THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

through my chest. Felt as though the croggle chewed on me. I’d lost too much blood. I licked my dry lips and tried to say, “Please don’t hurt Gabby and Tony,” but nothing came out.
    Darkness closed over me. 
     

CHAPTER 21
     
    Cold. Her teeth chattered.
    Gabby hated the cold. She wanted out of here. But where was here? She fought, clawing her way out of this frigid hole.
    “Can you hear me?” a deep male voice asked.
    Sure, I can hear you, which means there are two of us stuck in here. Got any idea how to get ou t?
    No one answered her.
    Too bad. He had a nice voice. She’d like to see the body and face attached to it. But like everyone else in her world, he seemed to have walked away from her.
    As usual, she’d have to find her own way out of hell.
    First she had to figure out what kind of place her father had dumped her into this time. Her teeth chattered more.
    Something heavy covered her, taking the edge off her chill, but not by much.
    Why couldn’t her dad find a private school near a beach? She might actually apply herself and stick around if she had sand, water and tanned guys in board shorts.
    Had she been sent to Antarctica?
    I’ve gotten out of worse places. I think.
    Drawing on all the energy she could muster, she ordered her eyes to open. Her lids weren’t cooperating. Like they were glued shut.
    The weight over her body increased, the new layer tucked against her. Which helped. A lot. The shivering slowed. Her arms and legs felt heavier.
    Fine. She could sleep now that she was warm again.
    “Come on, wake up,” the male voice ordered.
    She really would like to see who she had as a hell-mate. Giving it one more try, she pried open her eyes and stared up at a guy with a naked chest. A really nice naked chest and beautiful dark, sinfully delicious eyes.  “Aren’t you cold?”
    He chuckled. Had a nice smile on his oh-so-nice face. “No, I’m not the one fighting off a fever.” 
    Fever? She stared at him, trying to decide if she was truly awake then turned her head, taking in her surroundings. Dried weeds hung from vines. Ladder over there that went up to a loft. Odd shaped walls of wood.
    A deep breath of lavender eucalyptus snapped her jumbled thoughts into order.
    I get it. She was still in this freaky world with...her eyes shifted back to hot, bare-chest guy...medicine man. Jaxxson, aka the healer, and not naked, unless he’d ditched the sarong.
    He must have levitated the slab table she was stretched out on because she could only see from the middle of his abs up. He didn’t have a body all cut with muscle like that guy Callan, but she found she liked Jaxxson’s lean physique. More her style. Her gaze kept climbing higher up his tanned skin, up to the stern chin, up to the sharp cheeks and... smack, back to the dark brown eyes observing her with wary caution.
    What had she done or said to get that look? Had the mixture he’d crushed in that bowl caused her to babble something about her ability to hear other people’s thoughts? “What happened to me?”
    “The infection accelerated when you got upset. It spiked sharply, cutting off your air supply. You started suffocating. I treated you, then checked on the new child brought into our village.” 
    Infection. From the vines. Right.
    But he wasn’t telling her something. She’d been burning up and in pain. He’d mixed a poultice of some type in a bowl then she started getting worse to the point that...
    Glaring at him with unveiled accusation, she asked, “Did you touch me?”
    “Yes.”
    “I told you not to.”  She dug those last moments of lucidity up from the dregs of her mind, recalled him grabbing her wrist. She’d heard a thought just as she’d lost consciousness.
    What had he been thinking?
    What had they been talking about?
    Irritation migrated back into Jaxxson’s face. “If I hadn’t touched you, you wouldn’t be here to berate me for executing the duty I’m sworn to perform, which is saving a life if I can. Even one who lacks appreciation.”
    She thumped her fingers against the table slab, accepting that she owed him and was behaving like a wounded animal. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    They stared at each other, a visual stand off until he lifted two fingers to graze his chin as he speculated on something. “About touching you.”
    Here it comes. What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you let anyone touch you? That’s not normal. “Go ahead. Ask.”
    “Why do you fear touch? How