Joy dropped her hands from her neck when Everett rapped on the bathroom door. Her glands really were quite swollen.
“Come in,” she called. She’d left the door open a crack. He stuck his head into the opening.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I was just getting ready for bed.”
He walked into the large bathroom. He wore nothing but a pair of dark blue pajama bottoms, the drawstring tightened low on his hips. She glanced over him, not hiding her appreciation, not guarding against her desire.
Not tonight.
His gaze dropped over her. “Another new gown?” he asked, touching the black lace strap on her shoulder and caressing her skin in the process. “I like this one even better.”
“Thanks,” she said softly. Their gazes clung before something caught his attention on the counter.
“So this is the medication the doctor prescribed?” he asked, picking up a bottle.
“Yes, it’s not much of anything. Just something to help soothe my throat. The Tylenol has already brought down the fever,” she said. A prickle of wariness went through her when she noticed his narrowed gaze on her.
“And that’s why you called Seth from the waiting room,” he clarified. “Because you wanted him to go and pick up throat spray at the pharmacy.”
Joy nodded, forcing a smile. “I thought it’d make things go quicker to have him do that while I got dressed and checked out.”
“It’s probably just my imagination, but Seth seemed awfully tense tonight.”
“Really?” Joy asked, busying herself by pumping some scented lotion into her palm and rubbing it into her skin. “I told you how much he worries about me.”
“Yeah,” Everett said thoughtfully. “Almost as if he thinks there’s something significant to worry about.”
She paused in the action of rubbing the lotion on her arm. She met his gaze in the mirror.
“He’s like a father and brother to me. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t worry if Katie got sick.”
He said nothing. Joy resumed applying the lotion, working her way up to her shoulder. She felt his sharp observation the entire time.
“Let me,” he said after a moment. He pumped some of the lotion into his hand. “Lower your straps.”
A shiver coursed down her neck at the sound of his low, rough voice. She brushed the straps off her shoulders, watching him in the mirror as he lifted his hands. He began to massage the lotion into her shoulders and upper back, squeezing her muscles, using his fingers to knead away the tension that had grown there over the course of the evening.
“Feel good?” he asked when she gave a muffled groan of appreciation.
“Fantastic,” she said, letting her eyelids flutter closed. His hands felt warm and strong; her flesh seemed to melt beneath them. He touched the side of her neck with a long, questing finger. Her eyes opened. She met his stare in the mirror.
“Sore?” he asked.
She nodded. He moved his fingers in a gentle quest, watching himself touch her.
“Your glands are swollen,” he murmured.
She nodded. “Yes. The doctor noticed.”
He looked at her again in the mirror. Joy stared back at him unblinkingly. Slowly, his massaging hands moved back to the slope of her shoulders.
“How do you feel right now?”
“I feel fine, now that the Tylenol has taken down the fever.”
He nodded. His thumbs dug pleasurably around her shoulder blades, loosening tense muscles. Suddenly, he put his hands on the drooping straps on her black negligee and slid them down her arms, lowering the garment. The fitted silk dragged across the upper slope of her breasts until her nipples popped out from beneath the fabric. She lifted her hands free of the straps. Everett pushed the gown several inches beneath her breasts.