by Anne, Melody
“Come on, Dr. Lander. I dragged you out in the middle of the night; the least I can do is feed you,” he told her as he led her to the elevator.
“I’m fine. I just want to take a nap,” she told him, moving to push the button for her floor.
He blocked her. “No way. I’d feel far too guilty sending you off with your stomach screaming its displeasure at being empty for too long,” he said. “Besides we can go over the case notes.” He knew that would get her to his place.
She sighed and nodded. “I guess it’s better to go over that now rather than later.”
They made it to his floor, and he found himself slightly nervous at having her come into his place. It was still a mess as he hadn’t been there very long, but at least he had leftovers that he only had to warm.
Kyle could certainly cook. He’d learned how to do it so he didn’t have to eat out all the time, but with his busy schedule he found he cooked less and less. Besides, it wasn’t exactly fun to make a meal for one all the time.
Being alone was something Kyle had always assumed he wanted. He had always wanted that. Until one dark-haired woman had stepped into his life.
“I’ll get the food ready. You pour some wine and sit down,” he told her as he pulled out a bottle from the fridge.
Patsy looked at her watch and frowned. “It’s barely one in the afternoon,” she told him.
“That’s only what the clocks say. We haven’t slept, so it’s nighttime for us,” he argued.
She laughed as she took his electric wine opener and removed the cork then poured two glasses while he heated spaghetti and added extra cheese on top.
“Let’s sit on the couch. I’ve had enough hard seats for the day,” he told her as he carried both their plates to his living room.
Patsy followed him and wedged herself into the corner of his couch before accepting the plate he was holding out. She set her wine glass on the coffee table in front of her, putting some distance between them. He always had enjoyed a challenge.
“We haven’t had a chance to talk much,” he told her as he took his first bite of food. The taste awoke his hunger and he had to keep himself from devouring the entire plate in a few bites.
“We talk every day,” she told him. Then she made his body ache as she sighed and licked her lips. “This is fantastic.” Her hunger went into overdrive like his as she stopped speaking and concentrated on eating.
He didn’t answer for a bit. “There’s a great Italian place down the road I order from at least twice a week,” he told her.
“I want the name. I don’t think I’ve found it yet,” she said. Her plate was halfway finished.
“I’ll take you there tonight after you get some sleep,” he suggested.
She laughed. “I shouldn’t eat pasta twice in one day.” She spoke the words, but he could see she wanted more. Her food was nearly gone, and she looked as if she could finish an entire second plate.
“You can eat it three times a day if you want. You don’t have enough meat on your bones for it to make a difference.”
She laughed. “It depends on the week,” she assured him. “Weeks like this when I barely get a chance to eat everything seems to shrink, but then I have a couple of rare days off and I do nothing but stuff my face and my clothes get too tight.”
“Mama Calzones has the best tiramisu I’ve ever eaten,” he said, really wanting to take her out for dinner. And not buying for one second that she had the ability to put on extra weight. She was far too active.
Her eyes lit up as she finished the last of her spaghetti and rose to take her plate to the kitchen.
“That’s just mean. That’s my favorite desert,” she told him over her shoulder.
He finished his own food and set his plate on the coffee table as she returned and picked up her wine.
“Then it’s a date,” he said.
She licked her lips again and tasted her wine, and his pants grew painfully tight as he swelled. She couldn’t do anything without him wanting her, but sitting in his house on his couch with her lips wet from wine and her eyes sparkling with humor . . . he was a slave at her feet.
“It’s friends getting dinner,” she countered as she finished her wine then looked at the glass with a frown as if it didn’t dare be empty. He fought a smile and grabbed the bottle and refilled both their glasses.
“We’re much more than friends, Patsy,” he told her, sitting closer to her after the wine was poured.
He heard her breath hitch at his words. He reached out and ran a finger across the bottom of her lip as moisture from the wine dripped a little. He wanted to mop it up with his tongue, then pour the rest of the bottle of wine all over her body and lick that up as well.
“We don’t really know each other so we aren’t anything,” she said, her voice husky.
“I want to change that,” he told her, pausing as he shifted a little closer. “I want to change it right now.”
He was done with his wine. He didn’t need it to get drunk, not when he had her in front of him. She’d been making his head spin for weeks.
“It’s not a good idea,” Patsy said, but he heard her desire, felt the tremor in her body.
“If you’re leaving, you better do it now . . . or we’re going to my bedroom,” he warned. He leaned down and ran his lips across her neck and into the soft hollow at her shoulder, gently nipping her skin.
Her breathing deepened as she set aside her glass and reached for his head, running her fingers in his hair as her head fell back, giving him more access.
“I don’t think I can leave,” she said, just the slightest trace of frustration in her tone.
As much as it pained him to do so, he pulled back, looking in her eyes. His desire was calling him every foolish name in the book, but he didn’t want her to say their first time was coerced by him. He wanted her as accountable as he was.
“I want you so bad; I’ve ached for weeks,” he said. “I need you to want me just as much.”
She looked at him confused as if she wanted him to make the decision for her. He wanted to do that too, but he couldn’t. Not this time. The next kiss would come from her or it wasn’t going to happen. He waited, calling himself every inventive name he’d ever thought of in his entire lifetime.
Emotions flickered across her face as she struggled over what to do. He wasn’t sure if he’d survive if she walked out his door. He’d never respected a woman this much, never cared so much if she wanted him or not. Of course, on that note, he couldn’t remember a woman not wanting him, especially one he desired.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he groaned. She licked her lips as she leaned forward the slightest bit. She was finally shutting down her highly intelligent brain and allowing her body to take over.
She closed her eyes and closed the gap between them, her lips tasting his. That’s all the incentive he needed. He pulled her onto his lap and took over the kiss, losing himself in her softness.
She moaned into his mouth, and this time they weren’t in a public park or a hospital corridor. This time there was a bed close by, and he planned on taking full advantage of it.
She shuddered against him as he broke from her lips and kissed his way across her cheek, circling the lobe of her ear while his hand traveled over her back and to her side, his fingers brushing the side of her breast.
She pushed into him, her hips pressing forward as her breasts rubbed against his chest. He wanted their clothes gone, but he also didn’t want to rush this. The sensation was too good, the anticipation too great.
She arched her neck, and he kissed his way up her throat, tasting vanilla and cinnamon, making him so damn hungry for more. He moved upward, needing her lips again. His hands moved to her hips, and he pulled her against him, making sure she knew how turned on he was, how turned on she’d made him.
She cried out again
st his lips as her tongue danced with his. She reached up and gripped his hair tightly in her fingers, yanking him closer.
In one smooth motion, he moved his hands to her luscious butt and rose. Her legs wrapped around him, and their kiss didn’t end as he moved toward his bedroom, praying he didn’t trip on one of the boxes scattered throughout the apartment. He pulled from her mouth so he could see, and she buried her face in his neck. He groaned as her teeth nipped at his skin before her tongue soothed the spot.
Somehow they made it to the bedroom. He wasn’t quite sure how since his vision blurred with her wicked little mouth doing the most beautiful things to his neck and jaw. The two of them fell onto the bed, her soft body pressed beneath his.
He sank his hips against hers, and her legs wrapped tightly around him. If there weren’t clothes between them, he’d be sunk deep within her hot folds right then.
“I need you so damn bad,” he growled before kissing her deep and hard until neither of them were breathing right. When he pulled away and looked at her swollen lips, he felt like a caveman who’d marked his woman.
“Take me. Please,” she said, pushing her hips up and rubbing against him.
He didn’t need to be asked twice. The next minute was filled with him ripping off their clothes as his fingers shook with each new revelation of skin. She was as perfect as he’d always pictured she’d be. More so, even.
He needed to touch her everywhere, taste each new piece of her skin, and make her come again and again. He’d never get enough of her, never. She was his now, and he needed to brand her.
He barely pulled away from her long enough to reach into his nightstand to get the condom he almost forgot to put on. That wasn’t like him, not at all. Protection was always the first thing on his mind when he was with a woman. But Patsy did something to him no other woman had. She made him stop thinking.
Finally he was sheathed, his body poised over hers. And then he paused. His breath was taken away with the beauty of her, with the magic of this moment. He’d desired her for so long, but this was more than sex. This was so much more.
“Open your eyes, Patsy,” he said, not recognizing his own voice. It was filled with wonder and need.
Her eyes cracked open as if it hurt her to do so. There was need and desire and awe in her expression. It made him feel powerful, and wanted, and he knew he was right where he was supposed to be.
Only when he gazed deeply in her eyes, did he finally push forward, slow and steady, groaning at the ecstasy of sinking into her folds. Her body cradled him tight all the way down his length until he was fully buried within her.
“So good,” he said in reverence.
“Oh, yes,” she replied as her arms circled his back and her nails dug into his skin.
He began to move; long, slow thrusts in and out of her body. They gazed at each other, the most intimate moment he’d ever experienced. But soon, it was too much. The pleasure grew as they searched for that ultimate moment.
He sped up, moving faster, his body rocking against hers as her hands climbed up and down his back. Their bodies grew damp with pleasure and exertion, and then she tightened around him, squeezing him as she let out a cry and came.
He sank deep and his own pleasure spilled from him, his body shaking for how incredibly good it felt. She kept her arms wrapped tightly around him as small shudders continued passing through her body.
It took a long while for their breathing to calm. Only then did he find the energy to roll over. But he couldn’t let her go. This was new for him as well. He’d never needed to hold on to a woman after sex.
He cradled her to him as his hand rubbed against the smooth skin of her back. He was almost frightened at how intimate this moment was, but he wasn’t scared enough to let her go. He couldn’t let her go. His fingers gently moved over her scar, letting her know without words how beautiful he found her.
Neither of them spoke. Kyle realized she had to be just as frightened as he was at how intimate this had become.
He’d had sex with many women, but he’d never felt whatever it was he was feeling then. It should make him want to get up and run. But it didn’t. Instead, he let it all go, shut down his mind, and closed his eyes.
He was right where he was supposed to be. And he wasn’t letting her get away from him.
Chapter Sixteen
It was pitch black in the room when Patsy woke up with a start, panic filling her as she realized she didn’t know where she was. There was something holding her down and she opened her mouth, ready to scream.
Kyle mumbled beside her as he shifted, and the day came flooding back to her. All of it. Him at her door in the middle of the night, the ride to and from the hospital, the surgery, the dinner, the . . . sex.
The best sex.
The most intimate sex.
The life changing sex.
Now she got it!
Patsy stilled as her body hummed with a new need Kyle had awakened in her. He’d given her so much pleasure what had to have only been hours before. And then she’d fallen asleep in his arms, completely comfortable, completely safe.
And she wanted more.
She couldn’t ever remember wanting more. Sex had never been like that for her. It had never been so intense, so beautiful, so perfect. She’d never felt as if she was right where she belonged. She hadn’t even thought about her scar. She hadn’t been self-conscious of it, not even when he’d traced it. He’d made her feel that damn good.
That thought scared the hell out of her. She had plans and dreams and they didn’t include a man—at least not yet.
She couldn’t be like all those girls who went all gaga over a man and forgot about her own dreams. She wouldn’t do that to herself. She wouldn’t fall in love. Yes, she’d seen examples of true love and the beauty of it. But she’d also seen the devastation that only supposed love could bring.
As she listened to Kyle breathing deeply beside her she realized she was in serious danger of doing just that with this particular man. She’d be such a fool if she did. She tried comforting herself; people had sex all the time. Co-workers had sex more often than bunnies. It didn’t have to change anything. They could go right back to where they’d been before the sex. Or they could go back to before that—when they didn’t know each other.
The thought of doing that horrified her. She wasn’t sure she could pass him in the hallway remembering what it was like having him buried so deep inside her she didn’t know where she began and he ended. She was dang sure she wouldn’t want to see him pressed up against another woman in some dark corridor.
She was in trouble.
She turned her head and saw it was ten. They’d slept the entire day away. Of course neither of them had slept much, and she normally went weeks with little rest. But still, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even slept six hours, let alone eight.
Because Patsy wanted to do nothing more than lie in the safety of Kyle’s arms, she forced herself to move. She was already too comfortable in his bed, and that was unsafe for many reasons.
First, she had plans that didn’t include Kyle. And second, she knew who he was. He was a playboy through and through. So even if she could let down her guard and fall for him, he’d be victorious in his conquest and be done with her. And then she’d be embarrassed at work and heartbroken. That was a lose-lose situation she wanted nothing to do with.
It took her a good five minutes to inch her way from beneath his heavy arm and leg. She stood over the bed, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Their dinner plans had definitely flown out the window. That was good. She wanted to try the Italian place, and if she’d gone there with him she was afraid she’d never be able to go back again.
She was getting too sentimental, too weepy, and they’d only slept together one time. She had a real problem she refused to deal with.
Turning away from the sig
ht of his beautifully naked body, Patsy forced herself to walk away. She gathered her scattered clothes, hoping she didn’t forget anything, then went to the bathroom where she discovered her panties were missing.
There was no way she was going to find them in the dark without making noise. Mortified at leaving them behind, but left with no other choice, she made her way from his apartment, praying no one she knew saw her walk of shame.
Not daring to use the elevator she took the stairs to her floor and let herself into her apartment, instant guilt filling her at the sight of her dog gazing up at her with accusing eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she told Eeyore who instantly forgave her, rushing up to her and giving her a quick lick on the cheek as she knelt to pet him.
“He’s just fine. He was pouty long enough that I took him for a walk to Antonio’s and he got his own slice of peperoni pizza,” Amber said from where she was leaning against the wall. “It looks like you weren’t at work this whole time.”
Her friend took in her disheveled appearance and flushed face, making Patsy blush more deeply.
“Um, well, Kyle picked me up for an emergency surgery, and then we were hungry . . . and well, um . . .” Her voice trailed off. She felt like a school child being interrogated.
Amber laughed.
“I know exactly what that um means, and it’s about time. You’re wound too tightly; you need a good roll in the sack more than anyone I know,” Amber told her.
“I shouldn’t have forgotten my dog,” Patsy said as she petted the grateful animal.
“Eeyore is far from abused,” Amber said. “And you can go back to bed even though it’s obvious you just came from one. He’s been walked and fed.”
“I shouldn’t be tired at all. I slept forever,” Patsy said with a yawn. But she was tired. She felt as if she hadn’t slept in a year, and muscles were sore that she hadn’t known could get sore.
Amber laughed again. “Sex wears a person out. I miss being that tired.” With that her friend went down the hallway, leaving Patsy with her dog.