“Why, Brooke Bellamy,” he drawled, looking amused as he sat down again, “are you getting tipsy? It was only one glass of champagne, but it must have gotten into your system before any shrimp did.”
“Mmm...it’s such a nice little buzz.” With a dreamy smile, she removed her jacket, then shook her hair behind her shoulders before sighing and leaning back in her chair again. “There. Now I don’t look or sound like Brooke Candace Bellamy, former math head, as I believe you put it?”
“She’s rather special to me, but, no, angel, you don’t.”
His enthralled look had her reaching over to stroke his arm. “You want to kiss me.”
“It’s a very good idea.”
“You kiss better than anyone.”
“Anyone?” Setting his right elbow on the table, he rested his chin in his palm. “You have my undivided attention. Have another sip—or maybe not. Just tell me about your research.”
“Don’t be so literal. I was only being...”
“Adorable.”
In the next second, Gage rose and Brooke belatedly realized that Humphrey was scratching at the back door. Oops, she thought, setting her feet back on to the cool wood floor. Maybe she did need to leave that second glass of champagne alone. When Gage kissed her, she wanted to be totally present. Realizing how much she meant that, she rose.
As the basset hound waddled to his water bowl, Gage returned to her and gave her a concerned look. “What is it? Do you need to lie down? I can put away this stuff and lock up for you.”
Before he could reach for anything, Brooke slipped her arms around his waist. “The last thing I want is for you to leave. Gage. Please stay.”
Chapter Seven
Certain that too much fantasizing had him hearing things, Gage hesitated and searched Brooke’s lovely face, looking for something beyond the dreamy invitation he saw there, as heart-thumpingly incredible as that was. He couldn’t let himself take this next step if she was going to wake in the morning, regretting what she’d invited.
“Sweetheart, are you sure? I’m no poet. I don’t even listen to the radio enough to recite country song’s lyrics. But I have had enough late and lonely nights to borrow from one of my favorite actors in a favorite movie. ‘I won’t stay unless I’m here for breakfast.’ Is that what you had in mind?”
Delight brightened the sparkle in Brooke’s warm brown eyes. “Oh, I love that movie! But if I hadn’t had even a drop of champagne, Gage, you know that in good conscience I still wouldn’t ask you how you wanted your eggs in the morning.”
“I’ll make breakfast.” Instead of laughing, as her clever reply deserved, his mouth went dry as he stroked her delicate cheekbones and the soft swell of her lower lip.
“Then stay,” she whispered. “There’s nothing I want more.”
He took another moment to absorb the words that he’d been aching to hear since her return to East Texas. “If I could stop time right now and hold this moment, I would.”
“Really?” Brooke teased. “This moment?”
“Behave. I’m doing my best not to fling your hummingbird self over my shoulder and carry you upstairs.”
“You keep treating me as though I’m fragile. I’m hardly that.”
“You are to me. I’m going to show you.”
With that, Gage lifted her into his arms and looked over her to nod at Humphrey. “Bedtime, Humph. Good boy.”
As he carried her up the stairs, he liked how she slid her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his. That and the soft pressure of her breast against his chest had his heart pounding in a way that had nothing to do with exertion. He had in his arms the one, the woman he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anyone, the one he believed he was meant to spend the rest of his life with. That certainty enveloped him in heady joy, as well as an unparalleled peace.
Try not to screw this up.
“Are you still awake?” he whispered near her ear, as he reached the top of the stairs.
“I am,” she whispered back. “Surprised?”
“I’m about to genuflect for the first time since I was eleven. So which room do you want me to turn into?”
“First on the right,” she said nuzzling his ear.
He did exactly that and proceeded to lay her across the queen-size bed covered with a lavender-and-plum bedspread. The miniblinds were almost shut, casting the room in a romantic amber shadow.
Stretching out beside her, he murmured, “I’ve made it to the inner sanctum. I think I’m suffering from high-altitude syndrome.”
With a soft laugh, Brooke drew him closer. “Kiss me. I’ll make it better.”
She gave him her mouth, her lips parted in invitation, and he wasted no time in seeking the deeper connection she offered, nor did he hesitate in stroking her. He caressed her shoulder to hip and back again, then her breast. “You’re unbelievably perfect, as soft as whatever this dress is made of.”
“Silk. I love your hands. They’re half again larger than mine, but beautiful. Even with the calluses, which tell me you’ve worked hard.”
Gage eased the zipper of her dress down and slid his hands inside, intent on caressing more of her exquisite skin. “Are they too rough?”
“It’s too soon to say.”
He loved learning that she had a mix of sweet and saucy in her, and continued to ease her dress off her shoulders and lower, until he could respectfully drape it at the foot of the bed. When he learned her lingerie was of equal excellence, he concluded the old adage about quality versus quantity held true. Her peach-colored bra was lacy and sheer, neither denying him the feel of her heartbeat against his lips, nor the arousing sight that her nipples were already taut. “So dainty,” he whispered, his touch worshipping, as was his mouth.
After sating the first wave of his hunger, he removed the bit of allurement, then gazed upon what he’d exposed and concluded that it was a damned good thing he hadn’t known about any of this before now. As good as his imagination was, reality was far better, and his breath was unsteady as he exhaled. “Lovely.”
He continued to explore and pleasure with his hands and mouth until she was naked, and he couldn’t continue resisting her attempts to undress him, as well. “Do you know what it means to me to feel you wanting me, too?”
“Then help me.”
He let her go only long enough to slide out of his things, and then rolled onto his back and drew her over him.
With her hair flowing around them, Gage felt his heartbeat threaten the walls of his chest. Giving up on words, he sought a kiss to show her what she was doing to him.
Kissing Brooke was an education in sensuality. He found himself striving to earn new utterances, little sounds she made at various levels of pleasure. He reveled in the erotic tango of their lips and tongues. When they paused, sharing the same shallow breath, he opened his eyes to see her watching him and almost climaxed. Foreplay between them was as perfect as though she was a mermaid and he was the current.
When the need to be inside her threatened his control, he groped for his jeans. Swearing under his breath that he might ruin a moment, he dug into his billfold to draw out a cellophane packet.
“I think this isn’t so old that it’s unsafe.”
He hadn’t wanted even that much between them; however, safety and common sense were rote when it came to sex, as far as he was concerned—particularly for her. But he could see all was well in her mind. It was in her eyes and in her touch—they weren’t just having sex, they were making love.
“Brooke,” he rasped and kissed her deeply. He’d never wanted anyone or anything more and was determined to show her, worship her, bring her as much pleasure as she wanted, or could bear, before taking his own.
Resolve bought him some time, and he renewed his exploration of her sleek, increasingly pas
sion-heated body. Regardless of her denials, she was a delicately built woman, while he was anything but. His conscience wouldn’t allow him to cause her discomfort, let alone pain. He might not be the current rendition of the Hollywood playboy, but he knew every bit as much about anatomy, and when his soothing kisses came to test the soft petals between her legs, he was reassured by the damp heat he found there...and beyond.
She showed him with her body and increasingly shallower breaths that it was all good, so good she cried out quickly. His name. He went for broke and relished her fingers burying into his hair and clenching, her entire body clenching, and then she collapsed, trembling.
As he slowly rose above her, she opened her eyes and stared at him. “Tell me,” he said.
“I’ve never felt...more. So wanted.... So cared for.”
So loved? Because he did. His heart, his whole being soared in the sensation of it. He wanted this moment to never end, but if it had to, when it had to, he wanted to go to sleep holding her. He suspected he would never know another moment’s peace if she wasn’t in his arms at the end of every day.
“The best is yet to come,” he promised, as he resumed kissing and tasting everywhere he could reach. Her nipples kept drawing his attention. The little buds were nearly as sharp as needles. “You’re going to be sore, but I can’t stop touching and tasting you,” he rasped, caressing her with his thumbs and his mouth, as he sought the tempo that would lead them to a joined ecstasy this time.
Soon, with perfect timing and a dancer’s graceful glide, Brooke wrapped her legs around his waist. Gage slipped his hands beneath her hips and buried himself as deeply as she could take him.
“Oh, Gage,” she moaned. “You’re so right. I love this.”
“And this?” he asked, slowly starting to thrust inside her.
Her reply was a whimper, as her body rose with a new wave of sensations taking over her body.
“And this?” As she opened her mouth to gasp, he claimed her lips so as to even absorb her climaxing cry, then poured himself into her.
* * *
Brooke yearned to stay in the blissful mist of ecstasy surrounding them for as long as she could. Fly... Fly... The sensations reminded her of her first time on a friend’s trampoline when she had been five or six and she’d thought she had soared high enough to reach the moon still visible in the morning sky. A child’s imaginings and a child’s measurements...but it was the last time she’d felt such an affinity between her imagination and her body—until tonight.
That experience had ended badly. She’d soared all right, and shot off the contraption, breaking her collarbone. She’d never been allowed to play at her classmate’s home again—the start of her slow but steady retreat from making friends. Tonight had to be the start of a turn in her life path, she resolved. It had to.
She’d lost her virginity in her first year in college—pretty much a forgettable experience—and since then she’d experienced a few pleasant relationships, but never something that spoke to her ability to feel more than contentment. She’d concluded that she was just too left-brained—as Gage had teased—like her father, to feel deeply enough to call it “passion,” and yet life had taught her that she was capable of feeling deep grief. She had ached for her mother for years, so then why hadn’t she been able to feel anything close to that for a man? Now she understood: she hadn’t yet met Gage.
Brooke rubbed her cheek against his, absently wondering if he’d suddenly started keeping an electric razor at the clinic or in his truck. How else could he manage to keep such a clean shave at this hour? Lazily stroking his back, she smiled at the thought that he spent so much time thinking about making himself pleasing to her.
“You know you’re asking for trouble, don’t you?” Gage murmured, pressing a kiss into her hair.
“I hope so.”
He shifted to kiss her again in the curve between her neck and shoulder before rising on one elbow to search her face. It was completely dark now, and the exterior lights timed to come on after sunset offered just enough light to see the wonder on his face, but concern, too.
“You’re serious?” he murmured, his hand gently caressing her face like a blind man reading Braille. “It was as good as I wanted for you?”
Fairly certain that she now knew what it would do to him, she purred like a feline and arched against his lower body. That won her a strangled groan, and, in the next instant, he stretched her to her full length, lacing his fingers with hers way over her head.
“Minx. Think you’re ready for games already?”
“Okay, maybe not,” she gasped, under the full weight of his body.
In the next instant, he rolled to her side but slid one powerful leg between hers to keep her in place. “You’re too tempting for your own good.” But there was a smile in Gage’s voice as he added, “I totally approve of the tousled look.”
It was Brooke’s turn to groan. “If I have raccoon eyes, I’m running for the bathroom.”
“I would enjoy the view.... I really would if I could find the damned lights.”
Brooke swatted his backside lightly. “Leave them off and stop trying to embarrass me.”
“I’m not. I’m just...”
He found the small lamp and switched it on. Its shade was eggplant colored and offered only a subtle glow to the room; however, it was enough so that when Gage turned back to Brooke, he took a slow, shaky breath.
“You make me ache, you’re so beautiful.”
Caressing his chest, she said softly, “Thank you...for your skill, too. You made me realize that I’ve been cheated, and was content to be.”
“Sweetheart.” Gage took hold of her hand and kissed her wrist. “You’re breaking my heart—and giving me murderous thoughts.” His gaze swept over her, his blue-gray eyes reflecting his internal struggle between renewing desire and lingering concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? I wasn’t quite in control as I’d hoped to be.”
“I’m perfect.”
His expression relaxed into a sensual smile. “You are that.”
“And getting thirsty.” Once again, she splayed her fingers through his chest hair. “Someone didn’t let me finish my champagne.”
“You know if someone did, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“So sexy, and still the dashing gentleman.”
As she gently scraped her right index finger over his nipple in retribution, he pretended to look suspicious. “You just want me to get out of this bed so you can get a peek at my awesome backside.”
“It felt pretty awesome. Now it might be branded by my nails.”
Taking hold of her wrist, he pretended to examine each short-clipped finger. “I’ve seen newborn kittens with more threatening claws.” He playfully nipped at one.
“Fine. I’ll get my own glass of champagne.” She started to sit up, only to be brought flat against the bedding again.
“The idea of you going down there like that isn’t something I want playing in my mind. Ever,” Gage all but muttered. “Especially since I didn’t think to pull the blinds and curtains. Besides, Humph probably needs to go out again.” Sitting up, he reached for his jeans. “Rest up. I’ll be back.”
Brooke grinned as he left the room and listened to him jog down the stairs. Humphrey roused from his bed and uttered a soft “woof” in greeting. Seconds later, as Gage quietly spoke to him, the back door was opened and the dog trotted outside.
Stretching, Brooke relived what they’d just shared and shivered with the residual memory of Gage climaxing in her body. She closed her eyes and let herself imagine what it would be like to be fertile. Would she feel it the moment that special one sperm found her egg? It was such a crazy thought, since only months ago—after sending Parker away—she’d begun to convince herself that she wasn’t meant to have children, didn’t want any. However, she u
nderstood that now: it was easier to reason that way when you knew that you weren’t really loved, let alone in love.
Did Gage want children?
Stop it! It was sex, you fool.
Even if it was, it had been the best ever. And the night was young, she realized, glancing at the clock. She wasn’t going to waste it.
Scrambling off the bed, she hurried to the bathroom.
* * *
She didn’t think she’d dozed off, but the next thing Brooke knew she felt a delicious dampness around her left nipple. She smiled, sure it was Gage’s mouth after he’d taken a drink of something, only to open her eyes and see it was a droplet of wine sliding from his fingertip.
“That’s cold!”
“No, it’s irresistible.”
He leaned over to lick it off. Sure enough, his tongue was warmer and slightly abrasive against her sensitive skin, made all the more tender from his earlier loving.
Stretching and drawing in a deep breath, she paused. “Oh, God, you smell yummy. What did you put on?”
“Sit up and have some of this.”
Now fully awake, Brooke did and accepted one of the glasses of champagne he was holding. “Have I been asleep long?” She glanced over at the clock and saw it had only been about twenty minutes. Strange, she thought. Going by the scent of cinnamon around him, she’d believed it was close to morning.
“Long enough for Humph to enjoy a last stroll around the yard, and me to eat a half pound of shrimp while I waited.”
Thoroughly confused, Brooke took a sip of her wine then sniffed again. “I’m not smelling shrimp. I’m smelling...breakfast?”
“Because I brought you this.” Reaching behind him, Gage picked up a slice of toasted cinnamon bread from a saucer and brought it to her lips. “I thought it would help soak up the alcohol faster than the shrimp.”
“Bless you.” Brooke took an eager bite and moaned her appreciation as she chewed. Quickly swallowing, she opened her mouth like a little bird. “More.”
He laughed softly. “I think I’ve finally figured out what to make you when I think you need feeding.”
The Dashing Doc Next Door Page 14