SIX

 

Paul woke up hard.

It wasn’t an unusual occurrence. He hadn’t had sex in a while, and his body didn’t appreciate the deprivation. He almost always woke up hard, but it was easy enough to just take care of it in the shower.

This morning was different, though. He didn’t wake up with the familiar dull ache in his groin.

He woke on the verge of climax.

He might have been dreaming, although no details of any erotic dream lingered as awareness slowly broke through the dark cloud of his mind. He wasn’t conscious of anything except the deep throbbing of arousal and the intense urgency of his need for release.

Still half-asleep, he realized his hips were already working in shallow pumps, trying instinctively to hump the mattress, and the only thing that seemed to matter was that he get some sort of relief for that raw, desperate, pulsing ache.

Without conscious volition, he slid his hand down and squeezed around his erection. He heard a soft groan that must have come from him as the pressure of his hand eased some of the painful tension. Still not fully awake, he squeezed rhythmically and rocked his hips, knowing exactly what his body needed.

In less than ten seconds, he came with another guttural sound.

He gasped a few times against the pillow as his body relaxed, having gotten what it demanded. Only then did he come to full consciousness.

He’d just jerked off in bed under the covers, coming all over his pants like a horny teenager.

Faintly disgusted with himself, Paul reached over and grabbed a couple of tissues to clean himself up. The bedside clock said it was 9:53, and he had no idea why he’d slept so late into the morning.

At least he hadn’t been dreaming about Emily or masturbating to mental images of her. That would have been truly appalling.

Emily.

All of the softening of his body from his climax clenched up again in a flare of panic. Emily. She’d been so sick yesterday. Desperately sick. And she might still need him now.

While he’d been sleeping unforgivably late and indulging in an adolescent grope session.

Acting on instinct, he jumped out of bed and hurried out of his room, quickly striding over to Emily’s bedroom.

Her door was open, and he stood staring blankly into her empty bedroom. Her bed was unmade, and everything else looked the way it had last night when he’d left her.

“Paul?” he heard a familiar voice call out from the other side of the suite. “Are you looking for me?”

He followed the voice and found Emily in the kitchen. She wore sweats and a loose t-shirt, and her hair was damp and pulled back at her neck. She was stirring some sort of batter in a large bowl.

She grinned at him as he stood like a moron in the entrance to the kitchen. “Hi! Did you catch up on your sleep?”

“Are you all right?” he asked, searching her face for signs of fever or pain. She looked so much better than she had yesterday, without the clammy whiteness of her skin and the agonizing pain in her eyes.

“Yeah, I feel great! I slept late too. I just woke up a little while ago, actually. It’s so nice to feel better that I thought I’d make you pancakes. I called down and they brought me everything I needed.”

Paul blinked. “You’re making me pancakes?”

“Well,” she explained, lowering her eyes, “I was going to have some too.”

It hurt Paul, even now, to think about how she’d suffered yesterday. And yet she was standing here this morning and telling him that she was doing something nice for him. He stared at her speechlessly.

“You don’t have to eat them, if you don’t want. I can't claim to be the best chef in the world.” She stirred her batter busily and wasn’t looking in his direction.

“Thank you,” he managed to say.

It must have been the right thing to say because she turned back to him with a glowing smile.

She’d suffered so much yesterday, and she had to know that her next two months would be filled with even more suffering, even worse suffering.

He had no idea how she was capable of smiling like that today.

Then he noticed that her eyes shifted down from his face. Her gaze lingered briefly on his chest before it slanted down to his bare feet and then up again.

Suddenly, Paul was washed with a wave of hot self-consciousness. What if she could somehow tell what he’d just been doing in bed?

And he was still wearing nothing but pajama pants.

“I’m going to put something else on,” he mumbled, “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t you dare take the time to get all the way dressed,” she called after him. “Pancakes will be ready in five minutes!”

Paul took a one-minute shower to rid himself of the lingering feeling of having just come.  Then he pulled on clean clothes—a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

He felt weirdly disoriented when he tried to think about the previous day. The whole experience loomed at the edges of his consciousness like a dark, agonizing void. Something lurched with panic inside him when he tried to pinpoint any specific memories or feelings.

Twenty hours of worry, fear, discomfort, and helpless attempts to make Emily better blurred over into one gaping hole that threatened to swallow him up.

So he forced it into a back corner of his mind—the same corner where he hid all thoughts about his father—so he could return to the kitchen where Emily was waiting for him.

The only positive thing to come from yesterday’s experience was that Paul’s wretchedly inappropriate sexual feelings about Emily—which had been spiraling far out of control in the previous days—had evidently been snuffed out completely.

Paul’s thoughts of Emily had been so far from sexual yesterday that he didn’t think the two could possibly exist simultaneously in his mind.  She’d been so small and so sick and so completely helpless. Even when he’d taken her clothes off and carried her writhing and naked to the tub, nothing remotely sexual had even crossed his mind. And now, the vague memory of doing that hurt him, but the visual of her naked body in such a context didn’t arouse him even in the smallest way.

He looked at her as he walked into the kitchen and carefully assessed his body’s reaction. She looked young with her baggy clothes and damp hair as she puttered at the stove with her pancakes. He couldn't help but think about her yesterday and didn’t feel even the faintest stirrings of physical interest.

It was such a relief that he released a thick sigh. He was going to take care of Emily—he cared about her a lot now and she was his responsibility. But it would be so much easier to do so if he could keep remembering her helplessness and her vulnerability rather than be bombarded with guilty, erotic thoughts that should always be forbidden.

“Sit down,” she instructed, frowning at him when he just stood in the middle of the kitchen. “The pancakes are ready.”

Paul sat down at the kitchen table, automatically obeying her instructions. She put a plate of three slightly lopsided pancakes in front of him and then gave him the butter, syrup, and utensils.

“What about yours?” he asked, when she didn’t put a plate down for herself.

“Mine are coming, but you have to eat yours now or they’ll be cold.” She poured him a cup of coffee, which he’d somehow forgotten about getting. Then she gave him a glass of orange juice too. When he just looked at her blankly, she frowned indignantly. “Eat!”

Paul ate.

“You’re really feeling all right?” he asked, as he quickly buttered his pancakes.

Emily was standing over the skillet again, waiting for her pancakes to brown. “Yes. I woke up with all this energy—although it’s probably just because it’s so nice not to have a fever. I’m already getting kind of tired now, so I’m sure I’ll crash eventually.”

He nodded, taking his first bite of pancakes. “You should try to rest a lot today. These are really good!” The pancakes were good and—despite the meal he’d had in the middle of the night—Paul was absolutely ravenous.

Emily flushed with pleasure as she flipped the pancakes on the skillet. “Thank you,” she told him. “And how are you feeling this morning?”

“I’m fine,” he said automatically.

“Are you sure? I know you stayed up the whole time with me. You’ve got to be exhausted.”

He did feel kind of exhausted, even after sleeping so late. He just shrugged, though. “I slept well. If you rest today, do you think you’ll be up to traveling tomorrow? I can reschedule our trip for tomorrow if—”

“Yes!” Emily burst in, grinning at him. She was piling pancakes into a plate, but he could see the excitement vibrating off her. “That’s perfect. Thank you so much!”

“Of course.”

He watched as she brought the stack of four pancakes over to the table. His were almost gone now, but she put two of the fresh ones into his plate and took the remaining two over to her place at the table.

He let her use the butter first before he slathered some on his new pancakes. He’d taken a big bite when Emily’s voice broke into his eating.

“Paul, I really need to thank you for everything you did yesterday.”

Paul felt awkward, as he always did when she tried to thank him so earnestly, and he tried to shrug it away.

“I mean it,” she persisted, trying to catch his eyes. “I want to say this. I was out of it for most of yesterday, but I know what it must have been like for you, what you had to do to take care of me. I know I didn't act grateful yesterday, but I am. It means so much to me that you did that.”

Paul’s chest felt very uncomfortable from both the tone and the sentiment of this conversation, so he stuffed another bite of pancake into his mouth and didn’t meet her eyes.

“But I have to say that I don’t think you should have to do that again.”

He had to swallow before he opened his mouth to object, so Emily had time to talk over him.

“I’m serious, Paul. It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you did. But I don’t want you to have to do all that. It’s not your job. You shouldn’t have to do it.”

“I’ve told you before,” he muttered. “You’re my responsibility.”

“I know that. I know you’re serious about that. It means so much to me. But you can fulfill that responsibility, you can make sure I’m taken care of, without doing it all yourself. I really want…I would like for you to hire a nurse for next time. It’s just going to get worse. You can’t do it all yourself. I don’t want you to. It will be so much easier with a nurse.”

Paul stared at her, his immediate reaction one of irrational possessiveness, an inexplicable resentment at the thought of someone else, a stranger, caring for Emily when she was so sick and vulnerable. She was his wife. She was his to take care of. It was his job.

But he could feel that dark, gaping hole of yesterday still looming at the back of his mind, waiting to swallow him up. A few specific memories pierced through the fog of helplessness and anxiety.

She’d been tossing frantically on her bed, crying brokenly to him for help. He hadn’t been able to help her.

She’d been delirious, screaming at him for lying to her, abandoning her, letting her aunt die. She’d been beating at him with her fists. He’d been desperate, absolutely desperate, with no idea what to do.

She'd been naked and writhing as he tried to get her into the bathtub without her drowning or knocking herself unconscious on the side of the tub.

She'd tossed in the bed, in horrible pain, for hour after hour after hour. And all he could do was sit and watch her.

The idea of living through that again was so awful it almost pulled him down into that dark, gaping hole.

Emily was offering him an escape, though. A way out.

He could still take care of her, fulfill his responsibilities, but not live through that again.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, that weird flash of possessiveness rearing up once more.

“Please, Paul.” Emily’s voice held an almost desperate plea. “Tell me you’ll have a nurse ready for next time. I never would have done this to you if I thought you’d have to do…do all that.”

“Okay,” Paul agreed, letting himself grasp at the only way out of the gaping hole that threatened to claim him. “If that’s what you want, I’ll get a nurse.” A clench in his gut and his chest that he hadn’t been consciously aware of relaxed as he made the decision.

This would be better. So much safer. He could get the best nurse money could buy to take care of Emily when she was sick. He wouldn’t have to see her suffer like that. He wouldn’t have to watch helplessly and grope blindly for some way to make her feel better.

She would still be taken care of, but it wouldn’t have to hurt him so much.

With that, and with the relief from the snuffing of those guilty sexual thoughts about someone who was off-limits to him in every way, Paul thought he could make it through this marriage without being completely torn apart.

* * *

Paul told Emily he was going into his room to make some calls about rescheduling their trip to Egypt.

He did call the administrative assistant who worked for him and asked her to make all of the arrangements, using the itinerary he’d originally set up but changing it for them to fly out tomorrow instead of Sunday.

Then he called someone else.

He was told he was being foolish. He was told his request was impossible. He was told there was absolutely nothing that could be done in three months.

Paul understood the nature of medical research. There were no quick fixes. Effective drugs took years and years to develop. But it was possible they wouldn’t have to start from scratch.

The doctors and the FBI hadn’t been able to find any evidence, but he wasn’t convinced this virus was accidental or random. If his father was somehow involved, then the doctors wouldn’t have to start from square one for a cure.

There might already be one in existence.

When he hung up, he called up his lawyer and got a referral to one of the best private investigation firms in the Philadelphia area. Then he made a couple more calls until he was able to talk to the person he wanted.

Someone needed to get into his father’s research facility and find out whether biological weapons were part of the research there, and Paul himself obviously couldn’t do it.

He wasn’t going to tell Emily. She’d told him flat out that she didn’t want to go on a futile search for a cure or try any experimental treatments that almost certainly wouldn’t work.

But it seemed ludicrous not to try at all, so Paul got the private investigator on the case.

He left his room and heard the television on in the parlor, so he wandered over to find her. He didn’t see her until he came around the sofa that was facing the fireplace and plasma television.

She was sound asleep, curled up on the sofa.  It wasn’t even noon, but she must have crashed, exhausted after her ordeal the day before.

She was his wife. She wasn’t even eighteen yet, and she had no one but him to help her.

She was huddled up tightly, and he thought maybe she was cold, so he went to get a soft, knit throw from a chair. He draped it over her, tucking it around her shoulders. She clutched at the throw instinctively in her sleep, nestling into it.

Paul gazed down at her, carefully assessing his reactions. He was once again relieved when he wasn’t taunted by any wayward thoughts regarding her. Hopefully, he was past that now and could concentrate on what was more important.

Emily trusted him. She was depending on him for help. She didn’t have anyone else.

There wasn’t much of a chance, but a slim chance was better than nothing.

Maybe he could save her.

Maybe she didn’t have to die.

* * *

Something was wrong with their suite.

They’d arrived in Cairo late in the day and had been taken by hired car to their hotel. Then the private concierge had shown them up to their rooms.

Emily was ecstatic—on an exhausted high from the long flight and the excitement of finally being in Egypt. She was transparently thrilled by the gorgeous suite, which somehow managed to look exotic, historic, and luxurious all at once.

She’d made a circle of the main sitting area, almost clapping her hands with delight over the antique furniture, chandelier, and rich fabrics. Then she had seen the French doors that led out to the large terrace and had given a squeal as she’d stepped out and gazed at the view from their vantage point on the highest floor of the hotel.

Beyond a lovely stretch of green trees and foliage of the city’s botanical gardens, they could see the sun setting behind the Great Pyramids in the distance.

The concierge smiled paternally at Emily’s pleasure. “This suite has perhaps the best views in the entire city.” He spoke in beautifully articulated British English.

It was true. Paul couldn’t deny it. The long-suppressed romantic part of his nature thrilled at the gorgeous view and the millennia-long history it evoked.

Bu he knew there was something wrong with this suite.

All of the furniture was elegant, built from dark, polished woods and upholstered in sumptuous fabrics. The hardwood floors gleamed, and the art was tasteful and soothing. The four-poster bed in the adjoining room was huge, with silk bedding and a gauzy canopy.

He walked into the bedroom and saw it had the same incredible view of the Pyramids. The connecting bathroom had a marble walk-in shower and a huge claw-foot soaking tub.

Paul returned to the sitting area, where the concierge was waiting patiently for Paul’s approval.

But Paul didn’t approve. There were no more doors off the sitting area.

This suite only had one bedroom. Only one bed.

“Paul, come look!” Emily called out. “It’s amazing!”

“Just a minute.”

He walked over to the concierge. “This isn’t the suite I’d originally requested, is it?”

The concierge’s brows drew together in concern. “No, Mr. Marino. This is the honeymoon suite. When you had to reschedule your reservations, the suite you’d requested was no longer available. But I told your assistant that this suite was equally spacious and had an even better view, and she said since you and your wife are newly married it should work perfectly. Is it not to your liking, sir?”

Paul felt tense and wasn’t sure what to say. He murmured to the concierge that he needed to speak with his wife for a moment, and then he went to join Emily on the balcony.

“Isn’t it perfect?” Emily gushed, turning to look at Paul. “I can’t believe I’m really here. And we get to look at this for three days!” She stretched out her arms toward the lush view as if she wanted to embrace it.

Paul’s heart was beating faster with pressing tension. Emily had suffered so much in the last few months. She'd suffered so much two days ago. And this suite, this view, was making her happy.

He hated to disappoint her, but something would have to be done.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” he said in a low voice, so the concierge inside wouldn’t overhear. “We may need to change rooms.”

“No!” Emily cried, her face twisting in disappointment. “Why? This is perfect. This is the suite I want.”

“I know. I know you like it. But you need to know something.” He cleared his throat. “There was a mix-up when our reservations were changed, and they gave us a suite with only one bedroom.”

Emily blinked, taking a minute to process what he said. “Oh.”

“So, you see, we might need to move. We can stay here if you want, but we’ll have to somehow make do with one room.”

“Oh.”

Paul waited.

Emily looked back at the pink, orange, and violet sunset behind the peaks of the Pyramids. “Will the new suite have this same view?”

“No. I’m sorry. We may, in fact, have to have two separate rooms.” He didn’t like that idea at all. He didn’t like not being around if Emily needed him, but she had to choose what would make her most comfortable. “So, we can stay here with only one bedroom, or we could move to different rooms.”

“Let’s just stay,” she concluded. She’d been staring out at the view, but now she slanted him an ironic look. “We’re married, after all. I’m sure we can manage. I just couldn’t bear to give this up.”

Paul murmured an acknowledgement of her decision. Noticed she had a little smile on her face and assumed she was taking pleasure in the view again. Then went to tip the relieved concierge and tell him the suite was excellent.

As the bellhops carried their luggage into the bedroom, Paul stood watching.

It would probably be all right. He and Emily got along fine, even in close quarters. The bed was huge. And fortunately all of those inappropriate thoughts he’d been entertaining had been snuffed out by the sight of Emily’s helpless suffering.

Sharing the room would be no problem.

The bedroom looked like it belonged in a honeymoon suite. It wasn’t tasteless or crass, of course. Like the rest of the suite, it was lovely and elegant, but the bedding was lush and sensual. There was a huge vase of red roses and orchids on the table and a silver bucket holding chilled champagne and two crystal flutes beside the flowers.

Quite against his will, Paul’s mind flashed to the image of Emily—looking like a wet dream in that new dress that left nothing to the imagination, with tousled hair, sophisticated makeup, and bare legs above her high heels. The sight of her so sexy that evening in New York had been like a hard kick in his gut.

Other parts of his body had reacted too.

Then he thought about her a few nights ago in the kitchen, when she’d woken him up in the middle of the night. She’d been wearing what looked to him like underwear, although maybe they were supposed to be shorts.

Whatever they were, they’d displayed more of her luscious ass than he could handle. Then she’d stroked the scars on his back. There was something about her deep sympathy and tenderness that he’d wanted, he’d needed. But his body had infuriatingly misinterpreted the stimulus and had leapt into eager arousal. He’d been achingly hard, from just a few brushes of her fingers on his back and the knowledge of how little she'd been wearing. He’d panicked when he realized that his pajama pants wouldn’t hide anything.

He’d used the refrigerator door as some sort of barrier, and he didn’t think she’d noticed his response.

Paul took a deep breath. He was over that now. He wasn’t going to react that way to her again. She was sick and only seventeen years old.

For thirteen more days.

He stared at the big bed, the only bed in the suite. He imagined Emily climbing into it with him tonight, wearing next to nothing. He imagined rolling over and feeling her lush curves pressed against him in the dark. He imagined her hands on his skin, stroking him, caressing him. He imagined her looking at him the way she was looking at the view, with the same uninhibited passion.

His body clenched with the kind of deeply physical interest that was supposed to have been snuffed out. He felt a familiar tightening in his groin.

He swallowed hard.

Maybe he would just sleep on the couch.

***

Paul was propped up on the bed with his laptop in his lap. He was pretending to work, but he was mostly just waiting for Emily to come out of the bathroom.

He’d suggested he sleep on the sofa in the sitting room, but Emily had been astonished and appalled by the idea because the antique sofa was too short for his height. He’d had to drop the subject completely when she started to make noises about sleeping on the couch herself, if Paul was so uncomfortable about sharing the bed with her.

After a delicious dinner from room service on the terrace, Emily declared herself exhausted. She was going to take a bath and go to bed.

He’d tried to busy himself in the sitting room, thinking it might be easier to come to bed much later than Emily, when she would hopefully already be asleep. However, she’d apparently found his procrastination strange and asked again if she should just sleep on the couch.

Paul was not about to let Emily sleep on anything except a bed, so he’d told her he was coming into the bedroom momentarily.

She’d been in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes now, evidently enjoying a leisurely bath, and Paul was having a very hard time not imagining what she looked like, naked and sensual, relaxing in hot, fragrant bubbles.

When he heard her moving around behind the closed door of the bathroom, he knew she’d gotten out of the tub. He felt his heartbeat speed up a little, and his skin broke out in a faint sweat. He tried to force down the reaction. His body was responding as though he were about to have sex as soon as Emily got into bed with him, when he knew very well that wasn’t going to happen.

He stared fixedly at his laptop as the bathroom door opened and the spicy, pleasant scent of ginger and vanilla wafted over to him.

“Do you always work in bed?” Emily asked, stopping in the middle of the room to look at him.

At the sound of her voice, he couldn’t help but shift his gaze over to where she stood. His body tightened with interest as soon as he saw her.

He’d been hoping she would be a little self-conscious about sharing the bed and would thus choose one of her less revealing sleep outfits. No such luck. She looked lovely and utterly tempting in a little tank-and-short set in a smoky purple satin. There was nothing overtly sexy about the simple cut of the top or shorts—he knew she wasn’t trying to turn him on. But the color highlighted her fair skin and her shiny, tousled hair. The soft fabric looked like it wanted to be touched and clung to the curve of her breasts. One thin strap was slipping down her shoulder, and the slight flare of the shorts emphasized her hips.

“Do you?” she prompted, since he hadn’t answered her earlier question. She lowered her eyes.

Paul tore his hot gaze away from her, reminding himself with ruthless determination that she was seventeen, she was sick, and she wasn’t for him. “Sometimes,” he said, finally answering her question. “But I was just going through some email until you were finished in the bathroom.”

“Oh,” she said, slanting him a shy little look that was irresistible, tantalizing.

He cleared his throat and was glad the laptop covered his groin. His body had leapt to attention in every way. “I need to shower after the flight too.”

“Oh,” she said again, this time with a different resonance.  “I’m sorry. I should have let you use the bathroom first, since I took so long with my bath. Was I too slow?”

“No, no. You weren’t slow at all. This worked out well. I wanted to clear out my email anyway.”

Emily had walked over to her side of the bed and turned down the covers. “I’m going to get a bottle of water,” she said, “Did you want one too?”

“Sure.”

She padded out of the bedroom to get the bottles of water from the refrigerator in the kitchen, and Paul took that opportunity to set down his laptop and get into the bathroom before Emily could notice his physical condition.

The bathroom smelled like Emily—strongly like ginger and vanilla from her bath but also a faint whiff of the herbal scent of her shampoo and the mint of her toothpaste.

He turned the shower on hot and stifled a groan as he stepped under the spray. The smell of Emily just intensified his arousal, as did the sight of her little pink robe hanging from a hook on the door.

With the water beating down on him, he wrapped his hand around his erection and pumped quickly, bracing himself with his other hand against the shower wall.

He tried not to visualize Emily, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He saw the tumble of her hair around her face, the lush curves of her small body, that irresistible expression in her blue eyes. He came, biting his lip to make sure he didn’t make any noise.

He grabbed the soap and lathered himself up, thinking about Emily waiting out in the bedroom for him, under the covers. He hadn't yet softened all the way and was hard again by the time he’d rinsed off.

Absolutely disgusted with his body, which hadn’t been this out of control since he’d been a teenager, he brought himself to another fast climax, this one relaxing him more completely.

He felt better when he finally turned off the shower. He thought he might actually be able to make it through the night without doing something unforgivably stupid.

Emily had turned off all of the lights in the room except for the lamp on his side of the bed. He’d been hoping she would be asleep or mostly asleep when he came in, but her eyes were opened and she watched him as he walked over and got into bed.

She smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile back. Fortunately, his body seemed to be satisfied for the moment. It didn’t do anything untoward, despite the fact that he was wrapped up in her fragrance again as soon as he slid into bed.

“Are you tired?” Emily asked, when he reached over to turn off the light.

“Yeah. It’s been a long day. I’m sure you must be exhausted, since you’re still recovering from the fever.”

He couldn’t see Emily’s expression very well in the dark, but there was a strange resonance to the silence in the long pause that followed his words. She sounded almost disappointed when she murmured, “Yeah. I guess I am.”

He wished he hadn’t brought up her being sick. She’d been having a good day, enjoying finally being in Egypt, and he’d brought her down by reminding her of depressing reality. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You can sleep in tomorrow if you want. It’s usually more comfortable to go out early in the day, but there’s really no rush. I can reschedule our—”

“Oh, no. I’m sure I’ll be ready to get going early. I’m exciting about seeing everything.”  She paused. “Do you snore or anything?”

He gave a huff of amusement. “I don’t think so. No one has told me I do, anyway.”

“Well, they might not tell you.” Emily’s voice was light and ironic, as if she were feeling less self-conscious. “I’m sure all of your bed-partners were secretly dreaming of being Mrs. Paul Marino and didn’t want to sully the experience for you with the unpleasantness of snoring. But, since I’m already Mrs. Paul Marino, I’ll definitely tell you if you snore.”

He smiled in the dark, although hearing Emily declare herself Mrs. Paul Marino, when they were lying in the same bed, did something odd to his chest. “I'll appreciate the honesty.”

“No, you won’t. You’d get all bristly if I were to tell you that you snore.” He started to object, but she must have predicted it and continued, “Don’t try to deny it. I know you too well. You would definitely get bristly. Not that it would stop me from telling you.”

“Never doubted it.”

Emily made the mattress shift as she turned on her side so she faced him. “You can tell me if I snore too.”

“I’m sure you don’t snore,” he murmured, smiling again as he turned his head in her direction. His eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he could see her dimly, her eyes wide, her mouth turned up, and her body softly rounded under the blanket.

“What makes you say that? Girls snore too, you know.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Are you discreetly trying to warn me about something?”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t think I snore. But you shouldn’t make snap judgments based only on a person’s gender. Both men and women can snore equally.”

“Thanks for the insight. I’ll remember that the next time I’m tempted to be a male chauvinist.”

“I don’t think you’re a male chauvinist, although you do have an incredibly strong chivalrous streak in you that might occasionally be confused with it. But it’s not the same thing.”

He frowned. “I’m not chivalrous.” Even the word made him awkward, conjured up silly, romantic visuals that were not at all in keeping with the experienced, cynical man he took himself to be.

“Of course, you’re chivalrous!” She sounded absolutely astonished by his denial of what she evidently took for an undeniable fact. “What are you talking about?”

He looked up at the ceiling again and frowned deeper, feeling slightly flustered and not sure why.

She propped herself up on one elbow and gazed down at his face. “You’ve never been anything except chivalrous with me,” she murmured, very softly, her voice feeling to him almost like a caress.

He shifted his eyes and met hers in the dark. They gazed at each other for a moment that lasted too long, and Paul felt a tug in his chest that was both thrilling and terrifying. Emily seemed to be caught in the moment with him, and she adjusted a little, bringing her face closer to his.

It was all Paul could do to stop himself from grabbing her and pulling her into a deep kiss. His body wasn’t even reacting at the moment, but he still seemed to want her so much.

He clenched his fist in the bedding and fought the impulse fiercely. He wasn’t going to take advantage of this situation and use Emily as the fix to his horniness.

Desperately groping for a way out of the tense moment, he said, “You better get some sleep, if you want to have energy for seeing all the sights tomorrow.”

Emily let out a whoosh of air, as if she’d deflated. Then she flopped over onto her back, evidently realizing that she really was tired. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I do want to get out early. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Paul relaxed once she was safely on her side of the bed and not so tantalizingly within arm’s reach. He was still conscious of her. She’d rolled over onto her side, and her back was to him. She adjusted the covers several times and rearranged her pillow. He could hear her breathing in the dark.

Eventually, she fell asleep. Not long after, Paul fell asleep too.

* * *

He woke up before five the next morning.

The first thing he was aware of was that he’d slept surprisingly well—he hadn’t woken up all night, which was very unusual.

The next thing he was aware of was the fact that he was very warm and very hard.

And the next thing he was aware of was the feeling of a little radiator pressed into his side.

He blinked down and saw Emily, cuddled up beside him, her cheek pressed against the side of his chest and her arm wrapped around his middle.

She was sound asleep. He should have known she was a cuddler. During the night, she must have rolled onto his side of the bed and nestled into him.

Part of him liked the feeling. She was warm, her body soft and clingy against his. He liked the heat from her body. He liked the weight of her arm on his belly. He liked the way her hand instinctively clutched his side.

But the arm that had ended up wrapped around her during the night was numb from a lack of circulation. And arousal pulsed uncomfortably at his groin, no doubt intensified by Emily’s soft body pressed into his.

So he gently pulled his numb arm from under her weight and eased her back over toward the middle of the bed. Then he rolled out of bed and made his way to the bathroom to take an early shower.

* * *

Paul wanted to shake Emily, and she wasn’t even in the same room.

He was getting out of the shower, and she was in the bedroom. But he knew—he just knew—that she was still being irrational, stubborn, and infuriating.

She’d taken a shower earlier than evening, before dinner, so she hadn’t needed one before bed.  Paul had showered earlier too, since he’d been hot and sweaty after sightseeing. He hadn’t absolutely needed a shower before bed either. The argument he’d been having with Emily had put a damper on any physical responses prompted by going to bed with her.

But he’d taken a shower anyway and had jerked off with quick efficiency under the spray, since his body didn’t necessarily follow the lead of his mind, and he didn’t want to risk it.

When he came out of the bathroom, Emily was curled up under the covers, facing away from both the bathroom and his side of the bed.

Maybe she’d decided to give him the silent treatment, which would be all right with him.

He sat down on the side of the bed and noticed she’d put a cold bottle of water on his nightstand, despite being angry with him. It touched him, for some reason.

He’d been a fool to let himself be distracted even momentarily by sentiment.

Without turning over, Emily said in a tight, defensive tone, “I’m not being irrational. I’m not being stubborn. I’m telling you that I’m not an invalid. When I don’t have a fever, I feel as good as anyone else, and I don’t appreciate your acting like I’m too sick to do anything normal.”

Paul rolled his eyes and let out an impatient exhale. “And I’ve said at least six times now that I wasn’t treating you like an invalid. It was the hottest part of the afternoon, and even healthy people get sick from the heat.”

“But I wasn’t getting sick. I was having a good time, and I wasn’t ready to go back yet.”

“I know you were having a good time, but we have two more days in Egypt to do everything you want to do. We didn’t have to pack everything into one day, when there was a chance that the heat could prompt a fever.” He turned off the light and got under the covers, lying on his back and looking at her tense shoulders and unyielding spine.

“I wasn’t getting feverish,” she gritted out, her earlier attempt to control her tone obviously failing as she got even angrier with him. “You’re treating me like a child who can’t tell whether she’s sick or not.”

“I’m not saying you were sick then. I’m saying you could have gotten sick. And there was absolutely no reason for you to risk another fever.” He rubbed his jaw in frustration and got tired of looking at the back of her head. “Would you please turn over so I don’t have to talk to your back?”

Emily rolled over, obviously not appreciating his exasperated tone.  His eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to tell that she was glaring at him. “I get fevers because I have this virus. I don’t get fevers because I get too hot.”

“But how do you know external conditions can’t trigger a fever? You were hot, Emily. You can tell me all you want that you were fine, but you were getting too hot out there.”

Paul had been hit with a flare of worry that afternoon as he’d noticed Emily’s very flushed face and the dampness of perspiration on the back of her shirt. Since he’d already been tired and annoyed about other things, he hadn’t hesitated to call an end to their tour, digging in his heels despite Emily’s very vocal objections.

“Everyone was hot, and I wasn’t even walking! But you evidently think I’m so delicate that I can’t even get driven around in a Jeep.”

“We can go back tomorrow. You can still see everything.”

“But I liked having Akil as our guide, and he’s not going to be available tomorrow.”

Paul closed his eyes and clenched his jaw for a moment before he replied coldly, “Yes, you’ve told me several times now how much you liked him. But I’m sure our guide tomorrow will be equally knowledgeable.”

Unlike Emily, Paul hadn’t liked the very handsome Egyptian archeology student who had shown them around today. He especially hadn’t liked the way the man’s eyes lingered on Emily’s face and body.

His comment seemed to prompt in her another cause for irritation with him. She snapped, “And, by the way, there was no reason for you to be so rude to the poor guy, after he’d been nothing but nice to us.”

“He’d been nice to you,” Paul corrected, rather gutturally. “And I definitely wasn’t blind to why he was nice to you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I liked him and thought he was smart and funny. I wasn’t flirting with him or anything.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you were flirting,” he said, although he hadn’t been at all happy with the way Emily was grinning and laughing with the obnoxious man. He hadn't for a minute thought she would do anything. It just bothered him to see her enjoying another man the way she sometimes enjoyed him. “I was referring to his obvious interest in you.”

Emily actually snorted. “That’s ridiculous. He knew we’re married. I mean, you were right there glowering at him the whole time. He wasn’t coming on to me. He was just nice.”

“No man has a reason to be that nice to my wife.”

She made a wordless sound of frustration in her throat. “So I’m not allowed to have another man even talk to me?”

“You’re intentionally misunderstanding me. Of course, you can talk to other men. Of course, men can talk to you. What I have a problem with is men making obvious moves on my wife.” He saw her open her mouth to argue. “You might not have realized that’s what he had in mind, but I promise you it was. He didn’t just want to talk to you. He wanted to get you into bed.”

Emily’s lips parted as she stared at him, and for a moment Paul felt a tug of desire. He was still too annoyed for it to develop into a problem, though.

“I don’t think that’s right.” Her anger had faded into slight confusion. “He was being nice.”

“You’re a beautiful woman, Emily. There’s a reason why so many men want to be nice to you.” He’d spoken without thinking, to make a point in the argument. But, after the words were said, he wasn’t sure they should have been.

Finally, she shrugged. “I can’t go around assuming that every man who talks to me wants to jump me. I just can’t believe it’s true, and—even if it was—I couldn’t function that way. If a man gets inappropriate with me, of course I would put a stop to it. But, to tell you the truth, no one has even tried to be inappropriate with me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, I’m not the kind of girl that men come on to.”

He swallowed, bristling at the thought of all the blind fools who had made Emily believe herself to be undesirable, even as he was aware that he used to be one of them. “You’ve been around high school boys,” he said matter-of-factly. “And high school boys are stupid most of the time. You can’t judge yourself by what happens in high school. Men will want you, Emily.”

It was too dark to read the expression in her eyes clearly. “Do you think so?”

“Of course.”

She smiled at him, and he smiled back. They seemed to be caught in that intense gaze again, and this time he couldn’t pull out. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t say anything. The only thing he was capable of doing was barely restraining himself from hauling her into a kiss.

If he kissed her now, in their bed, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

After a long moment, Emily broke the spell. “Anyway, I’m still annoyed with you for cutting my day short.”

He rolled his eyes, almost relieved that the tension was broken.  “I’ve told you hundreds of times now that I’m not going to back down about your health.”

“I know you’ve said that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Evidently tired of arguing, she rolled over, showing him her back again. This time Paul didn’t complain.

He lay in bed and stewed about her stubborn irrationality for a long time.

Then, without warning, Emily said into the darkness of the room, "I'm sorry if I was too stubborn. I know you were just trying to look out for me."

He hesitated, mostly to swallow over his surprise and not because he didn't want to apologize too. He'd never met anyone who had apologized to him so genuinely. Finally, he was able to say, "Thanks. I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have been so bad-tempered, especially about…"

"Akil," Emily finished for him, a smile in her voice. "That's all right. I forgive you."

* * *

Paul woke up just after five o’clock the next day. And, just like the previous morning, his personal space had definitely been invaded.

He was sleeping on his side, with his back in Emily’s direction. But, during the night, she’d pressed herself up behind him in her sleep, spooning him cozily with her arms wrapped around his middle.

He was partly erect but not as hard as yesterday, and he was too groggy to want to pull away. She felt nice pressed up behind him—warm and soft and feminine.

Paul had never had the instinct to cuddle before. With most of the women he’d slept with over the years, he hadn’t even spent the night. When he’d had serious girlfriends, he’d tried to hold them for a while after they’d had sex, but he’d always needed his own space to sleep.

He wasn’t really any different now. He was sure this wasn't any sort of impulse to cuddle. But there was something he liked about the way Emily clung to him in her sleep.

He could feel her damp breath against his bare back. He could feel her loose hair tickling his skin just slightly. He could feel her soft breasts pressed tightly against him, with only a thin layer of cotton between their skin. Her legs were tucked snugly behind his, her small body molding his perfectly. And she was squeezing him lightly with her arms, her hands clutching at his bare belly.

He lay like that for a long time, dozing and enjoying the feel of her against him, but then she started to shift in her sleep, her breasts brushing against him, her pelvis pushing against his ass, her hands fumbling at his abdomen as if they were groping for something to hold onto.

She was still sound asleep, but her breathing had accelerated. He assumed she must be dreaming. The little squirms and gropes she made started to turn him on, his half-erection hardening completely.

He was about to try to slide out of her unconscious embrace when she began to make noises. The sounds were just soft little grunts that sounded like, “Eh.” But her motion behind him changed too. Became a little more rhythmic. And the two in combination were unmistakable.

Emily must be having an erotic dream.

Paul’s arousal intensified as she moved and breathed against him until desire pulsed through his entire body, but he was also confused and disoriented.

He’d never thought about Emily’s having erotic dreams before. He’d never really thought about her having sexual needs and desires of her own. Rationally, of course, he would have known she must have them. He well knew how passionate she was by nature.

But there had always been something pure, untouchable, innocent about her that had disallowed him from thinking of her in those terms.

Paul might desperately want to have sex with Emily, but she would never want to have sex with him. Not just because he wasn’t good enough for her, but because he’d never attributed sexual feelings to her.

But her dreaming self seemed to want his body. A lot. She rolled her pelvis against his butt, squirmed her breasts against his back, and her hands fumbled eagerly at the muscles of his belly. The noises she huffed had almost turned into words. Maybe, “Yeah, yeah, please, yeah,” although they were too slurred to know for sure.

Of course, it was probably just because he was a convenient body. She was asleep and wouldn't know who she was clutching. Emily had never wanted Paul. But the fact that she was having such an intensely erotic dream at all was enlightening, bewildering, and somehow thrilling.

Paul was panting now, holding himself rigidly still. This was wrong. He shouldn’t be letting her do this to him, even in her sleep. He needed to somehow get away without waking her up.

Then her hands fumbled lower on his body. And, before he knew what was happening, they’d found his hard shaft, prominent beneath the thin fabric of his pajama pants.

Paul bit his bottom lip so hard he saw white when he felt her hands on him intimately. She was still sleeping—he could feel her hot breathing against his back. Her grip wasn’t tight or controlled, just light, clumsy touches, but it felt so good that Paul could barely keep himself from thrusting into her hands.

He had to end this. He was in danger of coming, just from the fumbling little touches she was giving him.

This was just wrong.

He was terrified that, if he tried to move her, she would wake up. She would discover how hard he was, how much he wanted her. She would realize what she’d been inadvertently doing to him in her sleep. And she’d be so mortified that nothing would be the same between them again.

So he was trapped, on the edge of exquisite agony. Only sure of one thing. If this kept up much longer, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his climax. He would come just from this.

But then Emily hissed out one more sound, and her body seemed to settle in her sleep. She stopped squirming. Her breathing slowed down. Her hands grew still on his erection.

So, very gently, Paul adjusted the arm draped over his side and—as carefully as possible—he slid out of the bed.

Still sleeping, Emily rolled over onto her back, one arm flung above her head. The covers were pushed down to her hips, and her white tank-top was riding up, exposing the fair skin of her belly. Her nipples were peaked, poking out prominently through the cotton. Her cheeks were beautifully flushed.

Paul turned on his heel and strode into the bathroom, turning on the shower immediately and stepping in before it got hot.

He grabbed his erection and started to pump hard and fast. Over the last few days, he hadn’t been able to keep from visualizing Emily as he did this, but he’d always stopped short of fantasizing about her engaging in erotic activities with him. It had always seemed just one step too far for him to tolerate.

But he did now.

He imagined her rubbing herself against him, fondling him, pumping her hips into him, arching and writhing as he brought her pleasure, huffing out his name as she worked up to orgasm.

He came hard and quickly.

Then he stood under the shower spray feeling guilty.

Maybe Emily did have sexual desires. Maybe she was a sexual creature. Maybe he'd been a fool not to acknowledge it before.

She was still only seventeen. She was still sick. Still dying. She was still off-limits to him.

There had always been a bitter irony to his life, but this might have been the sharpest.

Maybe things would change. Naturally they would. But, at this moment, the only woman in the world he wanted was his wife.

And she was the one he could never have.

* * *

Emily had gone into the bedroom to take a nap after they got back to the suite the following afternoon, saying she was tired and he shouldn't disturb her. Paul had been catching up on some work until he’d received a call that changed everything.

Distracted by the news, he’d knocked on the bedroom door and then just walked in to tell her.

She was in bed, lying on her stomach and facing the opposite side of the room. She jerked and gave a little squeak when she heard him. “Hey! What are you doing?” she demanded, rolling over to glare at him. “Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

Paul blinked. “I did knock.”

“Well, you didn’t wait for a response.”

“Oh. Sorry. What’s the matter?” She usually didn’t make a fuss for no reason, but she seemed really annoyed with him for some reason. She was sleeping on top of the bedcovers, but she had draped a thick throw over her for her nap. She looked like she'd gotten a little tangled in it as she'd rolled over with one arm still under the blanket.

“Nothing,” she muttered. “I was almost asleep and you scared me. What’s going on?”

Paul went over and sat down on Emily’s side of the bed so he could explain, but then he noticed that she looked really flushed and was breathing faster than normal. Without thinking, he reached over and felt her forehead.

She pulled away. “I’m not sick. I was just napping.”

He didn’t listen to her objections. He just got up and went to get the thermometer from the bathroom. She was rolling her eyes when he came back over and held it against her forehead, but she didn’t say anything until he drew his hand back to check her temperature.

“99⁰,” he said, eyeing her closely. He hated the idea of her getting another fever so soon after the last one she had.

“That’s almost normal. It’s probably just slightly up because I was out in the sun earlier today. I think I might have gotten a little sunburn. Would you stop fussing and tell me what’s going on?”

He hoped she was right, and he needed to tell her anyway. “I just got a call from Hathaway, the U.S. attorney—you remember him? They’ve been able to move the trial date up.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Oh. That’s good, right?”

“I think so. It will be better for you, for sure, and I’d like to have it done with too.”

“When is it scheduled for?” she asked, evidently having forgotten her annoyance with him the minute before.

“That’s the problem. It’s starts on Monday.”

“So soon?”

“And they want to have the weekend to finish working on our testimony, so they’ve asked for us to fly back tomorrow. Will it be all right to leave a day early?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it? I’m glad the trial is going to be over so soon.”

“I know there was more you wanted to see here,” Paul said, searching for signs of disappointment in her expression.

She curled her lip at him. “Do you really think I’m selfish or childish enough to pout and whine about something like that? I’ve had a great time here, but all I really needed to do was see the Pyramids. And I’ve done that. We definitely need to go back. The trial is more important.”

“Thanks.” He reached over again to feel her forehead, although she was already looking less flushed and her breathing was normal now.

She didn’t seem to be getting sick. It was probably just because he’d woken her up.

* * *

Paul dreamed that night—a recurring nightmare he’d had for years, each version taking slightly different form although the feelings of desperation, betrayal, and dread were always the same.

He would try to catch his father, but his father was forever out of his reach.

That night, Paul was chasing Vincent Marino through a desert, past pyramids and ancient cities. He would almost reach him, almost touch him, but then his father would slip out of his grip. Then he’d see him again in the distance, the hot wind blowing his gray hair and a taunting smile on his face.

Paul would run some more, falling on the hot sand, burning his hands, scrambling up to run again until his shoes melted and his bare feet got torn to bits.

Again and again it would repeat—almost catching him only to have him slip away. And every time it hurt so much, ripped him to shreds.

There never seemed to be an end.

He’d fallen again in his nightmare, and thorny branches had come up out of the sand to hold him imprisoned, ripping jagged gashes into his skin, impossible to break free from, no matter how much he struggled.

“Paul,” the thorny branches said to him, “Paul, Paul, wake up!” The branches were shaking him, so he fought their grip.

“Paul! Wake up! You’re dreaming. Paul, stop!”

He was jarred awake as he struggled, and one of his arms flailed out and connected with something soft.

He heard a breathless gasp. Then realized the gasp had been from Emily, who was on her knees on the bed, with her hands on his shoulders.

She must have been the one shaking him.

And he must have just punched her in the gut.

“Fuck,” he panted, disoriented from the dream. He was drenched in sweat, and his heart still pounded painfully. “I’m so sorry. I was dreaming. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, staring down at him in the dark of their bedroom. “You didn’t hurt me. Maybe I shouldn’t have woken you up, but it…it sounded so terrible.”

Paul tried to suck in air, tried to shake off that horrible dream. “What was I doing?”

“At first, just talking, calling out to someone to wait, to slow down. But then you started to sound so upset. I didn’t want you to keep having such a nightmare. You didn’t start to flail around until I was trying to wake you up.”

Under normal circumstances, he would have been mortified at Emily’s seeing him helpless, even just helpless in the grips of a nightmare. But Paul was still shaking from the dream, and he was so glad not to have woken up alone.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly. She was still kneeling beside him on the bed, but she’d moved her hands to her lap.

He nodded. “Yes. Thank you for waking me up.”

She paused for a few seconds, gazing down at him with a softness he could sense even in the dark. “Was it your father you were trying to catch?”

Paul swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to answer. He didn’t share this kind of thing. With anyone.

He heard himself mumbling, “I can’t reach him. Ever.”

Emily made a hoarse sound of emotion and reached down to hug him tightly. He hugged her back, needing her, needing something.

She hugged him for a long time, and then she didn’t really pull away. She just adjusted so she was nestled against his side, with her cheek against the side of his chest and her arm wrapped around his belly—the way she’d done unconsciously in her sleep on that first night.

Paul draped an arm around her and held her against him. He knew he shouldn’t. He should pull away. And, if she’d said anything, if she’d asked him any more questions, he would have.

She didn’t speak again, though. Just held him until she fell asleep and kept clinging to him even in her sleep.

Paul didn’t fall asleep again for a long time, but he took a kind of comfort from Emily’s warm presence that he hadn’t experienced since he was a child.

He knew his role in this marriage. He was supposed to take care of Emily.

But that night it felt like she was taking care of him.