A Perfect Mistake (9 page)

I swallowed and knew
that I shouldn’t be looking at him, but he was much too
compelling for me to look away. He hit the bed face-first,
thankfully. I moved swiftly forward and drew the covers over him,
trying to catch my breath. He didn’t move, but I knew I
couldn’t let him sleep just yet.

I sat down on the
edge of the bed and shook him. He groaned and it arrowed straight
through me. He rolled over, taking the sheet with him. Before I could
even take a breath, he snagged his arm around my waist. He was
completely out of it now. Mumbling “off-limits” over and
over again.

He dragged me
against his hard body, and he was so strong, so powerful. His big
hand on my waist manhandled me like I was nothing but a pillow on his
bed. Then he snuggled his face into the hollow of my neck and sighed.

His weight pinned me
down. I closed my eyes at the sensory feast that was Boone. He
smelled so male, delicious, a scent I remembered vividly. Then there
was his skin. It was so warm, so soft, his hot breath moist against
my throat. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand and moved
restlessly against me. He must be delirious. I was pretty sure of
that, and it was a bad sign.

“Boone,”
I said softly. He kept mumbling. I needed to get water into him and
cool him down.

I slipped my hand in
his hair, but still his head kept turning and nodding aimlessly. He
lifted his upper body and I could breathe a little easier. “Boone,”
I said again and his eyes popped open and he stared down at me,
clearly completely disoriented at seeing me beneath him in his bed.

A smile spread
across his face, although his poor, feverish eyes were still glazed.
His smile made my stomach flip anyway. Boone Swoon.

So easy for that to
happen when I found myself tucked under all that gorgeous male. So
much for trying to avoid him. But I also knew that I was safe with
him. I knew that instinctively. I wasn’t afraid of him or what
could happen with him. The worst had already happened and I survived
it.

“This isn’t
helping my hard-on.”

I tried to hold onto
my composure.

“I bet,”
I said. “You need to let me up. I have to help you, Boone.”

He shook his head
and smiled again. He closed his eyes like he was fighting a dizzy
spell and muttered about the room spinning.

I tried to slip away
and he simply pulled me back like I was nothing but a feather. “Uh,
uh,” he said.

I set my hands
against his chest, but it was like pushing against concrete. “Boone,
please. I need to help you. Let me go.”

But he didn’t
hear me.

“I see you in
my dreams,” he whispered unsteadily, absently, more like he was
talking out loud then he was talking to me. “Why are you in my
dreams, Verity?”

“Boone. We
don’t have time for this. I have to get some fluids into you
and cool you off.”

“You’re
not going anywhere.”

With him pinning me
down, holding me like I was a lifeline, I could pretty much confirm
that.

I tried to slip away
again, but he tightened his hold—and my patience snapped.

“Dammit,
Boone….I need…”

“I need, too.”
And he kissed me, just dropped on me like a sensual juggernaut and
pressed his Boone Swoon mouth over mine.

I saw it
coming—coming like freight train, heavy, fast and unstoppable.
If I’d had an ounce of sense, I would have shut him down, but
no, I let the wreck happen, the whole thing in swift, heated rush—his
mouth hot and wet, his desire for me overwhelming any common sense I
might have possessed. He wanted me, and I wanted him—again.

I swore in my head,
but still let his arms close around me, allowed his hands to slide
all over me and have his Boone way with me. He had good strong hands
and kind of fast. He was molding me to him, pulling me further
underneath him.

I opened my mouth to
his, pushed my fingers up into his hair, and kissed him for all I was
worth. Because he wouldn’t remember—again. He was heaven
to kiss. Absolute heaven. Nothing in my imagination had ever come
close to the bone-deep thrill of actually having his mouth on me, his
tongue driving me to distraction and beyond. He was so intensely
male, more than my fantasies had ever conjured, the taste of him, the
feel of his skin along his jaw, the roughness of it, that uneven
beginnings of a beard.

I trailed my hand
down his throat to his chest, his hard muscles. I moaned, an
inadvertent sound, touching him, and wishing I dared to touch him
even more. I’d seen him naked like this before and he’d
been totally out of it. Just like now.

There were times
when I had watched him when he wasn’t aware of it, like at the
party that night. I had looked and lusted, and wanted him so badly it
was painful.

He was just
heartbreakingly beautiful. There were no other words for him. I never
got Boone mixed up with Braxton or Booker. Never. Even when all three
of them were together, taking over the halls of the school with their
swagger and their bad boy vibe. I knew Boone. There was something
inherently
him
that set him apart from his look-alike brothers.

He wasn’t
cocky like Braxton or confident like Booker. He was all rugged angles
and planes, with a lost quality that spoke to me without words. I
recognized it every time I saw him.

But back then Boone
scared me a little, too. I knew he was my downfall. He was what
temptation looked like and breathed like, in a hard-muscled,
shaggy-haired, blue-eyed devil kind of a way.

When girls looked at
him they couldn’t help wanting to get
physical
with
him, and I was no exception. You just wanted to crawl all over him
and take him down, and then just take him. He had a raw presence, all
of it sculpted into layers of muscle and sinew—the power of
long legs, corded arms, broad shoulders, and a back designed by God
and perfected by pumping iron. All of them, all of the Outlaws, had
acted so tough in school, cementing the reputation their ancestor had
earned for the family.

I understood that. I
knew all about bullies and how they acted. The Outlaws didn’t
bully, they just intimidated to keep their own bullies at bay. Three
identical brothers who had each other’s backs, and it was
freaking impressive and drove you crazy hot.

Yes, I was born and
raised to resist temptation, but Boone Outlaw was my fall from grace.
And I had fallen so hard. I never thought I would ever be this close
to him again. And I tried so desperately to fuse the warring sides of
me. The side with expectations and illusions about who I was, and the
real me that had human appetites and needs. The bold, unapologetic
part of me that wanted to join with Boone again. Even though he was
out of his head, the man knew how to kiss.

He melted my bones.

He broke the kiss
and wobbled on his forearms and I saw my opening. I pushed at him and
he toppled.

I scrambled off the
bed just as he swiped out his arm to capture me.

“Verity,”
he said, lying there looking at me with those hot blue eyes, that
clever, tempting mouth. He reached out his arm, his hand stretching
out towards me.

“No, Boone,”
I said and turned away before I lost my resolve and curled against
him. I went to his fridge and loaded up on water. In the bathroom, I
set the water down near the tub for easy access. Back in his room, I
discovered he had thrown off the covers and was thrashing. I ran into
the bathroom and pulled open the medicine chest. Took out the bottle
of medicine, and turned on the tap in the tub. I had to get that
fever down.

I ran back into his
bedroom and ducked a couple of arms, finally snagging one of his
wrists. Moving a six foot two wall of naked muscled hunk was no easy
feat. But I cajoled and pushed and pulled him. Dragging him up, I
helped him to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet next to the
almost full tub. I slipped out of my jeans and pulled my t-shirt over
my head.

“Step in,”
I said as I help him stand, lift in one leg and then the other, and
then sink down into the water. He started to shiver, but I knew from
experience that he had to get cooled off. The water was cool, but not
unbearable. I didn’t care. By now I was really concerned about
him.

I climbed in next to
him and leaned against the side of the tub near the tap, then pulled
Boone’s prone body against me. He had to bend his knees
slightly because he was so tall. I couldn’t think about the
fact that he was completely naked. I was the only one there to help
him. I grabbed a washcloth and dipped it in the water, then wet his
hair and swiped the cloth over his face and neck.

He shivered
uncontrollably now and started to thrash, sounding as if he didn’t
know where he was. I soothed him with my voice and hands. When he
quieted, I reached for a bottle of water and the pills. “Open
your mouth,” I ordered. He obeyed.

I put the pills in
and lifted the bottle to his lips. “Swallow, sugar.”

He complied as I
tipped the bottle. He grabbed it and drained the rest of it. I gave
him another one, and he drank that too. I was feeling much better.
He’d stopped thrashing and I cradled him against me as I
sponged water over his neck. I took advantage of him and swiped my
fingers over that silky spot behind his ear where his hair curled.

Pushing all that
hair off his forehead, I sent the washcloth over his face and it
rasped over the beginning of dark stubble. With his hair slicked back
off his face, he was even more heartbreakingly handsome.

He shivered in my
arms, and, there was nothing so vulnerable as a man with a fever. All
that strength, all that power, laid low by the heat addling his
brain. We floated and I sponged, and as soon as the water got too
warm, I turned on the tap and cooled it off again.

He drifted in and
out of lucidity and in and out of sleep.

I should have been
cold, but his hot body warmed me.

I tried to keep my
thoughts neutral. But it was just too hard. He had asked me out and I
hadn’t really given him an answer. It fit with Boone’s
character. I had accused him of something terrible, but instead of
avoiding me or going ballistic, he wanted to show me his soul. Didn’t
he know I could hurt him? Didn’t he care that he was giving me
the power to make everything ten times worse?

And I wanted to
leave Suttontowne. I was going to leave Suttontowne. Getting involved
with Boone was a disaster in the making, but how could I deny him
that one request after thinking so ill of him for so long? I felt
like Elizabeth Bennett just discovering for the first time how
wonderful, how charming, and how vulnerable Mr. Darcy really was.

His voice rasped
out, sounding hoarse and congested. “Why are we swimming?”
he asked, looking up at me, his blue eyes still glassy.

“We’re
not swimming, sugar. You have a fever and I’m trying to bring
it down.”

“Oh,” he
said, looking confused. “I like when you call me sugar,
Verity.”

I swiped the
washcloth over his face again, trying to keep the frayed strings of
my heart out of Boone’s clever fingers.

“That hurts my
skin,” he said, looking up at me again and sounding like a
little boy.

It was true. A fever
made the skin very sensitive. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I
set the washcloth down and used my hand to scoop up water and smooth
it over him.

He sighed, “That’s
better. I like that.” He frowned. “My dad used to take us
swimming. It was a lot of fun, but then he left. Do you think it’s
because he didn’t care for us?”

I tried to will away
the growing tightness in my chest, tried to will away the misery that
settled around my heart. “I’m sure he loved you.
Sometimes parents just can’t be there for their children.”
I bit my lip against the pain of that statement, struggling for
control as tears burned the backs of my eyes. But my voice was still
treacherously unsteady when I spoke. “It wasn’t your
fault. I’m sure.”

“I’m not
sure,” he said, meeting my eyes, but his were distant, as if he
was floating more in a dream. I wondered how much he would remember
of this conversation.

“I feel really
sorry for Henry, but he’s lucky, too. He’s so little and
his dad died. From what I could tell from what Henry said, his dad
spent a lot of time with him. That’s the really crazy thing. My
dad did, too.” The muscles in his throat worked and he took a
breath. “He taught Booker how to play the piano, and he took us
places,” he said his tone bitter.

“Why do you
say he’s lucky if his dad died?”

“At least
Henry knew that his dad loved him. If I ever have a kid, I will make
sure he knows how much I care, and I will never abandon him.”

His words hit me
like a meteor bulleting out of a blue, blue sky. I tried to stop the
tears and the hard, sharp pain those words caused. Oh, God. I could
barely breathe around my guilt and my aching heart. My tears dripped
onto him, but he didn’t notice.

Already I had
realized that Boone definitely wasn’t the bastard I’d
believed him to be. He was a jerk sometimes, but that’s because
I was being such a bitch to him. I had thought I had cause for my
anger, but now I was wondering if I had needed to blame Boone to
assuage my own conscience. Make my preacher girl ethics fit nicely
into my preacher girl boxes.

He rubbed at his
temple and shifted. I was worried that his headache was bothering him
and his fever was spiking, but I couldn’t give him any more
medicine for another three hours. I tightened my arms around him, his
skin so hot against my skin, his muscles so solid.

“When he left,
I cried really hard. I was only six, so I guess that’s okay
because you’re little, and you haven’t yet built up those
walls.”

“Walls?”

“The ones you
have to build to protect yourself. When you grow up and become a man,
you have to man up. Guys aren’t supposed cry. You know, unless
they stub their toe or get something in their eye.”