Free Bebe by Darla Phelps Page B

and pinned her bent across his hip. Being bigger and stronger definitely had its benefits. He held her firmly and, no matter how she fought and wiggled, didn’t stop his ministrations until the entire oily surface of her backside shone wet in the light.
    Wailing sobs shook her as she wiggled against him, flashing peek-a-boo glimpses of that little puckered bud nestled between her clenching buttocks and of the feminine folds of her sex, again so much like a real woman’s that Tral almost tried to touch her. That would have been devastating, considering the hand he reached for her with was the gloved one still covered with healing, heating oil.
    “Maybe not,” he said removing it from his hand. Just in case he forgot himself and tried to touch her again. He ended up holding her until her skin had absorbed the majority of the wet shininess. Her wild thrashing dwindled to exhausted gasps and the minute grasping motions of her hands as she still struggled to reach back and put out the unseen flames, which had turned her flesh everywhere a brilliant shade of pink, speckled by dark red dots every place he had plucked a vouka spine. Those scattered across the hills of her buttocks were swelling as ulali encountered poison, resulting in a fresh breakout of tender weals. There were several dozen across her bottom alone, and that didn’t count the wounds stretching the length and breadth of her everywhere else, each one festering with poison.
    Tral shook his head. “You’re in for a rough couple of days. The vouka is going to make you incredibly sick.” He smoothed his hand over the back of her thigh, encountering more tiny red dots than he cared to count. “Maybe we caught it in time.”
    He tried to sound optimistic, but at this point, it would take a miracle to avoid infection and the longer he looked at those tiny pin-prick wounds, the more concerned he began to be. He should take her temperature. If she wasn’t feverish yet, she probably would be soon enough. But if she was feverish, that would be his first indication of how much antitoxin he’d need to give her.
    Releasing her waist, he allowed her to straighten upright once more. He caught her shoulder when she tried to slink away from him and, sitting down on the lip of the tub, tried to pull her onto his lap. It took a lot of coaxing, especially when every time she tried to put a hand back to rub at her burning bottom, he caught her wrist to prevent it.
    “Don’t rub your bottom. Trust me, you don’t want the oil on your fingers. Come here.” He patted his knee. “Come on.”
    Sniffling, casting wary peeks at his face from between the tangles of her hair, she finally complied. She perched uneasily on his lap, fidgeting with her fingers as he bent to dig through his medical kit. Finding the temperature gauge, he brushed her hair back from her forehead and ran it lightly across her brow.
    She jerked back at that slight touch, looking at both it and him in worried confusion. From this vantage he could already see her pupils were slightly dilated, which meant the poison was definitely affecting her system. He tried to catch her chin to look in her eyes, but she twisted her face away and then tried to wiggle up off his knee.
    “Hold still,” he said, and she did. Her struggles froze and she sat, stiff and unmoving, nervously picking at her fingers while he ran the gauge across her forehead again.
    The result came up inconclusive. Damn. It wasn’t calibrated to read the lower body temperature of humans.
    “I guess we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.” He bent to dig through his medical kit again, finding a digital thermometer in the very bottom. It must have looked familiar to her because, as he started to unwrap it, her face developed a very worried expression.
    “This won’t hurt,” he promised. Tipping a finger under her chin to angle her mouth upward, he said, “Say ah.”
    Leading by example, he opened his mouth wide. Those bright blue