Page 36 of Wild Devotion
Heat flooded my face—half arousal, half mortification—and before I could figure out which one was winning, my stomach made its own decision.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and shoved past him, barely making it to the toilet before everything came up. I retched, and retched again, falling to my knees as vomit splashed the sides of the bowl.
What a fucking disaster.
“It’s okay.” Caleb’s voice was calm and steady behind me. He flushed the toilet and pressed a cool washcloth to the back of my neck. “I’ve got you.”
I let him guide me against the side of the tub, where he’d already draped a towel for me to lean on. Without a word of complaint, he cleaned up the mess I’d made. Wiped down the toilet, rinsed the cloth, washed his hands. All with the quiet efficiency of someone who’d spent time around sick people and wasn’t fazed by any of it.
“Be right back,” he said. “Don’t move.”
I didn’t know where the hell I’d go, but I really wished it could be into a giant hole that magically opened in the floor.
Before I could contemplate it any further, he came back with a glass of ice water and crouched beside me.
“Thank you.” I took a long sip, letting the cold settle my stomach. “I need to brush my teeth. Do you mind?”
He loaded my toothbrush with paste and handed it to me without hesitation.
“Would you like to pull your hair up?” His eyes moved over me with an expression that was more assessment than pity. “What do you need for it?”
“Conditioner and a comb,” I mumbled around the toothbrush. “But don’t worry about it.”
He turned and started going through the bathroom cabinet. I spat my mouthful of foam into the toilet while his back was to me.
“This?” He held up the exact bottle I’d been too lazy to find for myself.
“Perfect.” I reached for it.
He ignored my outstretched hand. Instead, he sat on the edge of the tub behind me, scooting me forward so that his legs were on either side of me. Then he went to work on my tangles himself.
The comb was set aside. He worked the conditioner through with his fingers, patient and thorough. His hands moved from the ends to the roots, untangling gently, and then the detangling became something else.
His fingertips pressed in circles behind my ears, along my hairline, up to the crown of my head. Every stroke sent heat spreading down my neck and across my shoulders.
It was better than the foot rub. Significantly, devastatingly better.
A needy ache bloomed between my thighs—the toilet bowl incident already a distant memory. All I could feel were his hands and the solid weight of his body behind mine.
“Feeling better?” His breath grazed the side of my face.
If I lied and said no, would he stay this close forever? “Yes. Much better. Thank you.”
He combed through my hair one final time, his fingers trailing down the length of it before pulling away. “Good. Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable than the bathroom floor.”
I took his offered hand and let him pull me to my feet. He kept hold of it as he walked me down the hall to the living room, and I let him because I didn’t have the strength to pretend I didn’t want him touching me.
I sank into the couch and tried not to show how much his proximity was affecting every nerve in my body.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” I said.
“Don’t be.” He sat on the edge of the coffee table, giving me space I wasn’t sure I wanted. “You want to talk about the phone call?”
“God, no. It was just my mom pushing for Thanksgiving. And pushing me to get back together with Sean. Her usual greatest hits.”
His fingers curled into a fist. “She thinks you should go back to him?”
“She thinks I should be grateful he’d even consider me.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “My mother has a lot of opinions about men and relationships, and very few of them are healthy.”
