked strands of her hair that clung to her all too beautiful face while she eyed me over the rim of the glass as she drank from it.
She set the empty glass on the bedside table.
“Want some more.”
She shook her head. “No, thanks, I’m feeling much better now. I just ran the bath the same temperature as I always do.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Knowing women, it was almost hot enough to boil you alive.”
She quirked a half smile. “Almost. Anyhow, my tolerance must be down. Maybe because of the pregnancy? I got woozy, and as I was trying to get a drink from the sink, I got hit by a major dizzy spell. And then, judging by the fact that you carried me to bed, I passed out.”
Was that normal? I didn’t have enough experience around pregnant women to know whether it was. “Have you been to see a doctor yet?”
“No, not yet. I didn’t want word getting around about the baby. You never know who you’re going to run into in a small town. If you’re doing something you don’t want people knowing about, it’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to get caught.”
“I’ll ask Kate and see if you can get in with her doctor. She knows more about all of this than I do.”
“Oh, you’re not a pregnancy expert?” she said, trying to keep a straight face.
I patted my abs. “Nope. It’s been years since I last gave birth. I couldn’t maintain this washboard stomach if I kept popping out babies, now, could I?”
“Washboard? Really, Gavin?” She rolled her eyes at me.
Seeing her humor return was a relief. She had really scared me earlier.
“You wouldn’t be questioning it if you’d had the privilege of seeing my naked body. I’ll show you.”
“No, no. I believe you.” She waved her hand in my direction.
“You don’t want to see my bare chest?”
“It’s not that. I do—I mean—I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
I sighed. “It’s only fair. You showed me yours.”
She laughed. “While naked and passed out on the floor.”
“Still counts. I was this close—” I held my finger and thumb up with a tiny gap between them. “—to giving them mouth-to…tit resuscitation.” Even I couldn’t keep a straight face with that one. I grabbed my shirt and popped it open. One of the snaps decided to jump on the bandwagon and flew across the room and rolled under the chair.
