Dance With the Devil by Hart Megan

Author:Hart, Megan [Hart, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940078212
Amazon: B01AU6AMPQ
Goodreads: 29490765
Publisher: Chaos
Published: 2016-03-27T07:00:00+00:00

17

She could not get herself clean. Forty minutes in the shower under hot water and another twenty under cold until her teeth chattered so hard she bit her tongue; the taste of blood could not wash away the bitterness of what she'd done. She had managed to get herself onto the bathroom floor wrapped in a sodden, chilly towel, but could move no farther than that.

Jake found here there. She didn't want him to see her like that, but a fever had struck her sometime in between finishing the devil's work and getting out of the shower. She looked at him as though he stood in the waves of heat from a pizza oven, but they came from her.

"C'mon. Let's get you into bed." Gently, he lifted her, but she roused herself enough to push past him and stumble to the toilet, where she heaved up nothing but stringy brown bile and wished she had the strength to tell him to get away.

Nobody should have to see her like this.

Kathleen became aware of a cool cloth placed on the back of her neck. Jake's soothing hands rubbed her back in circles while she shuddered, gripping the porcelain. When the spasms had passed, he helped her up and to the sink, where he put paste on her toothbrush.

"I can do it," she snapped when he tried to help her brush. "You can leave."

He didn't leave.

As he'd done the first night they met, he refused to surrender her to whatever might happen. He helped her into a clean pair of pajamas and tucked her into bed. He sat beside her, reading quietly as she slept fitfully, tossing and turning so much he had to get up and remake the bed where she'd pulled out the sheets from the mattress.

At last her dreams ceased to plague her, and she smoothed into quietness. When she woke, stretching, no longer sick, the sunlight glimmering through the windows told her it was late afternoon. Jake slept beside her on his back, one arm thrown behind his head. She rolled to face him, letting herself drink in the sight of him while he couldn't see her staring.

She kept herself from touching him, not wanting to wake him. She traced the lines of his face with her gaze instead, letting it linger on the curves and hollows. The slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The fullness of his lower lip.

He had become so beloved to her, in such a short time.

Quietly, Kathleen slipped from the bed and went into the kitchen to make a mug of tea that she sat with cupped in her hands but did not drink. Her stomach ached with that weird combination of nausea and hunger, but she wasn't sure she dared yet eat. Instead, she sat in the cool dimness and tried to put everything away.

She didn't turn when she heard the soft pad of Jake's bare feet behind her. Without a word he took the seat across from her at the table.

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