A Hero's Reward Read Online Free PDF

coat. It was soaking wet,
not to the point of dripping but it was still frigid to the touch and
would drip when it thawed out. He wrestled it off of her. In the
middle of moving her to get the coat off, she let out a groan. At
least she's still alive he thought. He removed her shoes as well,
to find that her socks were soaking wet. She had a dress under her
coat and it was damp as well. He needed to remove that, but not yet.
He tucked the blankets around her and headed up the stairs, groaning
at his back on the way. The worst of the pain was gone but taking the
stairs still sent tiny little knives darting along his spine with
each step. He grabbed as many blankets as he could carry from the
hallway linen closet and headed back down.
    Once he was downstairs again, he laid
out the blanket they had been wrapped in, it was warmer than the
others so he wanted it on the bottom. Then he rolled Margaret onto
it. He removed her socks, then her dress. Her undergarments were
moist and chilled as well and he winced when he thought of her
reaction upon waking up but he removed those also. He once again
hesitated at his next action but gave in and stripped himself down as
well. Lying next to her, he covered them both with the other blankets
he had brought downstairs. He tucked them in as best as he could to
avoid any stray breezes or heat leaks and then snuggled in next to
her, trying to get as much skin contact between the two of them as
physically possible. He was embarrassed to find himself reacting to
her, his erect penis pressing against her forcefully.
    Not a hell of a lot I can do about that if it's trying to be
hard while I'm already in this much pain. Hopefully it subsides
before she wakes up. It'll be difficult to explain otherwise.
    Greg simply concentrated on trying to
remain still and in contact with her. His thoughts were not exactly
the purely chaste ones he thought he should be having in this
situation. All he could think was that this was a far more intimate
position than any he had been in with his ex-wife, even when he was
getting her pregnant with their children. Slowly, all thought faded
and he drifted off to sleep with Margaret wrapped in a bear hug that
kept them in as much contact as possible.
    Some time later he woke up to find
Margaret shivering violently. He remembered that shivering after
treatment could mean one of two things. Either the cold blood from
the extremities was moving back in and causing it or she had been
beyond the point where the body stops shivering so it can conserve
energy and was coming back to that point. He reached for her hands to
feel them, they were still cool but much warmer than earlier on. He
couldn't get to her feet to check but he also placed a hand on her
stomach to check the temperature there. Warmer than the hands, that
meant that she had probably come back into the shivering stage from
being worse off. Good, he knew how to deal with that, if she had been
getting worse he didn't have anything else to try.
    He paused to listen and noted that the
electricity was still out. He could try the phone but with the roads
bad enough that he couldn't walk on them he didn't want to try to get
an emergency vehicle out to someone who was improving and probably
out of danger. It wasn't light out yet but in the morning he'd see if
it looked better out there and call an ambulance then if the roads
weren't icy any more. Even that small series of thoughts had him
exhausted and he found himself drifting off once more.
    Greg woke again when daylight started
peeping in around the curtains. It was a wan, pale winter type of
light but at least things should start warming up again. He
determined that the power was still out with a moment's pause and
wondered how cold it had gotten in the house. He was toasty warm
under the blankets, cuddled up with Margaret.
    Margaret , he thought, How
is she doing?
    He tracked down one of Margaret's hands
and felt it, cool but no longer cold to the touch. He still