Burning for Love by Evangeline Anderson
18
“It’s no good—you’re not cooling down.”
James stroked the Princess’s flushed face anxiously, frowning at the way her skin refused to cool. He had cooled his own body temperature down as low as it could go—almost to the point where, if anyone besides Ka’rissa had touched him for any length of time—they would have gotten frostbite. But the Princess didn’t seem to be responding to his touch. Instead, she was panting and pacing around her bedchamber as tears leaked from her lovely eyes.
“Oh James, what am I going to do?” she asked, ignoring his concern. “He intends to marry me and I do not know if I can last another month with my Heat Cycle ramping up the way it is.”
“It’s ramping up all right,” James muttered grimly. He stroked her cheek again—it was like touching a hot iron. “We need to get you into a cold bath,” he said, frowning. “I can’t cool you down enough just by touching you.”
“I cannot take a bath until tonight because Lady Mildew has the remote to turn off my Chastity Wire,” she pointed out. “And after what Lady TittleTattle wrote about her, I’m sure she won’t be bothered to come help me.”
“Don’t worry about the damn wire,” James growled. He drew her into the bathing chamber and turned on the cold tap, causing icy water to gush into the large, oval tub.
“But I cannot get in with the wire on—it will electrocute me!” Ka’rissa protested. “It’s already shocking me, because I am perspiring so dreadfully,” she added, wincing and twitching her hips as the wire crackled under her clothes.
“I can take care of it,” James insisted. “Please, Princess—we need to get you undressed and out of those heavy, hot clothes! You’re overheating.”
Indeed, he could smell the strong, sweet scent of burning sugar and her nipples were glowing a dull red through the white fabric of her formal Court gown.
At last, Ka’rissa allowed him to help her out of her wig and clothing. Every time her skin brushed his, it was like touching a hot stove. She really was getting close to combustion, James thought. It seemed that a cold hand was squeezing his throat, making it difficult to breathe as he thought this. Was the feeling some kind of emotion? Maybe what the feelers called “panic?”
He didn’t have time to worry about that now, he decided. Right now he just had to get her into the cold bath before she combusted.
When she was naked except for the damn wire, he gripped it in his right hand and, using the electrodes in his enhancement, shorted it out with a single dampening burst.
“Oh!” Rissa gasped at the loud crackling pop. “Oh, what did you do, James?”
“Took care of the problem,” he growled. He would have liked to rip the wire off her and ball it up or tear it to bits, but he realized that she would need it later to at least keep up appearances.
“Here, let’s get this damn thing off of you,” he muttered. The locking mechanism wasn’t at all difficult for his enhancements to unlock. Soon enough, he had the wire off of her and Ka’rissa was standing there, completely naked and red-hot all over.
“James,” she said faintly. “How did you—?”
And then her eyes rolled up in her head and the smell of burning sugar got so strong, James was certain she was catching fire right that instant.
Scooping her up in his arms, he deposited her into the half-full tub of icy water. A cloud of steam rose around them as her hot skin made contact with the water, nearly obscuring his vision. James ignored it.
Making sure to keep one hand under her head to keep it above the water line, he began splashing the cold water over her supine form, praying silently—though he hardly knew what deity he was directing his prayers to—that it would work.
At first he was afraid that the heat would consume her anyway. Her cheeks were red and she was panting steadily, her breathing light and shallow. The water kept steaming away to nothing as it touched her skin and he was afraid she would die from heat exhaustion, even if she didn’t go up in flames.
But finally the icy cold water seemed to be having some effect. The steam stopped rising and Ka’rissa’s respiration slowed down. She came back to consciousness and looked up at him with glassy, feverish eyes.
“Oh, James,” she whispered weakly. “What am I going to do?”
And then she burst into tears.
