"No problem. Now show me where your bedroom is." I'm smiling as I follow his shuffling steps. Surely he wouldn't have said what he said, if deep down a part of him didn't mean it.
We navigate our way out of the living room, along a little corridor and into his only marginally tidier bedroom, where the denuded bed reveals the home of the duvet. I hustle Innes towards it, but he hesitates. He looks vaguely perplexed in soft light from a couple of wall lamps.
"Come along then. What are you waiting for. Get in and I'll spread the quilt over you."
He gives me an odd, almost wicked look. "Okay, Nurse Ratchet."
I flap the sheets, still waiting for him to comply, but when shucks off the duvet to climb underneath them, it's my turn to get a shock of chills and fever.
All this time, he's been stark naked beneath his quilt.
My jaw drops and delicious guilt surges through me like a tidal wave.
Even in his flu-ridden state, naked Innes is spectacular; lean and athletic, with long limbs, long muscles and a crisply defined six-pack worthy of a male pin-up. He's a veritable feast of male pulchritude, but to my greedy shame I zero straight in on his cock, which is also long and crisply defined.
"Get under the sheet. You'll freeze to death," I command, my voice not quite steady. Innes complies, his moment of possible bravado a thing of the past as he flops onto the bed and bundles the sheet around him like an Eastern bloc washerwoman. Still stunned by what I've seen, I fling the duvet in his general direction, my aim so addled it goes over his head too.
"Thanks... I think," he groans, emerging. He's gritting his teeth to stop them chattering again.
"You're still cold. You need more bedding. Have you got any?"
"There's the summer duvet. It's in the top cupboard, over the wardrobe."
The cupboard is high, so I snag a chair, kick off my boots and climb up. In the low light, it's difficult to see what's in there, but amongst some old sports gear and other stuff, I spot the familiar white ticking cover of a duvet. I start to pull it, then experience the most peculiar sensation like a ray of heat flowing over me. Holding on to the edge of the cupboard, I whip around precariously on the chair.
Ah hah, the weak and sickly patient still has enough energy to check out my bottom in my snug fitting jeans.
I beetle my brows at him, and he mutters, "I'm ill," by way of an excuse.
"Thanks, I think." I parrot back, vaguely cross with him as I spread the extra duvet over him. Why does he have to plead illness to admit he's susceptible to my body?
"I'm sorry… But you know what I mean… It's very nice, your bottom. Very nice indeed." He hunkers down beneath his bunched coverings and scrunches his eyes closed. "I've always thought so."
Part of me thinks "Cheeky beggar!" but part of me is very, very pleased by his admission. He's finally confirmed what I've always hoped, despite the stupid codes of our workplace.
"I'll make you a hot toddy. Stay under the covers, and try and keep warm."
"Can you bring the files, please?"
I shake my head. "Absolutely not. How can you possibly work when you're nearly half dead?"
He makes a harrumphing sound as I hurry out of the bedroom.
En route to the kitchen, I have a little snoop round the rest of the apartment. It's nice, very nice: a gracious blend of modern and traditional beneath the temporary disorder and the frigid temperature. It's a bit like Innes himself. He's a contemporary man but with sweet old fashioned values sometimes.
A few minutes later, I'm back in the bedroom, still wishing I was here under different circumstances. Innes is humped under the two duvets, barely visible, but in my imagination we're both there, engaged in a brand of humping. My breasts tingle at the thought, and desire grinds low in my sex, stirring my guilt. What kind of sex monster would want to ravage a shivering invalid? I've made myself a hot toddy too, but I'm wondering now whether I should have done. I'm frisky enough already without the alcohol.
Innes struggles to sit up, and setting the mugs aside, I help him. His skin is burning hot when I put my arm around his shoulder so I can adjust his pillows, and it's almost electrified as my hand slides against it. I jump, and even in his feverish stupor, Innes starts too, his blue eyes wide with surprise. It's almost a relief when we split apart and I scuttle away to get his dressing gown to wrap around him.
After more struggling, and some coughing, he's sitting up, clutching his mug of toddy. He wrinkles his nose at the first sip, but then takes another longer one. "This isn't my whisky," he observes, still swigging the stuff down.
"No, it's mine." I taste my own drink, and the sharp/sweet tang of lemon and honey is delicious, even despite the cheap and cheerful whisky. "I knew you'd buy the good stuff, and it's no use drowning posh single malts in a whole bunch of other ingredients."
Innes manages a grin. "Quite right too. Good thinking, Batman."
We sip in silence for a while: Innes slumped back in his pillows, his cup cradled on his chest, me perched on a chair a few feet away. Despite the rigors of illness, he still looks irresistible, and it's not a good idea for me to be closer. The idea of that sleek naked body beneath the duvet is still making me feel crazy.
"So, why no boyfriend?" Innes enquires suddenly. We have the best of working relationships, but we never pry into each other's private lives. It'd be dangerous for me, and Innes is too sensible.
"I don't know. Nobody seems to be asking at the moment. Well, nobody who I'd be interested in." I drain my toddy, and its heat sinks down through my body to meet the heat rising up from my sex, the heat fired by Innes being so close.
"Men are fools," says Innes, setting his own drink aside.
I laugh, loving the strange closeness between us. It's sweet, even allowing for my sexual frustration. "Indeed they are, boss. Indeed they are."
He gives me an odd look, and mutters, "And I'm probably the biggest fool amongst them." Then his eyelids flutter, and he seems to drift off to sleep.
I wonder what to do. I know what I want to do, which is climb beneath the duvets with Innes and see if a bit of hands-on physical therapy can cure him. But instead I've got to find a distraction from those thoughts. I don't want to leave the room, but I can't risk turning on the flat screen television on the wall in case I wake him. In the end, I switch off the lamp furthest away from me, and by the light of the closer one, I flick through a book that Innes appears to have been reading. It's a collection of pithy anecdotes by a controversial motoring journalist, and it's really funny when I get stuck into it. From time to time, I spring to red alert, when Innes stirs, but after a while, the toddy gets to me too, and I drift off to sleep, book on lap.
I don't know how long I doze, but I wake with a lurch, disturbed by a sound. I glance immediately towards Innes, and he's moving, tugging at his covers. He's obviously just shuffled back from the bathroom, because one of the quilts is on the floor, and he doesn't seem to have the energy to restore it to the bed. It's also colder than ever in the room, even though I'm still wearing my outdoor jacket. Darting across to check my patient, I find him half awake, half asleep, and muttering under his breath. Where he was hot before, he's now icy-cold and clammy. I wonder whether he has a hot water bottle somewhere, but he doesn't seem the type for one, and even if he was, I've no idea where he'd keep it. I conduct a cursory search while I'm in the bathroom, but I feel awkward rummaging about amongst his belongings without permission.
When I get back to the bedroom, I can tell he's deteriorated. Innes is shivering hard now, despite his heap of bedding. What the hell can I do? He doesn't appear to have any more duvets or blankets, other than the ones I've gathered, but I've got to find a way to heat him up.
There is one, of course, and it's been staring me in the face all along as my heart's desire.
Body heat.
Nothing to do with sex at all, at least for him, but skin on skin is probably the most efficient way to warm him.
As if he's sensed my intentions, Innes rouses again when I peel off my jacket and throw it on top of the duvets. "What are you doing?" he whispers as I kick off my boots, then wiggle off my jeans, adding the latter to the heap.
"I'm about to administer emergency heat."
Just as I'm dimming the remaining lamp, his eyes snap open, and as I elevate the duvets a smidge and start to slide beneath them, he gives me a delicious, slightly perplexed and worried look. "Maybe I should put something on… some boxer shorts? I'm afraid I don't own any pajamas."
At the moment, he doesn't look as if he has the strength to blow the skin off a rice pudding, much put on underwear and I'm in bed now anyway. God, his skin is so cold! It feels like marble. I snuggle up as best I can, all the time trying not to think too much about the sizeable knot of his genitalia pressing against my knicker clad loins. He's not hard, but he's still big and the feel of him is monumental, swamping my senses.
And he knows what I'm thinking, I'm sure of it, because he tries to tug away.
"Look, Innes, astonishing as it may seem, I've been in bed with a naked man before, and during that time, I've managed to not have sex every single second I was there." He relaxes, and I even sense a smile, despite his shivers. "I'll do my best not to harass you, out of respect for your delicate condition."
He chuckles and edges closer, sliding his cold arms around me now, and suddenly he cracks open his self-imposed shell of propriety again... and comes to life. "I wasn't thinking of you harassing me. It was more the other way around, Cally."
Be still my stupid heart! And be quiet my stupid pussy! He's ill. He's probably delirious. He doesn't know what he's saying and he hasn't the energy to do anything anyway, even if he meant it.
"Indeed, boss. Well, we'll see… Given the state of you, I think I'm pretty safe from any advances. You're shaking too hard to even find my erogenous zones. Now stop talking nonsense and let me warm you up."
It's cruel and unusual torment being allowed to touch him and yet not really touch him, but I set to work rubbing his back and shoulders and arms, and even his bottom, in an attempt to heat his skin. He feels as if he's been carved from a glacier at first, but eventually, he finally starts to thaw. Even his frigid feet start to warm up.
It isn't sexual, but even so, he sighs, as if just not being frozen is a pleasure. His limbs loosen and his breathing slows and steadies as his shivering subsides. Is he falling asleep again?
Great!
Proper rest is the best thing for Innes, but irrationally, I feel a tiny bit insulted. Obviously my body isn't quite as drop-dead alluring as I'd hoped, and his libido isn't inclined to fight the flu germs.
But somehow, lying in the arms of the man I love, with his naked body pressed all along my clothed one, is relaxing despite the infernal temptation. I too feel drowsy, warmed by my clothes, and by the duvets and my beloved Innes too.
Influenced by my wine at home, and the hot toddy, I drift in and out of a light sleep for a while, tired by my amateurish attempts at nursing, I suppose. But eventually I rise into wakefulness again. Not with a jerk this time, just a gradual awareness and a subconscious perception of change.
Innes is warm now, and it's natural, healthy warmth, not a fever. And that's what's woken me. We've moved apart a bit, but I can sense his body close to me. He seems not to be restless any more, and neither too hot nor too cold, and I remember how quickly I felt better with this bug. But I'm scared to ask how he's feeling, lest I disturb his sleep. Holding my breath, I roll onto my side, facing him, then reach out and touch his chest, letting my fingertips rest with infinitesimal lightness against his smooth skin and the sexy dusting of hair across his breastbone and his pectorals.
To the touch, he feels recovered, almost well. And I squeak like a cornered mouse when his hand settles on mine, so I can't withdraw it.
"Sorry to wake you. I was just checking your temperature." The hand stays put, flat over mine, pressing my fingers against the firm muscular contours. "You seem a bit better."
"I feel better." His voice sounds clearer, still a little husky, but not weak or blurred by illness. "Thanks to you." He moves, and the mattress rocks, making his thighs brush mine, almost as if his naked body is seeking naked parts of mine.
My heart thuds like a Kodo drum. Boom boom boom. It's a wonder it's not shaking the bed. I daren't open my eyes, and every nerve and instinct his telling me that Innes' health isn't the only thing that's changed. It's as if the whole configuration of the universe has suddenly shifted. A self imposed structure that presided just a few hours ago has become fluid and mutable, opening doors of perception and possibility.
Here's my chance; a life-changing opportunity that might never come again. I wait, wondering, knowing I should withdraw, but unable to because I'm his for the taking.
Innes begins to direct my hand. Not forcibly, it feels more like a medium resting on the pointer of an Ouija board. Our nested fingers slide down, slowly, over his ribs, and his belly, until we encounter the inevitable, his warm, hard cock.
Oh boy, he's fully erect.
Rising onto my elbow, I risk a look at him. His face is all shadows and angles in the dim lamplight. I open my mouth to speak, drag in the necessary breath, but I can't frame words. The feel of his warm flesh cradled in my fingers steals away my ability to express myself in speech.
"I know, I know," murmurs Innes. He can still speak, and attuned to me, he voices my thoughts. "We're work colleagues and it'll make things complicated." He stares heavenward for a moment, then draws in a breath, with effort, the way I did. The look on his face as he turns to me says knows we're being crazy, but there's yearning there too as he launches onward, "But, I care for you, Cally. I really do. And I know you like me. Maybe for Christmas, we can just forget work and be two people… and take time out?"
The whole universe seems to be vibrating now, not just me. Anticipation pounds in my veins and my throat, reverberating in my brain, its beat synchronized to the pulsing blood in Innes' cock. Even though the air outside our haven of bed linen is just as frigid as before, everything around us seems hot now, surging hot.