Jesse uttered a few highly descriptive oaths about Aunt Pru. Even though he spoke in Spanish, I caught the gist.
“She was only trying to help,” I said, in Pru’s defense. “And you know she’s right. Why are you doing that?” He was rubbing my skin through the terry cloth of the towel.
“You’re in shock,” he said. “You’re cold, and you’re wet, and you’re shaking. I’m attempting to restore warmth and circulation to your extremities. Don’t argue with me, I’m a doctor.”
“I’m not in shock,” I said. “I’m all right. I swallowed a lot of water, but I’m still in one piece. At least this one didn’t ruin my boots.”
“Your what?”
“My . . . never mind. What are you doing now?”
“Helping you to avoid going hypothermic by sharing my body heat.” He’d pulled me onto his lap. “Do you disapprove?”
“Oh, no, I approve.” I slipped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his strong body and the faintly antiseptic smell that seemed permanently to cling to him, thanks to the many times a day he had to wash his hands. I suppose I didn’t smell much better after the chlorine waterboarding I’d received at Lucia’s hands. “How did you know that I was in trouble?”
“I always know.” He tightened his arms around me, his lips intriguingly close to my right earlobe. “I felt her, all the way back at the hospital. Or I felt something, anyway. And then when I tried calling, and you wouldn’t pick up your phone—”
“I went for a swim. My phone’s back in the apartment.”
“I knew there was trouble when I asked if you wanted to play doctor later,” he said, “and you never replied.”
“That’s not true.” I turned my head so that his lips, instead of being close to my ear, were next to my mouth. “I said mucho gusto.”
“I never got that text. How can your Spanish still be so terrible after studying all these years?”
His hands slipped beneath the towel to singe my bare flesh. I sucked in my breath. “Is that something you do to all your patients you treat for shock?”
“No.” He pulled me closer to him. “Only you. You get special treatment.”
His lips came down over mine.
I could feel our hearts thumping hard, separated only by the thin damp microfiber of my swimsuit and the white dress shirt he’d worn to work. He pressed my body back against the chaise longue, his tongue hot inside my mouth, his hand just as hot against my bare skin, while yet another kind of heat radiated from the front of his straight-fits.
Those straight-fits. They were always causing me problems. When it wasn’t my gaze I had trouble keeping off them, it was my hands. Like now, for instance, especially since I could feel what was pushing so urgently through the front of them, practically branding the rivets of his fly into my thigh.
But I knew if I reached down and undid those buttons, then wrapped my fingers around all that masculine glory, the only thing I’d receive for my troubles was a groan, then a polite request that I stop what I was doing. I knew because it had happened a million times before. Jesse’s commitment to staying on the righteous path was admirable, but it was also frustrating.
So I knew he wasn’t going to strip off my bathing suit and do me on the chaise longue in the middle of the pool area at my apartment building. For one thing, that would be gross. Anyone, including Ryan from upstairs, could wander out onto their balcony and see us. And for another, that wasn’t how either of us had envisioned making love for the first time.
Though I had to admit that at that moment, I didn’t particularly care. I wished we were anywhere than the stupid pool deck. My bedroom upstairs, for instance, or his bedroom back over at Jake’s. Except that even in those places he always managed to keep from ripping my clothes off, whereas I seemed to have a real problem not pawing at his. Maybe the curse was wrong, and I was the one with the demon inside me—
“Susannah,” Jesse breathed into my ear after a while.
“I know.” I removed my hand.
He pulled away from me, the chaise longue groaning in protest, and sat up, his back to me. It was hard to tell without being able to see his face, but he seemed like he was in pain.
I was familiar with the feeling.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I volunteered after a few moments of no sound but chirping crickets.
“Yes, it does,” he said to the concrete. “The wedding’s not until next year.”
“Screw the wedding.”
“Your parents would be delighted to hear that since they’ve already put down the deposit for the basilica and the reception.”
“You know what I mean. I get that I’m not as religious as you are, but I really don’t think God will mind.”
“I mind.”
“But most people these days don’t wait until the wedding—”
“Most people aren’t as indebted as I am to the bride and her family.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. No one cares about that.”
“I care. What’s worse is that I came here to rescue you, not ravage you.”
“I believe there was mutual ravaging, and what little of it there was I thoroughly enjoyed.”