Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(31)

Jesse was still holding me by the wrist, keeping me suspended half in, half out of the water.

“She’s fine,” he shouted up to Ryan. “Just a cramp.”

“Tell her that’s why she’s supposed to wait half an hour after eating before going for a swim,” Ryan said in a teasing voice before turning back to the television show he was watching inside.

Jesse didn’t wait another moment before pulling me out of the water, soaking his shirt and tie even further, then carrying me to the closest chaise longue.

“Susannah, it’s all right,” he said, his expression an adorable mix of anger and anxiety. “She’s gone.”

“I know she’s gone,” I said. My teeth had involuntarily begun to chatter. “Stop being so dramatic. You’re getting your work clothes all wet.”

“Damn my clothes,” he said. It was unusual for him to swear, at least in English. I’m the gutter mouth in our relationship.

He’d grabbed my towel from where I’d lain it on top of my clothes, and was bundling me in it. The chaise longue groaned a bit under our combined weight. The building management hadn’t exactly forked out the big bucks for their poolside decor.

“You’re shaking,” he said. “Did she hurt you?”

“No. She’s just a kid.”

“A kid?” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “A kid who nearly killed you. We’re going to find out who she is and then we’re going to—” Now he was swearing, fluidly, in Spanish.

“Jesse, stop it. What’s the matter with you? Your specialty’s pediatrics. You’re supposed to suffer the little children.”

“Not this one. This one has no chance of getting into the kingdom of heaven. She’s getting exorcised by me straight back to hell, where she came from.”

“She isn’t from hell. She’s frightened, and in pain.”

“I think you’re getting her confused with yourself, querida.”

“No, I’m not. CeeCee’s aunt Pru said so. She tried to warn me about it tonight outside the café, but I didn’t pay attention.”

Jesse uttered a few highly descriptive oaths about Aunt Pru. Even though he spoke in Spanish, I caught the gist.

“She was only trying to help,” I said, in Pru’s defense. “And you know she’s right. Why are you doing that?” He was rubbing my skin through the terry cloth of the towel.

“You’re in shock,” he said. “You’re cold, and you’re wet, and you’re shaking. I’m attempting to restore warmth and circulation to your extremities. Don’t argue with me, I’m a doctor.”

“I’m not in shock,” I said. “I’m all right. I swallowed a lot of water, but I’m still in one piece. At least this one didn’t ruin my boots.”

“Your what?”

“My . . . never mind. What are you doing now?”

“Helping you to avoid going hypothermic by sharing my body heat.” He’d pulled me onto his lap. “Do you disapprove?”

“Oh, no, I approve.” I slipped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder, enjoying the warmth of his strong body and the faintly antiseptic smell that seemed permanently to cling to him, thanks to the many times a day he had to wash his hands. I suppose I didn’t smell much better after the chlorine waterboarding I’d received at Lucia’s hands. “How did you know that I was in trouble?”

“I always know.” He tightened his arms around me, his lips intriguingly close to my right earlobe. “I felt her, all the way back at the hospital. Or I felt something, anyway. And then when I tried calling, and you wouldn’t pick up your phone—”

“I went for a swim. My phone’s back in the apartment.”

“I knew there was trouble when I asked if you wanted to play doctor later,” he said, “and you never replied.”

“That’s not true.” I turned my head so that his lips, instead of being close to my ear, were next to my mouth. “I said mucho gusto.”

“I never got that text. How can your Spanish still be so terrible after studying all these years?”

His hands slipped beneath the towel to singe my bare flesh. I sucked in my breath. “Is that something you do to all your patients you treat for shock?”

“No.” He pulled me closer to him. “Only you. You get special treatment.”

His lips came down over mine.

I could feel our hearts thumping hard, separated only by the thin damp microfiber of my swimsuit and the white dress shirt he’d worn to work. He pressed my body back against the chaise longue, his tongue hot inside my mouth, his hand just as hot against my bare skin, while yet another kind of heat radiated from the front of his straight-fits.

Those straight-fits. They were always causing me problems. When it wasn’t my gaze I had trouble keeping off them, it was my hands. Like now, for instance, especially since I could feel what was pushing so urgently through the front of them, practically branding the rivets of his fly into my thigh.

But I knew if I reached down and undid those buttons, then wrapped my fingers around all that masculine glory, the only thing I’d receive for my troubles was a groan, then a polite request that I stop what I was doing. I knew because it had happened a million times before. Jesse’s commitment to staying on the righteous path was admirable, but it was also frustrating.