Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Needles

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Julian looked at her and pressed his lips together. “All of it?”

Nora nodded, then added, “Keep the shorts. I have no interest in looking.”

That mouth of hers could kill a man and never pay for it.

Julian had no words at all.

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He lay down on the bed and watched her pick up a needle. “My grandmother had you investigated. You were meek. You let Mandy walk all over you. Where did this talent for infuriating people come from?”

“You stop being polite when you can afford not to be.”

Finished

As she said it she put her hand against his neck and started hunting for the pressure point.

Her fingertips landed cool and smooth against his skin, and that same touch struck like a spark that tore out from his neck through every limb he had and caught fire.

His mouth went dry in an instant, and something he had never felt in his life woke up along with it.

While he was still reeling, Nora slid the needle exactly where it belonged. “Relax. You’re too hard.”

Every muscle in him had locked up, and a body that tense was difficult to work on.

“Sorry.” Julian dragged his attention off her fingertips.

Nora blinked at him.

What on earth is he apologizing for?

The work looked simple and it was nothing of the kind. It demanded stillness and total concentration, because one wrong point or one wrong degree of pressure could do real damage, and in the worst cases it could kill.

She gave it everything she had.

Julian watched her instead. Her whole face had gone serious and absorbed, different enough that she might have been another person, and it made him believe she had earned the right to question Dr. Blithe.

Nora moved to a point on his other side.

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Chapter 17 Needles

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Finished

That put one knee on the edge of the bed and her weight leaning over him.

From where he lay, Julian had a clear view of the long line of her thigh, and every small movement swung the hem of her dress and gave away more of what was under it than he had any business seeing.

Heat crept up his cold face and he pulled his eyes away fast, and then she shifted again to reach the points on his head.

That put the V of that red dress directly in front of him, the neckline falling open, with a glimpse of black fabric underneath and a good deal of skin around it.

The fire he had just put out roared straight back up.

With nowhere safe to look, he shut his eyes, and his mind supplied the entire picture anyway.

This is unbearable.

Nora worked her way down to the points on his lower stomach, and her eyes slid a few inches. past them entirely by accident.

That was genuinely impressive.

Hold on. The poison is supposed to leave him with no interest and no response at all. He isn’t supposed to be capable of this.

So what exactly is happening down there? Did I read him wrong?

Nora had been entirely unbothered a minute ago, and now her own face was burning, and she got her eyes off him fast.

“Mr. Weston, you’re running much too hot. Let me cool you down.”

There was no working on him in that state.

“You…” He got one word out before a needle went into his thigh and pulled a sound out of him he had no control over.

Every thought he had failed to control evaporated on the spot.

Nora watched the problem subside by degrees, entirely satisfied, and went back to work.

That needle did its job. Julian stopped thinking about anything at all.

The poison had knocked his whole system out of balance and wrecked the nerves that regulated him, so he had never had much control over arousal to begin with, and the poison

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Chapter 17 Needles

multiplied it a hundred times over.

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Correcting that meant using the needles to redirect his circulation, and the technique was specific enough that most practitioners would not know it.

At first Julian tracked every point she worked, and little by little his focus slipped and then scattered.

He still felt nothing like sleep. If anything, he grew more alert.

He said it eventually. “Dr. Blithe has done this to me more times than I can count. I’m immune to needles by now.”

Nora kept working. “Sure you are.”

Sweat had beaded on her face and started dripping onto the sheets, and the effort of it was plain enough that he spoke up. “I don’t feel remotely tired. Stop wearing yourself out.”

Nora had three needles left, and she set one. “You’re running far too hot, and I’ve been concentrating on one point, so of course you’re strong as an ox and ready to plow all night.”

Julian had nothing whatsoever to say to that.

She’s still making jokes? Guess I read too much into it. Fine, let her try.

Julian stopped talking.

Another needle went in, his lashes flickered, and something faintly like drowsiness arrived at last.

“Last one.”

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