Fever by Joan Swan

another stitch of her inner tissues, she tensed and turned her head away. Her fingers curled and released in the fabric of her shirt.
    With her attention averted, Teague followed each stitch with long, steady pressure from the fingers of his free hand. He’d purposely chosen hand sanitizer instead of gloves because he’d never tried to heal through a barrier, and he wasn’t about to start now. And though he might not be able to wipe out her injury instantly, he could speed the healing and hinder scar formation while helping with pain relief. Of course, the whole sexual attraction thing that seemed to flow in its wake—that he hadn’t counted on.
    As he steadied her skin and muscle for each double stitch, his subconscious kept whispering reminders of how soft and warm she was. Kept influencing him to peek at her supple belly and the swell of her breasts. He succumbed briefly to a vision of himself hovering over her, kissing his way up that belly toward those breasts, and the simmer in his body boiled to life. He imagined sinking down, pressing his body to hers, feeling all that satin skin against his own. He felt the supple play of her nipple against the roof of his mouth as he suckled, the roll of muscle and pressure of flesh as she arched against him in pleasure.
    In the next instant, his traitorous mind replaced his own image with Luke’s. His fantasy shattered, as violent as boiling water on frozen glass.
    “What’s wrong?” Hannah’s voice brought Teague back to where his hand hovered over her ribs. “Why’d you stop?”
    He shook his head, clenched his teeth and resumed. “Just making sure I’m catching all the edges. It’s not going to look like a pretty package when I’m done. I’m exverting the edges so the skin won’t pucker and sink in, leaving a big divot. But it’ll invert on its own and heal flush.”
    Hannah put one arm behind her head and watched Teague work.
    “How long have you and Luke been together?” He hated the fact that he couldn’t keep these nagging questions inside. That he cared about the answers.
    She didn’t immediately respond. Her brows furrowed, gaze steady on the ceiling. “I don’t know.” Her response came clipped and irritated. “I don’t keep track of that kind of thing.”
    “Well, like weeks, months? What?”
    “I supposedly hold some sort of leverage for you. Why don’t you already know this?”
    “Why are you so evasive? Just answer the question.”
    “I don’t know, a few, several ... a couple months ... maybe.”
    He frowned at the bizarre answer. “Has he introduced you to Kat?”
    “I work a lot. I don’t have much time to socialize.”
    Halfway up the gash, Teague paused and took a closer look at Hannah’s face, trying to read her. “Some vague answers from someone who’s supposedly hot and heavy with the guy.”
    Her light eyes flicked toward his. “Who told you that?”
    “Friends.”
    “I thought you didn’t have any friends.”
    He looked away, irritated with her sharpness. Or maybe more irritated with the truth of the statement. Time for a change of subject.
    Teague channeled all his focus, sent the heat down his arms, through his palms and into his fingertips as he slid his skin over hers, each pass healing another several hundred thousand cells at a time. “Am I hurting you?”
    “Not much. Whatever you used for anesthetic is working.”
    It’s called touch. That topical junk had only been a prop. A scapegoat on which to lay the pain relief. Teague had learned how to hide his abilities years ago. His thoughts of the past brought his mind back around to Luke, to Kat, to all that had happened, to all that had gone wrong in his life.
    Hannah closed her eyes on a half-sigh and laid her head back again. Supple muscle moved beneath velvet skin. Teague would have to be dead not to notice.
    “What do you see in Luke, anyway?” The words were out before he had a chance at a second thought.
    Her lashes lifted halfway. “By your tone I