THE SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND BECAME HIS WIFE'S BOSS

CHAPTER 7

“I am not ‘doing’ anything but tracing the energy flow,” he stated, though his voice had tightened slightly. “The fire is concentrated here. In your heart, your lungs. I need to redirect it.”

His touch was clinical, yet impossibly intimate. As his fingers moved across the sensitive swell of her breast, applying firm, precise pressure, the dual sensations became impossible to separate. The scorching pain of her condition began to ebb, replaced by a different, entirely foreign heat—a deep, throbbing warmth that pooled low in her belly.

A broken moan escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her back arched slightly off the ice, not in pain, but in a silent plea for more of that astonishing touch. 

“Oh God…” she whispered, her earlier hostility evaporating like mist. Her consciousness blurred, the world narrowing to the points where his skin met hers. The raw, medical necessity of his actions was being consumed by a rising tide of pure, animal sensation.

He leaned closer, adjusting the angle of his pressure, his face inches from hers. His focused expression, the slight sheen of sweat on his own brow from the effort and the ambient heat—it was the last thing her fever-addled mind could process.

Her hand shot up, not to push him away, but to clutch the back of his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him down with a strength that surprised them both.

“Closer…” she breathed, her voice husky and desperate. “Please…”

And then her lips were on his.

The kiss was not gentle. It was a wild, feverish claim, born of delirium and a sudden, all-consuming need. She poured all her confused longing, her pain, her desperate hope into it. Her other hand grabbed his shoulder, dragging his body down until his chest pressed flush against her burning skin.

The sensation was a thunderclap. The softness of her body yielding against his, the searing heat of her mouth, the taste of her—a mix of saline and something sweetly metallic. For one heart-stopping second, Diego’s control shattered. His body responded instinctively, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her tighter, his mouth moving against hers with a sudden, fierce hunger.

But then he felt it—the frantic, erratic flutter of her pulse beneath his fingers, the dangerous edge of her fever. This wasn't her. This was the illness, the delirium, a crisis point.

He bit down hard on his own tongue. The sharp, coppery pain cleared the lust from his mind, reinstalling his focus with brutal efficiency. She is a patient. She is dying.

With immense gentleness, he broke the kiss, holding her shoulders firmly as she whimpered in protest, trying to recapture his mouth.

“No… don’t stop… it helps… it cools me…” she begged, her eyes pleading.

“It is the treatment that cools you,” he corrected softly, his voice rough but firm. He guided her back onto the icy slab. “Now, be still. Let me finish.”

Seizing the window of her lucidity, his hands resumed their work, moving with renewed speed and precision across her heated skin, channeling his energy not as a man, but as a healer.

For what felt like an eternity, the only sounds were their mingled breaths and the gentle, almost sensual slide of his hands over her sweat-slicked body. Slowly, the deep crimson flush began to fade from her skin, receding like a tide. The terrifying heat radiating from her core diminished, replaced by a normal, healthy warmth. Her desperate panting evened out into deep, steady breaths.

Finally, after thirty intense minutes, his hands stilled. He stepped back, withdrawing his energy.

Esperanza’s eyes fluttered open. They were clear now, no longer glazed with pain or feverish desire. She looked at him, truly looked at him, seeing the stranger in her ice chamber for the first time. A deep, bewildered blush spread across her cheeks as fragments of memory—of her own actions—assaulted her. She pulled a stray lock of hair from her face, her voice a whisper of sheer, unadulterated confusion.

“What… what did you just do to me?”

His hand paused midair, but he did not answer. Instead, he drew the blanket over her trembling frame.

The silence stretched. Only the whisper of her steadier breathing filled the room.

At last, she closed her eyes, exhaustion overtaking her. Diego sat back, his hands clasped tightly to still their tremor, his jaw clenched.

Esperanza's lashes fluttered. Realizing her bare skin beneath the thin blanket, she gasped softly, her entire face blooming crimson. Memories of her delirious kiss and the way she had clung to Diego like a drowning woman returned in sharp fragments.

"Oh God," she whispered to the empty chamber. "What have I done?"

Snatching the blanket higher to her chest, she whispered, voice trembling, "I… I'm sorry… I lost control just now…"

Diego turned his back to her, his tone even, steady, as though nothing had happened.

"It was the ancient technique's side effect. The ritual affects the nervous system unpredictably. Think no more of it. You're healed now."

His hand reached for the door handle.

"Wait."