Take My Breath Away…. Cara Summers

that he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep. He’d stood beside his mother’s bed holding his father’s hand as they’d both sworn their vows. He’d promised to never follow in his father’s footsteps, and his father had promised to give up his lifelong profession.

      But the promise hadn’t done his father much good. Raphael Wilder had been falsely accused and convicted, and he’d died shortly after in prison.

      So why should he bother to keep his promise? That was the question he’d been asking himself as he’d lunged, dribbled and shot basket after basket. And all the time she’d watched him. When he’d finally wheeled to confront her, it had been her eyes that had captured him.

      He’d seen admiration and hero worship in them. Those had been balm to the raw, angry feelings of a thirteen-year-old who’d been newly orphaned.

      So he’d taught her what he’d known about the game, and no teacher could have dreamed of a more responsive student.

      The memory blurred for a moment. That wasn’t what he should be thinking about. There was something else. Something important. Urgent. When he reached for it, pain pierced like a fiery arrow.

      Curls.

      This time when the image surfaced, it wasn’t the child who had enchanted him, saved him when he was thirteen, but the woman who had gripped his hand and said that everything would be all right.

      And it would be. He let out the breath he’d been holding and slipped under again.

      TO PREVENT HER TEETH from chattering, Nicola clamped them together as she dragged the last choir robes out of the closet and added them to the pile at the injured man’s feet. Thank heavens there’d been a generous supply. And they were heavy.

      In spite of her efforts to keep her mind on the task at hand, she couldn’t prevent herself from thinking about her reaction to the man. At twenty-six, she was no stranger to desire or lust. She’d had her moments and thoroughly enjoyed them. But those feelings had never flared quite so quickly or intensely before.

      And she didn’t seem to have any control over them. Each time she’d added to the pile of robes, she hadn’t been able to prevent herself from looking at him. And each time she did, she felt that catch of her breath, that flare of heat.

      There was no logic to it. There hadn’t been from the beginning.

      He was a stranger. But her heart was pounding. And in spite of her determination, her mind kept spinning back to those moments in her office and just minutes ago when he’d looked into her eyes and her thoughts had clicked off just as completely as if someone had thrown a switch.

      Dropping the last robe on the pile, she drew in a deep breath. Mental list time again. She knelt down to check her patient. His pulse was steady, the bleeding on his forehead had stopped, but she knew he had to be very cold. She certainly was. Even with the window shut, the room felt like a deep freeze. Her feet had gone numb and she’d begun to shiver.

      She had to get him out of the clothes that had been drenched by the vase of water. The Paul Bunyan shirt was easy enough. Placing his arms over his head, she tugged on the sleeves. Once they were off, she finessed the rest of the shirt from under him.

      His T-shirt presented more of a problem, but it had to go. In the flickering light, she could see the wet stain covered his shoulders and ran in streaks nearly to his waist. She began by tugging the material free from the waistband of his jeans. But the moment the backs of her fingers brushed against his bare skin, she knew she was in trouble, and it deepened steadily as she eased the shirt up, uncovering the narrow waist, the broad chest.

       Keep your eyes on the shirt. On his face. But not on his mouth. That was a definite danger zone.

      By the time she’d pushed the T-shirt up to his armpits, Nicola was aware of two things. She had some control over her eyes, but none over what she was feeling as her fingers brushed against that smooth skin stretched taut over rock-hard muscles. The little flame of lust this man had ignited in her was being fanned brighter and stronger with each contact.

      She kept her eyes steady on his face, on the dark slash of brows, the shadow of a beard on that strong angled chin as she moved behind him. But her mind wandered, wondered. So far the touching had been purely clinical. Almost. And one-sided. Definitely. Still, her throat had gone dry and her pulse was racing. What would happen if she ran her hands over him with the intent of arousing him, pleasuring him? And what if he touched her back?

       Whoa.

      Just thinking about it stopped her teeth from chattering and made her heart pound so loudly that she was amazed the noise didn’t wake him up. She carefully maneuvered the T-shirt off one arm, then the other before she eased it carefully around the wound on his forehead.

      Then her gaze slid to where it had wanted to be from the beginning. She sat back on her heels and simply stared, letting her eyes feast on what her hands had already gotten more than a hint of. The muscles in his shoulders and upper arms were well-defined; his chest was broad with a triangle of thick black hair that tapered down over equally defined abs. The man was built like a Greek god. She could imagine him in bronze or sculpted in marble.

      She shivered then and shook her head. She had to get a grip. He wasn’t a god. He was a man who might be in shock, who was in danger of slipping into hypothermia.

      Moving quickly, she grabbed one of the robes, opened it up and tucked it along the length of him from shoulders to boots on one side. Then she did the same on the other side. A part of him would still be lying on the cold marble, but there was no way she was going to be able to roll him over.

      The man was so tall she had to use two of the shorter robes to fully cover him. After she’d arranged them, she leaned down and patted his cheek again.

      “It’s going to be all right,” she said.

      His lashes fluttered. “C … c … old.”

      “I know. You’ll be warm soon. I promise.”

      How soon? That was the crucial question. There were only two robes left. She’d had some idea of using them for herself.

      She glanced at her coat. It was damp on the outside. And she was going to have to get out of her wet slacks and boots.

      And then what?

      Nicola very carefully avoided looking at the man. Because the answer was obvious. And it had been there lurking in the back of her mind ever since she’d started undressing him.

      She was an FBI agent. She’d been trained in survival tactics, and the quickest, most efficient way to keep both of them warm—for the time being—was to share everything. Including body heat.

      And the only reason she was stalling was because of the effect this man—this complete stranger—had on her senses. Annoyed—no, angry at herself, Nicola arranged the last two robes. They were both adults. And she was the only fully conscious one. What was her problem?

      She tugged off her boots. If he tried anything, she could handle herself. Shrugging out of her holster, she placed it next to her gun and the flashlight.

      But what if you try something?

      “Not happening,” Nicola muttered as she wiggled out of her wet trousers. A little fantasizing, a little lust. She could handle it.

      But she didn’t look at him as she joined him beneath the pile of robes.

      Every muscle in her body tensed when his arm snaked around her and pulled her close. Suddenly she was wrapped around him as intimately as a lover—her thigh across his, her head nestled into the crook of his shoulder. She might have objected if she hadn’t felt a blast of warmth at each and every contact point.

      Or if he’d moved another muscle.

      But he didn’t.

      She waited, counting the seconds … five … ten … fifteen … twenty.

      But the only thing that moved