Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 142: Fear of losing him

Chapter 142: Fear of losing him

His weight seemed to be getting heavier, as if he was completely losing consciousness, and Mia panicked. "Neil, don’t go to sleep," she said in a near scream. Grabbing his wrist, she began pushing his limp arm into his jacket while deciding to blabber out everything he’d wanted to hear to jar him into consciousness.

"Neil, we will go home. We will go to bed together. I wanted to last night, but I was afraid. Help me get you home and I will do everything and anything you want." She pleaded as she forced his other arm into the jacket and struggled with the zipper. "We will make love in front of the fireplace. You would like that, won’t you?!"

When she successfully got him into his jacket, she stood up, grabbed his wrists, and pulled him with all of her might, but instead of moving him, her feet lost balance and she fell down beside him. Scrambling to her feet again, Mia raced to his snowbike and brought it over to where he was lying. Bending over him, she shook him while pleading for him to get up, and when she couldn’t wake him, she closed her eyes for courage, then she swung her arm in a wide arc and slapped him hard across the face.

His eyes immediately opened, but then closed again. Ignoring the rush of pain that shot up her arm from her frozen fingers, she grabbed his wrists and tugged, trying to tell him something different that might make him try to get up. For one thing she’d realized, Neil Wayner had decided to end his life here and now, and whatever she did or said, won’t move him. He was slowly falling into the darkness, she had to bring him back to the light.

"I...i can’t find the way home without you," she lied, pulling on his wrists. "If you won’t help me get home, I’ll die out here with you. Is that what you want? Neil, please help me," she cried. "Don’t let me die, I don’t want to die, take me home."

It was a second later before she realized that Neil wasn’t completely the dead weight he’d been and that he was reacting to something she had said and using what little strength he had left to try to stand up.

"That’s right!" Mia panted breathlessly when he tried to rise up, "Stand up. Help me get home so I’ll be warm." She encouraged.

His movements were terrifyingly sluggish and when his eyes opened, his gaze was unfocused, but he was instinctively trying to help her now. It took several attempts, but Mia managed to get him to his feet, wrapped his large arm over her shoulders, and got him onto the snowbike, where he slumped over the seat..

"Try to help me balance," she said, steadying him with her arms and quickly getting on behind him. She glanced up at the path he’d taken down here, realized it would be impossible to climb back there now, thus she decided to follow the frozen river around the bend in hopes there would be a way to get up to the road from there.

Her former fear of the unfamiliar machine’s power was completely forgotten as she pressed the start button. Mia crouched low over him to shield him from the wind with her body and sent the snowbike speeding over the snow. "Neil," she whispered near his ear, scanning the path and talking to him in a desperate effort to keep him conscious and hold her own fear of losing him at bay. She couldn’t imagine losing him because of her own reckless behavior, and she’d do anything to nurse him back to health.

"You’re still shivering a little. I read it somewhere that shivering is good in such condition. It means your body temperature hasn’t dropped to the bottom danger point. Keep shivering." She whispered softly in his ear.

***

When they arrived at the cabin, Neil collapsed three times in the hall before Mia managed to get him to her bedroom where she knew for certain the fireplace was filled with wood and ready to be lit.

Breathless from supporting all of his heavy weight, she staggered to the bed and gently pushed him onto it. His outer clothes were already stiff and crusted with ice, as she started pulling them off of him. It was while she was pulling off his trouser that he spoke the only words he’d said since she’d run to his rescue. "I want to shower," he mumbled weakly.

"I want a v-very hot shower..." He repeated.

"No, you can’t," she retorted, trying to sound businesslike and firm as she began to pull off his icy underwear while ignoring the blush that rose up her face. "Not yet. People suffering from hypothermia need to be warmed slowly but not with direct heat, I learned that in a first aid class in the University. And don’t give a thought to me undressing you. There’s nothing new to me about the male body," she lied.

"Just think of me as your nurse," she added. "Stay awake, Neil! Listen to my voice and stay conscious!" She said as she pulled his black shorts down his muscled legs, then she glanced down to see how she was doing, and felt a fiery blush heat her cheeks followed by a warm sensation tingling in her lower abdomen. The magnificent male body that was sprawled out before her eyes looked like a Playgirl centerfold she’d seen in the University years ago. Except that this real-life body was blue with cold and vibrating with deep shivering chills.

Without wasting anymore time to admire his body or his ominous snake tattoos, she grabbed the blankets and tucked them around his shivering body, chafing them on his skin as she tucked them in, then she went to the closet and got out five more blankets and spread them over him on the bed.

Satisfied with his covering, Mia hurried over to the fireplace in the corner and lit the woods. Not until the logs were blazing on the hearth did she stop long enough to take off her own outdoor clothes. Afraid to leave him, she stood at the foot of his bed, watching his slow, shallow breaths as she stripped off her snowsuit.

"Neil, can you hear me?" she asked, and although he didn’t answer, Mia began talking to him in a mindless string of nervousness intended to both encourage him to recover quickly and boost her confidence that he would recover with her beside him. She had made the mistake of not trusting him, she wanted to right her wrongs by nursing him back to health. It was her fault that he was in such state...

"You’re very strong, Neil. I knew that in the past and i noticed it again when I watched you changing my tire in Novaria and when you crawled out of that freezing water." She whispered, "And you’re brave, too. Do you remember Alvin, the boy in the orphanage I told you about? He wants to be strong more than anything in the world. Do you also remember that I told you that I played him a song? Guess what, I played him a song with the same guitar you gifted me years ago."

Unaware of the tenderness in her voice, she continued, "I never threw away any of the things you’ve ever given, not the dresses and not the guitar. Because...I couldn’t find it in my heart to get rid of them..." She trailed off as tears filled her eyes. She’d hated herself for being unable to let go of the things he’d given her, she’d felt disgusted every night she found herself seeking out the only instrument that reminded her of her Ice Cube, and now she was grateful she’d kept them.

Mia smiled through her tears and sniffed, "There’s so much I’d like to tell you, Neil," she said brokenly. "And I will, if you’ll just stay alive and give me a chance. I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know."

Panic set into her heart as she realized he didn’t react to anything she said, he was laying there like a dead person, if it weren’t for the little shivering, she’d believe he was dead. Maybe she should be doing more to warm him or keep him awake. What if he died because of her ignorance? Mia thought in fear.

Grabbing a thick robe from the closet, she pulled it on herself, then she climbed up on the bed and sat beside him while pressing her fingertips to the pulse in his neck, her gaze shifted to the clock on the dresser. His pulse seemed alarmingly slow. Her hands and voice shook as she smoothed the blankets around his wide shoulders and said, "About last night, I want you to know that I loved it when you kissed and touched me. I didn’t want you to stop there, and that’s what scared me. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you have been in prison, it was because I ... because I was losing control, and I’ve never had that happen to me before." She knew he probably wasn’t hearing a word she said, and she fell silent as another spasm of deep chills racked his body.

"Shivering is a good sign," she said aloud, but she was thinking frantically for something else to do for him. She sat there for a few seconds before an idea suddenly popped into her mind. Jumping down the bed, she rushed out of the room.

A few minutes later, she returned to his bedside holding a glass filled with strong wine and a wide smile on her face because she’d heard a very good news on the television in the living room. "Neil," she called eagerly, sitting down beside him and tucking her arm beneath his head so she could lift it to the glass, "drink some of this, and try to understand what I’m telling you. I just heard on the news that your cellmate, Kai Martinez, is in the city hospital. He’s not dead and is doing fine, the Martinez’s family have sent the best doctors to treat their son! Do you hear a word I...Neil?"

After several minutes, she only managed to get a tablespoon of the wine into his mouth, and then Mia gave up. She knew she could find her phone he had hidden and call for a doctor, but the doctor would recognize him and immediately call the authorities. They would take him out of here and haul him back to prison, and he’d said he would rather be dead than go back.

Tears of uncertainty and exhaustion slid from the corner of Mia’s eyes as the minutes slipped past into hours and she sat with hands folded on her lap beside him, trying to think of what to do until she finally resorted to a whispered prayer to whatever God would listen to her.

"Please help me," she prayed. "Don’t let him die like this without proving himself to the world. Please..."

Mia drew in a long, shaky breath and brushed away a tear from the corner of her eye, but as she said the last part of her prayer, she was already feeling steadier and calmer.

After a moment she looked up at Neil and watched his body tremble with more chills, then he moved lower into the covers as if to find more warmth. Realizing that he was deeply asleep, not unconscious as she’d feared, she leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to the side of his lips. "Keep shivering, sweetheart," she whispered tenderly. "Shivering is very good in your condition."

Unaware that a pair of gray eyes flickered open and then drifted closed again as she stood up, Mia went into the bathroom to take a hot shower to relax her exhausted body.