As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the role reversal.
    Back at the lodge, Joely followed him up the stairs to his room. She tossed her purse on the dresser and made herself comfortable.
    “You’re staying?” He sat down on the bed and pressed a hand against his throbbing forehead.
    “I thought I said that already. I’m going to keep an eye on you until I’m sure you’re all right.”
    He started to shake his head in protest, then reconsidered, blinking back another wave of dizziness. “You were serious? I don’t think it’s necessary.”
    “I do.” She opened her gigantic handbag. Rey was certain he’d never seen a purse that big before. While she sorted through its contents, he sat there, rubbing his head, clueless as to what to do next. Finally, she looked back up at him. “Take a nap. You’ll feel better.”
    “I’m supposed to just sleep while you’re sitting there?”
    “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something to do.” She pulled out a big sketchpad and a handful of pencils and began to arrange them on top of the dresser.
    “Yeah,” he muttered. He wasn’t worried about her finding something to do. He was more worried about himself, sleeping while Joely sat there looking at him. The thought made him feel weird. He couldn’t even put words to the sensation.
    Then it hit him. Vulnerable. He felt vulnerable. That wasn’t a good thing.
    Or was it? Time to let go, maybe. Show Joely he still trusted her.
    He rubbed his head a few more times, then stripped down to his shorts and climbed back under the covers.
    “That’s it,” she said. Her attention had wandered from her sketchpad and now roved over his body. Her eyes would have undressed him if he hadn’t been undressed already. Something stirred in his shorts — he was amazed he was still functioning down there, as sick as he felt. “You just sleep.”
    He wished fervently that he was up to full health. Up to grabbing her and kissing her and pushing her back into the bed, pushing his hands inside her clothes … “Don’t take advantage of me while I’m unconscious.”
    She smiled. “I’ll try not to.”
    He lay back and closed his eyes. To his own surprise, he immediately forgot Joely was watching him and drifted off, thinking about mysterious mountain-induced ailments and wondering what the hell a “fourteener” was.
    • • •
    This was nice, Joely decided after the first half hour or so of watching Rey sleep. He’d always been the strong one in their relationship, the one with the better job, the one who could bail her out of situations when they arose. Of course, it had been his miserable failure to bail her out of one such situation that had started their marriage down the crumbling slope of doom.
    But now it was her turn to take care of him. He was on her turf here, facing things he knew nothing about. A new experience for him, she was sure. It intrigued her that he’d given himself up to her care so willingly. The old Rey would have fought it tooth and nail.
    He slept charmingly — except for the vague snoring — his face mushed into the pillow and one hand curled open next to his nose. She studied his profile, memorizing it. She’d never forgotten it, but it seemed different somehow. Her memory had erased the imperfections, made his nose a little shorter and straighter, his chin a little bigger. Her memory had neglected to remind her he drooled in his sleep.
    After a moment, she turned a page in the sketchpad, to a blank sheet. Looking at the familiar lines of his sleeping face, she let her pencil drift over the paper, echoing them, bringing them to existence in soft smudges of gray lead against the white paper. She had drawn him before, a long time ago. Once or twice she had drawn him naked. She was tempted to tweak the sheet away from his shoulders, to expose the long, clean lines of his back, but she didn’t want to disturb him. So instead, she drew his wide shoulders, the curl of his hair against the back of his neck, his long nose against the