I get a fever that's so hard to bear
You give me fever
When you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Lust. One of the most deadly of the seven sins. He knew that first hand. Whilst he hadn't gotten himself into as many scrapes as most other men over it, he'd had his fair share. The scrap with Clay Treadway at a high school dance because of his lust for Jocelyn Darnell. The way he had upset Emony Dax after their lustful night under the stars when he let his closed mindedness offend her before he caught sight of himself and saw better. And now. Now, here, with Winona Kirk.
The mother of his best friend. The man that had helped drag him from the depths of despair and shown him that there could be light at the end of the dark tunnel he had been travelling through for the last few years. He'd helped Leonard get back on his feet, face his fears and rediscover himself as a person, as a man. He owed so much to Jim and this was his way of repaying him.
By falling for his mother.
He'd tried to fight it. Tried to fight the electric feeling that rumbled through him when he thought of her. The warmth that spread through him when he saw her. The sparks that ignited his whole self under her touch. Her kisses made him break out into a fever worse than any he had ever felt before.
He couldn't get enough of her. Of the feel of her lips under his own, the curve of her waist under his hands when he held her. It was almost as if she had been made to fit there against him, there in his hold. It was wrong on so many levels, and yet nothing in his life had ever felt so right. He doubted anything would feel so right again in his life.
He was spiralling down into a void that he couldn't escape from. A vicious circle of wanting her, needing her, and feeling utterly guilty for doing so. He was breaking every single rule there was to break and knew he was too far gone to change it. The damage was done; he already cared for her, he'd already felt those soft lips against his own, the warmth of her strong form against his.
The only placebo for his fever was to be around her. She was infectious in all the right ways, and all the wrong. The devil on his shoulder, the saint on the other; she was rapidly becoming everything that mattered, everything that could matter.
One fever no Doctor could cure. Not even him.
