A Hero's Reward Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn't
get to her feet to check without a lot of movement so once again, he
placed his hand on her stomach to check the warmth of her torso. Her
torso appeared to be the same temperature as his so evidently her
core temperatures had warmed back up to normal. She moved slightly
under his touch, curling up into something close to a fetal position
from the straight position he had placed her in to share body heat
with her. Her movement swung her breasts so that they brushed against
his arm and came to rest against his hand. He carefully tried to
slide his hand out from under her breast. He was embarrassed to
realize that the touch of her breast on his hand had reinvigorated
his erection.
    Evidently his attempt to remove his
hand unnoticed failed:
    “Huh?” Margaret snorted as
she awoke, “What? What's going on? Where am I?”
    As Greg removed his hand the rest of
the way:
    “What are you doing?”
    Margaret sat up, dragging the blankets
with her. They slid down off of her upper torso, exposing her breasts
to the cool air in the house. When the cool air of the house hit
Greg's back, he involuntarily flinched and let out a groan of pain.
His back had stiffened up as he slept and moving it was excruciating.
Margaret glanced at him when he groaned, noticing his erection as it
collapsed from the pain.
    “What the hell is going on? What
are you doing?”
    Margaret appeared to be trying to build
up a head of anger and it was reflected in her voice.
    “Where am I, what's going on?”
she said, tugging the blanket back up to cover herself.
    Greg groaned again and mumbled out an
answer:
    “You're in my house because you
were freezing to death. I had to treat you for hypothermia.”
    “What? What are you talking
about?”
    “Go look outside the window, but
don't open the curtains too much, the power is off and we need to try
to keep the heat inside.”
    Margaret got up, wrapped a blanket
around herself like a toga, and stalked over to the window. Pulling
it open and glancing outside, she gasped:
    “Oh my god, I never noticed any
of that happening last night.”
    “Well, I woke up when the power
went out and realized that you were still in your car. I was going to
go over and offer you my spare bedroom but when I got there you were
totally out of it, unconscious and unresponsive. Your body
temperature was dangerously low and the only thing I could think that
it might be was hypothermia, so I carried you back over here and
treated you for it. I'm sorry, but your clothes were wet so they had
to come off. I took mine off so I could share my body heat better.
Nothing else happened. Even if I had wanted to do something like
that, I'm in way too much pain. I strained my back again by carrying
you across the street last night.”
    “Again? Wait, you're Greg aren't
you? You're the one that saved Jack and me from my house when it was
burning. Then you saved my life again last night? You injured
yourself more to save me again?”
    Margaret sank to the floor and burst
out in tears. Through her sobs Greg could make out the words she was
muttering quietly to herself:
    “You're still a danger to
everyone else. You can't get anything right. Daddy was right, Freddy
was right, you're a total incompetent. You endanger anyone who comes
near you. Jack is probably better off with Freddy.”
    With that last sentence, Margaret broke
down into a full-throated sobbing that prevented her from doing
anything else at all.
    Greg took the remaining blanket from
underneath himself and wrapped it around his body to try to retain
warmth and preserve whatever modesty remained in the situation. He
moved himself over to Margaret and, tentatively, leaned in and put
his arms around her. When she didn't pull away from him he spoke:
    “It'll be alright, everything
will be okay.”
    Margaret's sobs became, if anything,
louder and more vigorous. Greg continued to softly speak calming
phrases while holding her in his arms. It was quite a while before
she finally