Claim Me(Capture Me: Book 3)(27)
“Are you doing this because you think you have to?” I ask, my voice roughening. “Are you afraid I’ll hurt your brother if you don’t have sex with me?”
She looks up, her eyes swimming with tears, and I realize that’s exactly what she fears, that she thinks me capable of this. She’s not entirely wrong—I would use her brother to control her if I had to—but not for this.
Not while she’s in this condition.
“Yulia…” I gently cup her jaw, making sure I touch only the uninjured side of her face. “I’m not going to punish you for being sick, okay? I’m not that much of a monster. Your brother is safe. You can rest and recover without worrying about him.”
“But—”
“Shh.” I press the tips of my fingers to her lips. “He’ll be fine on one condition: that you stop stressing and let yourself heal. Do you think you can do that?”
She nods slowly, and I lower my hand. “Good. Now, let’s wash the rest of you and get you into bed. Tonight, I’m taking care of you, okay?”
Yulia nods again, and I rinse off her conditioner, then carefully wash her all over, ignoring my persistent arousal. I tell myself that I’m a doctor caring for a patient, that this is no different than washing a child, but my cock doesn’t buy it. Nonetheless, I manage to get through the shower without jumping her, and by the time I towel her off and bring her back to bed, I’m almost back in control.
“Now soup and tea,” I say, propping her up on the pillows again, and she gives me a listless look, her pallor even more pronounced.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “And then my brother, right?”
“Yes,” I say, but by the time I return with the soup and tea, she’s already asleep, her skin burning even hotter.
32
Yulia
The next several days pass in a fog of fever and pain. My bones ache, and my throat feels like I swallowed a ball of fire. Even the roots of my hair hurt, the heat of the fever consuming from within. The illness takes everything out of me, leaving me weak and shaking, and the simplest activities—like going to the bathroom and showering—require Lucas’s help.
I sleep for what feels like twenty hours a day, and if it weren’t for Lucas forcing water, tea, and soup on me at regular intervals, I’d sleep even more. But he keeps waking me up to spoon-feed me various liquids, and I’m too drained to resist his gentle but insistent brand of caregiving. He’s with me at night, his big body curved protectively around mine as we sleep, and he’s next to me during the day—all day.
“Don’t you have someplace to be?” I croak out the first time I see my captor at my bedside, working on a laptop in an uncomfortable-looking chair. “You’re usually gone at this time.”
Lucas’s hard mouth curves in a smile. “I’m taking a sick day. How are you feeling? Hungry? Thirsty?”
“I’m okay,” I murmur, closing my eyes. “Just really, really tired.” The exhaustion seems to have settled deep in my bones, weighing me down like an anchor. Even this brief exchange has depleted my nonexistent energy, and I’m already almost asleep again when Lucas makes me sit up and drink room-temperature water from a cup with a curved straw.
Swallowing hurts my throat, but the liquid invigorates me enough that I ask about my brother. Lucas assures me that he’s fine, but when I continue to insist that I see Misha, Lucas makes Eduardo take an impromptu two-minute video of my brother and email it to us. On the video, my brother is eating a burger and arguing with Diego about the merits of Krav Maga versus Tae Kwan Do. He looks neither afraid nor abused, which reassures me quite a bit.
“I’ll bring him by when you’re a little stronger,” Lucas promises. “Goldberg said you should be through the worst of it by tomorrow.”
But I’m not. The next day is even worse, my fever spiking uncontrollably, and I wake up mid-day to hear Lucas arguing with the doctor about whether I need to be hospitalized.
Blearily, I open my eyes to see my captor pacing around the room, a thermometer clutched in his powerful fist. “Her fever is almost a hundred and four. What if it’s pneumonia or something like that?”
“I told you, her lungs are clear,” Dr. Goldberg says with a hint of exasperation. “As long as you keep giving her enough liquids, she’ll be fine. You just need to let this illness run its course. The human body doesn’t handle extreme stress well, and from what you’ve told me, she’s been through more in the past three months than most people survive in a lifetime. She’s traumatized physically and mentally, and she needs rest and sleep to heal. In a way, this flu is her body’s way of telling her to slow down and take care of herself.”
Lucas stops in front of the bed, his hands clenched. “If anything happens to her…”
“Yes, I know, you’ll tear me limb from limb,” the doctor says wearily. “So you’ve said. Now if you don’t mind, I have a guard with a bullet in his leg who needs my attention. Call me if her fever goes higher, and for now, alternate her Tylenol with Advil.”
He departs, and I close my eyes, sinking back into sleep.
* * *
The fever continues for three more days, spiking and falling in an unpredictable manner. Every time I wake up, feeling like I’m dying, Lucas is by my side, ready to feed me liquids, put a wet towel on my forehead, or carry me to the bathroom.
“Are you sure you don’t have a nursing degree?” I joke weakly when he places me back in bed, having changed the sheets and fluffed up my pillows. “Because you’re really good at this.”
Lucas smiles and tucks the blanket around me. “Maybe I’ll look into it if this gig with Esguerra doesn’t work out.”
I manage a tiny smile in return, and then I’m out again, too exhausted to cling to wakefulness for long.
That night, the fever torments me nonstop, defying Lucas’s efforts to bring it down with Tylenol and cool towels. I toss and turn, alternately shivering and sweating as troubled dreams invade my mind. The wolf of the children’s lullaby comes to me, gnawing at my side, and I scream as his snout transforms into Kirill’s face—a face that explodes into bits as I shoot him, over and over again. Lucas shakes me awake, holding me on his lap until my hysterical sobbing subsides, but as soon as I fall asleep again, I see a variation of the same dream, only this time, my bullets miss Kirill and hit my brother while Kirill laughs, holding his bloodied cock.
“Yulia, hush, sweetheart, don’t. He’s okay. Misha is okay.” The assurance, delivered in Lucas’s deep voice, calms me down until I’m swept into yet another twisted dream-memory, and the vicious cycle continues until my fever breaks in the morning.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper when I wake up and see Lucas sitting next to me, his eyes ringed with dark circles and his hard jaw unshaven as he frowns at something on his laptop. “Did I keep you up all night?”
He looks up from the computer. “No, of course not.” Despite his tired appearance, his pale eyes are sharply alert as he reaches over to the nightstand and hands me the cup with the straw. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I couldn’t swat a fly,” I say hoarsely after sucking down the full cup of water. “But overall, better.” For the first time in days, my head doesn’t ache, and my skin feels like it actually wants to stay attached to my body. Even my throat is almost back to normal, and there’s a hollow sensation in my stomach that feels suspiciously like hunger.
Lucas’s tense look eases as he places his laptop on the nightstand and gets up. “I’m glad. Another few hours like that, and I was flying you to a hospital, no matter what Goldberg said.” Leaning over me, he carefully picks me up and brings me to the bathroom, where he runs a bath for me since I’m too weak to stand in a shower stall.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask when he’s done washing me from head to toe. Now that I’m feeling marginally more human, it dawns on me just how extraordinary Lucas’s actions over the past several days have been. I don’t know many husbands who would’ve cared for their wives with such dedication.
“What do you mean?” Lucas frowns as he wraps me in a thick towel and picks me up. “You needed a bath.”
“I know, but you didn’t need to be the one to give it to me,” I say as he carries me back to the bedroom. “You could’ve had one of the guards help or—” I stop as his expression darkens.
“If you think I’m letting another man touch you…” His voice is pure lethal ice, and despite myself, I shiver as he lays me back on the bed, stuffing two pillows under my back to prop me up to a half-sitting position. Leaning in, he growls, “You’re mine and mine alone, understand?”
I nod warily. I’d let myself forget for a moment how dangerous—and insanely possessive—my captor can be.
Straightening, Lucas makes a visible effort to get himself under control. His chest expands with a deep breath, and he asks in a calmer tone, “Are you hungry? Do you want some chicken broth?”
I lick my cracked lips. “Yes. And maybe something like a sandwich?”