I raced after the woman who'd settled the torture of my body with one touch. My shoes slammed against the floor in a sharp drum beat that matched my pounding heart.
"Kiema! Wait!"
I almost shot past the door she'd escaped through. The sounds of violent retching reached my ears, pulled me to an abrupt halt.
She was hunched over the toilet. Her hair had fallen from her messy topknot. Now it hung around her head, a dark curtain shielding her face.
I winced in sympathy as her rib cage expanded and contracted heavily. Heavy splattering followed the guttural groans.
Let it out, sweetheart.
Stepping around her bowed form, I pulled open drawers. One after the other until they all stood open like the gaping mouths of dazzled spectators. On the wall, a rack held a huge collection of matching towels. Sitting on the top of the mound, I found the smallest washrag known to mankind.
Shaking my head, I turned on the faucet, and shoved the rag under the cold water. Barely wringing it out, I set it on the side of the sink.
I leaned down, one hand reaching out to scrape her hair up off her neck.
"NO!" She wrenched away before I touched her. Her shuddering body slammed against the far wall. "You can't touch me."
Never had I felt so helpless in my life. And considering I'd been a throwaway child because of my illness, I felt like royal fucking shit right now.
I frantically glanced around the small bathroom. With nothing better to do, I grabbed one of the towels from the rack.
I cringed as Kiema shrank back from my touch once more. "I'm not going to touch you. Just hold still." I couldn't help the bite in my voice. This woman who'd done what no one had been able to do was suffering agony and I could do nothing to help her.
I was actively causing her more fear and anxiety. I shook my head. I had to push those thoughts away or I wouldn't be any help to her. And as much as she might not like it, I was the only one around.
As I watched, her body seemed to shrink in on itself. Like a terrified animal trying to make itself imperceptible to a predator. My heart wrenched in my chest at the sight.
Clenching my teeth, I grabbed the corners of the towel. Laying it longwise across her body, I pulled it up, catching her hair under its length.
As soon as the honey tones of her skin peeked into view, I laid the cold wet washrag down on her neck. Careful to keep my skin away from hers.
"Is that better?" I asked, my voice a strangled whisper.
Her body wasn't writhing in pain anymore, but I didn't put much stock in that single fact.
Without warning, her back arched like a cat whose tail had been caught under a rocker. A scream that would haunt my nightmares cascaded through the room, spilling out into the hall where it echoed into the gigantic house.
Face still covered by black, sweaty hair and a dark blue towel, I heard what sounded like a water balloon drop into the vomit-filled toilet with a thick bloop.
Between one breath and the next, Kiema's body went limp and listed to the side. Her chin slammed into the edge of the bowl loudly enough I winced. She crashed into the wall at an awkward angle, passed out cold.
"Fuck!"
My heart in my throat, I watched Kiema's chest for the longest minutes of my life. Completely ignoring the shape of her breasts, I just needed to know if she was even fucking breathing.
"Kiema?" I called softly. I didn't recognize the soft tone that came from my own mouth. Women had never been anything more than convenience and novelty to me before this one. But damned if she hadn't made a big impression on me in a short amount of time.
Her chest rose and fell in an even, if slow, tempo.
Out cold.
Her petrified warning not to touch her filled my mind again. I couldn't fucking leave her like this. Not after she'd saved me.
Left with nothing else in the small room, I finally ripped the shower curtain down. Rod and all. Throwing the rod into the bathtub, I kept one eye on the unconscious woman.
Not even a twitch to indicate she'd heard the crash.
I was out of patience; I had to get her off the floor. My entire being was screaming at me to get her moved.
I shook the curtain out and then spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how to move her onto it without touching her directly. Sweat dripping from my temples, I wrapped my hands and arms in the remaining towels from the wall rack. I finally managed to lift her torso and roll her body onto the curtain. I made a mental note to make sure to check her head later. It had slammed against the door frame pretty hard.
I winced remembering the sharp crack of her teeth together followed quickly by the smash of her jaw into the toilet bowl. I needed to check her chin as well. I shook off the towels.
Stepping over her prone legs, I hopscotched my way through the door and grabbed the far ends of the shower curtain. Clutching the corners tightly, I began the slowest walk down a hallway in my entire memory. After every step, I paused to make sure she was okay, that she was still breathing.
Just as I entered the turn for the corner, her body stiffened as if someone had zapped her with a live electrical wire. I dropped the curtain corners like they were on fire and stepped onto the makeshift gurney. Cursing the inability to touch her once more, I nudged her leg with my shoed foot.
"Kiema?"
Nothing.
"Sweetheart?" Her body was bowed back, her lips pulled back, teeth bared in a tight grimace. The elegant neck I wanted to nuzzle was distorted with distended muscles as her head pulled back at a grotesque angle.
Why the fuck didn't anyone tell me she has a problem with seizures? Fuck!
I knelt down next to her. Close enough to feel her body heat. She felt like a fucking furnace. She pumped body heat like she was trying to single handedly warm the cabin during the harshest winter on record.
"Kiema." A slight quaver caught at the end of her name. I cleared my throat.
A choked moan slid from her throat as her eyelids opened the slightest degree.
I got down as close to her as I thought safe and got right in her eye line. "What can I do to help you?"
Breath heaved through her clenched lips, puffing gently against my cheeks.
Another low moan slithered between her lips.
"Fuck. Sweetheart, I can't understand you." I punched my hands into the floor next to her body. "I've got you on the shower curtain. Can I pick you up and move you to your bed? I swear not one inch of my skin will touch yours."
Another incoherent moan.
"Can you blink?"
Moan.
"Blink once for yes, twice for no."
She blinked once.
"Thank Gaia. Can I pick you up with the shower curtain?"
Another single blink.
Within seconds, she was in my arms. My racing heart slowed as soon as she was cradled against my chest. I felt like I could fucking breathe again.
I started across the living room. The keycode panel standing guard at her door stared at me with its steady red eye.
Fuck. "I'm going to take you to the couch. I don't know the codes to your suite."
I looked down and saw her blink again.
"Okay." Five steps to the couch big enough to hold a small sports team, I was loath to let her go.
Her body was still taut, head and legs thrust behind her, hands clenched tight by her sides. I angled her to lay on her side. If she started puking again, I didn't want her to choke on it.
"What can I do?" I asked again as I made sure she wouldn't fall off the couch. I pushed the last pillow under her belly, tilting her up the smallest fraction.
She said nothing. Didn't moan.
Silence greeted me.
I looked at her face. Her eyes were completely closed.
After a couple minutes of fear-wrenched breathing, I watched as her body finally seemed to dissolve into the furniture. Like snow melting in the sun, she defrosted before my eyes.
Wrapping the edge of the curtain around my hand, I brushed the hair off her face. With a wrinkle of her nose, she turned her head to the side.
I smiled at the purely feminine motion.
Batting at my hand, Kiema turned her face into the cushion and sank deeper into oblivion.
Satisfied that she was going to be okay, at least for a little bit, I got up and moved back to the bathroom. I didn't want her to have any bad reminders waiting for her when she woke up.
Crossing the threshold into the hallway bathroom, I looked into the toilet. Expecting to find the typical vomit, I was horrified to find what looked like an organ floating in the pinkish water of the bowl.
I had to cover my own mouth and dart for the trashcan before I emptied my own stomach.
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