Would wanting to see his angel of mercy naked send him straight to hell?
CHAPTER THREE
DAISY placed Connor’s hand carefully by his side, listened to the harsh pants of his breathing as he fell into a fitful sleep and then ran all three of Maya’s instructions back through her mind—one of which she’d been pretending she hadn’t heard.
She nipped over to the room’s French doors, unlocked the latch and flung them wide. Maybe two out of three would do the trick. But the evening air was suffocatingly still, creating no respite from the heat.
Daisy sat back on the bed. She chewed her lip and concentrated on wiping the cloth over the contours of Brody’s upper body. She applied the cooling linen to his arms and shoulders, and listened to the low groans as he struggled with the fever.
After five agonisingly long minutes, it was clear the fever had no intention of abating. If anything it seemed to be getting worse, the ice water now lukewarm in the bowl. Daisy wiped her own brow, cursing her smothering outfit for the umpteenth time that night.
Where was Maya? Shouldn’t she have been here by now? But even as she registered the thought she knew it was a delaying tactic.
Brody shifted on the bed, his movements stiff and uncomfortable.
What was her problem? She should just take off Brody’s sweat pants and be done with it. She was being ridiculous, behaving like a silly schoolgirl, when she was a mature, sensible and sexually confident woman.
Good grief, she’d seen naked men before. She’d lost her virginity at nineteen, to sweet, geeky Terry Mason. She wasn’t exactly prolific when it came to partners and some of them had definitely been more memorable than others. But none of her relationships had been disastrous enough to give her a complex about nudity. Hers or anyone else’s.
Until now.
Okay, Brody was a stranger, and his physique had affected her rather alarmingly already. But she could hardly let the poor bloke suffer because she’d had a sudden, inexplicable attack of modesty. And anyhow, this wasn’t remotely sexual, she was only trying to get his temperature down until Maya arrived. Plus, he probably had underwear on. There was absolutely no need to worry.
That vain hope was crushed like a bug when Daisy peeked under his track pants and spotted the dark, springy wisps of hair.
She let go of the damp waistband so fast it snapped back into place. Brody moaned, sweat beading on his forehead in the lamplight.
Calm down, Daisy, stop being a ninny. You can do this. You have to.
She’d just ignore her pounding pulse and her quivering ovaries.
Right. She got up to look for some fresh linen, reasoning she’d need a sheet once she got the sweat pants off, to preserve his modesty. Not that she thought he had a great deal from his cheeky remark about her bra, but it seemed she had more than enough for both of them.
It took her approximately two seconds to find the brand-new bed linen in the dresser drawer. After spending a full minute undoing the packaging and snapping out the sheets, she was all out of time-wasting tactics.
Perching on the edge of the bed, she shook Brody’s shoulder.
‘I have to take your sweat pants off, Mr Brody. They’re soaked and we need to get the fever down.’
No response, just another hoarse groan. Fine, she wasn’t going to get his permission. She’d just have to hope he didn’t sue her when he woke up and found himself naked.
She hooked her fingers in the waistband, pressed her thumbs into the damp fabric and sucked in a breath. She turned her face away, heat pumping into her cheeks as she eased the garment over his hips. Almost immediately, something halted its progress. She tugged harder, he grunted and the fabric bounced over the impediment.
A few moments more of give, and then the sweat pants got stuck again.
She fisted her hands and tried the same trick twice, but this time the pants weren’t budging. Anchored, she guessed, under his bottom. She huffed, not ready to look round. Whatever that bump had been a moment ago, she knew she’d got the pants far enough down now to afford her more of an eyeful than was good for her blood pressure.
She squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the band of elastic harder, when he mumbled something and rolled towards her. As the trousers loosened Daisy sent up a quick prayer of thanks and gave them a swift yank. They slipped down before he flopped onto his back again. She was leaning so close to him now, she could feel the heat of his skin against the side of her face, and smell the musky and oddly pleasant scent of fresh male sweat and sandalwood soap.
Do not turn round. Do not turn round and look at him.
Daisy repeated the mantra in her head, staring at the open doorway and trying not to picture long, hard flanks roped with muscle as the silky hair on his thighs tickled the backs of her fingers. She gave a huff of relief as she peeled the sweat pants over his knees, inching along the edge of the bed as she went. The effort to keep her balance and resist the urge to look at him had sweat beading on her own brow. Concentrating hard, Daisy nearly toppled off the bed when her patient groaned again.
Daisy noticed the difference in sound immediately, her ears attuned to even the slightest change in tone. This groan didn’t sound like the others, more a low, sensual moan than a painful grunt. Daisy puffed out a breath, damning her overactive imagination as her thigh muscles clenched and the sweet spot between them began to throb in earnest.
Get serious, woman. This situation is not erotic. Pretend you’re undressing a sick child.
But however hard she tried, Daisy couldn’t think of Brody as anything other than a man. A man in his prime. An extremely sexy, naked man who had something nestled between his thighs that had produced that resilient bounce.
As she was busy conjuring up some extremely inappropriate images to explain that damn bounce Daisy’s luck ran out. The heavy, confining folds of the track pants locked around Brody’s ankles. No matter how hard she tugged and pulled and yanked she couldn’t unravel the sodden fabric and get the pants the rest of the way off.
Blast, it was no good, she’d have to look to sort out the tangle.
Keep your eyes down. Remember. Eyes on toes.
Muttering the new mantra, she swivelled her head and her eyes instantly snagged on something they shouldn’t. Something that had her jaw dropping, her eyes widening and the liquid between her thighs turning to molten lava.
Wow!
She’d found the source of her bounce. And it was more erotic than anything she could have imagined on her own. Brody, it seemed, despite his fever, his delirium and his earlier exhaustion, was sort of turned on. His partial erection sat proud and long, angling towards his belly button.
Daisy swallowed past the rock lodged in her parched throat. She’d always been a firm believer that size didn’t matter, but that was before she’d seen Connor Brody naked. Everything about the man was quite simply magnificent.
The sudden urge to run her fingertip along the ridge of swollen flesh was so all-consuming, Daisy had to fist her hands and force her gaze away. She stared at the ceiling and gritted her teeth. Utterly disgusted with herself.
How could she have admired his private parts like that? How could she have even considered touching them? How had she gone from frightened schoolgirl to raging nymphomaniac in the space of a few minutes?
What she’d almost done was unconscionable and unethical, a gross invasion of his privacy and against everything she’d ever believed about herself. She had absolutely no right to take advantage of the poor man when he was delirious and burning up with fever and needed her help.
She grabbed the sheet she’d laid out at the bottom of the bed and whisked it over him. It settled in a billowing wave over his lower half, but did nothing to disguise what