Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (47 page)

“Let go, Luke.” She ground the words out, hoping to convey how close he was to losing a part of his anatomy he probably fancied.

Another wracking shiver coursed through his body, and he held on even tighter, nearly smothering her. Involuntarily, she reminded herself. He wasn’t making a pass. Still, she fought to escape the confines of his arms, trying to control her breathing before going into a full-blown panic.

“I…said…let
go
of me.” She tried to yank herself away.

“Yes, ma’am.” His arms slackened and his head lolled to the side.

“Don’t you dare go to sleep, Luke! Do you hear me?” She raised her voice, “I need you to stay awake.”

He moaned, but his eyes remained closed.

Cassie needed to call for help. She had no idea how to handle someone with a probable concussion and hypothermia. Going to the blanket chest in the corner, she pulled out several more heavy wool covers, since he had fallen onto the ones she used herself. She spread them over his body before running to the living room to call her friend.

“Kitty! I have him. He’s hurt but alive.”

She heard her friend muffle the receiver to announce, “Adam, Luke’s alive!” Then her voice came through more clearly. “How badly is he hurt, Cassie?”

“Concussion, I think. Hypothermia for sure. He needs medical help, but the road’s blocked.”

“Let me have Marc talk with you. He’ll know what to do.”

Cassie didn’t want to
do
anything; she just wanted someone to come and take this giant of a man off her hands.

“Listen, he’ll call you back on his phone. Let’s hang up.”

With reluctance, she said good-bye and carried the phone into the bedroom where Luke lay sprawled on her bed, shivering uncontrollably now. She knew there wasn’t anyone else around to do this. Luke could die without treatment, and she didn’t want that karma marring her soul’s journey.

She hurried into the kitchen to get the space heater. At least this would raise the temperature in the room a little bit faster. The phone buzzed just as she turned on the heater and pointed it toward Luke on the bed.

“Cassie, this is Marc. Tell me what’s going on.”

After filling him in on how she’d found him and the visible injuries, she added, “I think he might have a concussion.”

“First I need you to help me evaluate his condition.”

He walked her through several things to check, and she reported that his pupils both contracted normally in the light and he had a steady pulse. “He’s shivering non-stop now, Marc.”

“A concussion isn’t my biggest worry. I need you to keep him from falling into a deep sleep, though. The main concern is warming him up fast. First, get him out of those clothes. They’re probably wet and leaching what little warmth he has left in his body’s core.”

Strip off his clothes?
She didn’t want to even consider that notion. She was an artist, not a nurse. But in actuality, she simply didn’t want to deal with touching or seeing him that intimately. She remembered the camping experience with her father and brother.

Skin to skin.

Bare
skin to bare skin.

Why me, goddess?

Dharma or karma, it didn’t matter. She did not need this on her soul’s chart.

Care for him.

She sighed. “Let me put you on speaker phone, Marc.” After doing so, she set the phone down, tossed the blankets aside, and went to work unbuttoning Luke’s shirt. His coat must have been on the seat in the car. The sleeves of his denim shirt were cold and wet from his climb up the embankment. She could only imagine how wet his jeans must be.

Why me?

“How are you doing,
cara
?”

Trying not to freak out about the very real possibility of having a naked man in my bed in a few minutes.

“I’m…getting him out of these…wet clothes.”

“Luke!” A woman’s voice came over the speakerphone. Angelina. “You do whatever Cassie says, you hear me? I’ll kick your ass if you don’t.”

Luke smiled, but didn’t open his eyes. “’K, Angel.”

At least he was still halfway aware of his surroundings. That had to be a good sign. He grimaced as another shudder coursed through him. She needed to hurry.

“I need you to sit up, Luke. We need to get this wet shirt off you.”

Another grin, and he opened his eyes. She felt his wicked leer.

Don’t even think it, mister.

She helped him sit up and stripped away his shirt, leaving his chest bare. He had little to no hair on his chest. Several scars made her wonder how he’d gotten them, but she averted her gaze. Easing him back onto the pillow, she unbuckled his belt and tugged it from the loops, tossing it aside. She undid the button at the waistband and unzipped his fly without looking at what she might reveal underneath. Turning her head, she worked the jeans over his tight butt. Repositioning herself at the foot of the bed, she tugged off his boots and then followed with the cold, wet jeans.

Thankfully he wore boxers. No way was she removing those. Warming up his chest and extremities was more her concern, not his…

“When you get everything off, you’ll need to strip, too, and crawl under the covers with him.”

She wasn’t surprised by Marc’s command, she just didn’t welcome hearing her greatest fear put into words. Relieved to see Luke’s eyes had closed again, she removed her clothes quickly but kept her bra and panties on as symbolic protection at least. She grabbed the cell phone.

“Okay. I’m going to disconnect now. I’ll call you back if anything changes for the worse.”

Marc told her the signs to look for to indicate a worsening of his condition, but said helicopters wouldn’t be able to come in to airlift him out for days, not if the blizzard conditions predicted for tonight came about. No surprise there. More bad luck.

Cassie ended the call before stretching out beside Luke. The sheets were damp from his clothes, so she got up and maneuvered a blanket under him, rolling his body back and forth until he no longer made contact with the sheets.

His body temperature was frigid and she couldn’t suppress a shudder of her own. Pulling several heavy blankets over them both, she curled up beside this near-naked man who had invaded her sanctuary.

When black spots clouded her vision, she realized she’d stopped breathing. Drawing slow, ragged breaths helped clear her mind and vision, but the thought of lying next to him, touching her body against the length of him, sent her mind into the depths of hell.

Cassie fought to keep the memories from overwhelming her. At least she wasn’t underneath him.

Luke wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She pushed him away instinctively before realizing she needed to get closer if she was going to do him any good. Why couldn’t he just lie still and keep his hands off her? The urge to squirm out of her skin almost overtook her, and she fought to fill her lungs to keep the panic at bay.

“Baby girl, it feels good to hold you like this.”

He was delirious again. She didn’t know who baby girl was, but she was nobody’s baby girl and never would be.

“Luke, this is Cassie Lôpez. You’re in my cabin. You had an accident. The snow ledge gave way and…”

“Avalanche.” He stiffened and opened his eyes, trying to focus on her face. His smoky gray eyes had a haunted look. “You okay, Cassie?” His calloused hand cupped her cheek, and she drew away.

“I’m fine.” Physically, at least. Her mental state was in shambles right now, though. He knew who he was with at least. She liked it better when he was thinking about someone else.

“Good. I’ll keep you safe. Promise.”

His other arm gripped her more tightly for a moment until his eyes closed and his head lolled to the side. The hand touching her dropped to the mattress where she hoped it would stay. He grimaced as another chill convulsed his body, and she forced herself to press her body against his, trying to infuse him with her warmth at the same time she felt as if the lifeblood was being leached from her own body.

Cassie’s heart thudded as she fought down the bile threatening to rise at touching a man again, especially in such a compromising position.

His baby girl might be safe, but Cassie wasn’t. Not as long as this man was in her cabin—not to mention her bed.

With her.

“You had better get well fast, Lucas Denton,” she whispered. “I want you out of here as soon as possible.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

M
arc updated his friends on how it sounded like Luke was doing and turned to Adam. “Why don’t you head back to Denver before it gets much later? They’re predicting some nasty weather in the passes later tonight. We can’t do anything for Luke until the weather cooperates.”

“No way.” Adam placed his arm around Karla securing her against his side. “Roads are too dangerous and someone needs to keep an eye on things out at Luke’s place. Karla and I will bunk down there tonight.”

Angelina reached out to touch Karla’s arm. “That’ll mean a lot to him. He loves those horses so much. I’ll call my brothers; Rafe and Tony can take over tomorrow until Luke gets back home.”

Two Giardano brothers lived within a dozen miles of Luke’s and knew their way around a stable. “Good thinking,
cara
.”

The mood at daVinci’s bar disintegrated quickly, and Adam and Karla reached for their coats. Marc wasn’t ready to leave yet. He and Angelina still had so much to talk about. Nothing had been resolved about where they’d go from here, not even for tonight.

The thought of parting again left him feeling cast adrift.

Marc turned to Angelina. Moments ago, he’d watched the stress leave her body when she heard Luke respond to her command to be a good patient. Now he noticed an almost imperceptible shaking in her arms and pulled her to his chest.

“He’s going to be okay,
cara
. He’s out of the elements, and it sounds as though Cassie is going to take good care of him.” He tried to convince himself of that, anyway. Luke was lucky to have survived the avalanche but wasn’t out of the woods yet.

“Poor Cassie.”

Luke was the one injured. He pulled away and met her gaze. “What do you mean?”

She evaded his gaze. “I can’t reveal a confidence, but it’s going to be really hard for her to do what you’ve just asked of her.”

All Marc had done was ask Cassie to take care of his friend. With the likelihood of hypothermia, sure, she needed to get skin to skin with him and warm him up. Big deal. Anyone with a sense of compassion for another human, no matter how prudish, would do whatever it took to save his life, even if that meant going beyond their comfort level. Marc began to worry he might need to get up the mountain tonight—somehow—to help Luke. He wasn’t going to leave his friend with someone he couldn’t trust to get the job done.

“Will she take care of him?”

Angelina looked at him. “Oh, no doubt! She can’t stand to see any living creature suffer, even if that creature is a full-grown man. If she said she’d take care of him, she will. It’s just…not going to be easy.”

Marc wasn’t convinced he could trust Cassie. “There’s no way we can safely get anyone up there to get him out until the weather clears in the passes. But if he’s in imminent danger… Are you sure he’s—?”

Angelina rested her hand on his chest. “Stop worrying until we know more.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her.
Dio
, it felt sublime to be holding her again.

Angelina cared a lot about Luke. They both did. He’d never really thought anything had happened when she’d gone to Luke’s after leaving Marc’s house in Denver, but there had always been a part of him that questioned the arrangement. Hell, his own flesh-and-blood brother had screwed the woman he’d once planned to marry. But whenever he saw Angelina and Luke together, Luke displayed only big-brother affection.

Despite the fact he and Luke were about the same age, Luke sometimes behaved like a brother to Marc, too, closer even than Marc had been with Gino in the end. Of course, Gino’s life had been cut short before Marc had had a chance to grow up.

If he’d ever grown up.