Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) Read Online Free Page B

separate himself from his emotions. He was doing what had to be done, just as he did all those years ago when he worked as an EMT. That was what he was trained to do, separate the emotions from the task at hand. And he did it well, except the one time….
    Darian shook his head and again looked to the woman. He had tried to do that last night, but admittedly, he had failed. He hadn’t intentionally noticed how soft her skin was, how small her back was with his huge arms wrapped around her, how fragile she felt, how vulnerable. How good she smelled. And how his body responded holding her.
    He ’d tried to hide it from himself, but his body had responded. Not just the physical arousal but the deep internal arousal of passion and desire. The sizzling heat rose in him—the instinctual desire to protect, to care.
    When he woke to the feel of the soft mound of flesh beneath his fingertips and her peaked nipple in his palm, it was almost more than he could stand.
    And after four years of celibacy, no doubt it was more than any man could stand.
    But Darian knew it was more than that. He’d broken one of his golden rules and had begun to care and that’s where he’d made the fatal mistake. Emotions and feelings lost him something so precious once and he didn’t care to experience that again. He’d cared too much and it nearly devastated him. It wasn’t about to happen again.
    Not for anyone. And particularly not for a stranger.
    Dammit.
    Darian rose and paced the room. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t even know who she was. All he cared about when it came to that woman was whether she’d let him pin her hips to his bed for about an hour. He’d vowed once he’d never care about anyone again, but using her for sex wasn’t caring, it was using. And if she offered, he might damn well accept.
    A soft moan escaped from underneath the covers behind him. Darian slowly turned, set the coffee mug on the table, and looked to his bed. He watched as the blankets and quilts were flung back in disarray and she turned over on her back and moaned again. Her arms flailed out to the sides and the sheet slipped down around her waist exposing her small breasts. Darian sighed and then gulped in a huge breath.
    He stepped closer and looked down upon her ; then carefully, trying not to touch her, lifted the sheet back over her breasts. His gaze never left her face. Still breathing deeply, he reached out, and promising himself just this once, he touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. That was when the alarm bells went off inside him.
    Fuck . She’s sick. And he’d been thinking about using her for sex. Where was his goddamned head!
    He sat on the edge of the bed and touched her forehead. Clammy and hot. Burning with fever. Quickly, Darian tucked the blankets around her once more, retrieved a T-shirt from his chest of drawers, and then slipped it over her head, finally allowing her a little dignity and him a little sanity. Then at the sink he dipped a cloth into the icy water he’d pumped earlier, wrung it out, and folded it into a neat rectangle. At her side again, he placed it over her forehead and knew it was the only thing he could do, besides being there for her.
    He sat there on the edge of the bed for several minutes looking into her small, heart-shaped face, willing his body not to feel the emotion that was coursing through it or the panic that tripped down his spine and grabbed his abdomen. He did not care for her, he reminded himself. He did not care. He did not care.
    But it was a lie.
    He’d begun caring about her the moment she’d turned those saucer blue eyes on him yesterday, before she melted at his feet.
    ****
    Darian nursed her fever throughout the night. He kept her forehead cool with the damp cloth as much as possible while she sweat the fever out into the sheets. Even though she was semi-conscious, he managed to get some water between her parched lips from time to time. He flinched each time she