Cheryl Holt by More Than Seduction Read Free Book Online Page A

that she could waltz in and strip him, but it was quite another to actually do it. Another inch or two and his privates would be revealed.
    She was no stranger to male anatomy. After all, she’d had a younger brother, but she’d heard that the masculine appendage grew bigger, just as a body did, and that the sight was too abominable for a maiden to view.
    He was staring at her, waiting for her to proceed, and she was flummoxed, nervous, so she reached for the knitted throw and arranged it over his lap. If he had any opinion as to her abrupt burst of modesty, he had the courtesy not to voice it.
    She dragged his pants over his toes and forced herself to glance down.
    His right leg was intact and hardy, though there was a bullet wound above the knee, but his left leg was as bandaged as his upper torso. The dressings were soiled, and they smelled putrid.
    “How long has it been since your wraps were changed?”
    “I don’t recall. I wouldn’t let those crazed sawbones near me. The only remedy they ever rendered was to bleed me. The only advice they offered was to cut off my leg.”
    The incessant razor slashes, inflicted to drain the ill-humors, marked his arms. What petty tortures he must have endured! So he’d lain in his own filth, refusing any assistance. What a tragic tale!
    “Would you rather die than lose your leg?”
    “Yes. Wouldn’t you?”
    She supposed she would. “I realize it’s a radical notion, but some medical people have begun to suggest that cleanliness promotes recuperation and stems infection. Was there no capable doctor at Bristol?”
    “They were all fools.”
    She could picture his cadre of physicians, fussy, arrogant, clumsy buffoons, hovering over him and bellowing orders. He wouldn’t have been a submissive patient, so the Chamberlin household must have been in a constant state of upheaval and strife. It was no surprise that his sister had been at her wits’ end.
    She’d borrowed one of Kate’s billowy nightshirts, and she tugged it on him and adjusted it around his waist so that the hem would fall when he stood. The bagginess of the garment attested to his frailty. It hung on him like an enormous tent.
    “My bathing costume?” he smirked.
    “Unless you’d rather be buff naked.”
    He blanched. “The shirt will be fine.”
    “I have my wheeled chair in the hall. Can you make it that far?”
    “We’ll see.”
    “I’ll go slowly.”
    She guided him to his feet, and he tottered, so she folded herself around him. Except for the kiss her beau hadbestowed at age fifteen, it was the nearest she’d ever been to an adult man, the single occasion she’d hugged one.
    Her breasts were crushed to his side, her feminine parts to his thigh. It was an electrifying experience that rattled her nerves and jumbled her insides, causing butterflies to swarm through her stomach, but she didn’t have time to daydream or fantasize. If she wasn’t cautious, she’d drop him on his skinny arse. What a mess that would be!
    They took clumsy steps but, without catastrophe, they made it to the chair. Though it was a distance of a few feet, he was sweating, trembling from the modest exertion.
    She draped a blanket over him, which had him grousing. “You’re handling me like an ailing grandfather. Why not shove me into the corner and ignore me?”
    She grinned. As if she could
ignore
him! He wasn’t the sort one could neglect. He was too overbearing.
    “Quit complaining,” she shot at him. “I don’t want you catching a chill.”
    He was so sickly, so depleted, that the slightest modification of condition could lay him low. He wouldn’t be strong enough to fight off an ague.
    Utilizing the clever ramps Kate had constructed, she maneuvered him to the pool.
    “Can you swim?” she inquired.
    “For God’s sake!” he snapped. “I wasn’t always an invalid.”
    “Don’t bark at me. Your sister will be furious if I let you drown.”
    “As if she’d care,” he grumbled, sounding