Jason rises up and over me as I tremble in the wake. I watch as he rolls on a condom, and I take a deep breath as I gaze at the man I love.
Slowly he enters me, fills me, and I want it more than anything. His eyes glaze over as he basks in his pleasure. He moans, and I rise up to him so we move as one. Waves of pleasure wash over me, over us. Jason cries out my name, and his whole body shudders. He collapses, shaking as both of us pant. I lick the hollow of his shoulder to taste him.
Flipping him over, I kiss his neck. He can barely move, but that doesn’t stop me. I take my time moving down his body. I linger at the trail of hair below his navel and his erection grows again. I remove the condom and slip him into my mouth. He groans and whispers my name as I suck and slide him in and out. He pushes me away, and I rise up over him as he gazes at me with hooded eyes. I watch him bite his lip as I bring him close to another orgasm.
With shaky hands, I roll on another condom so I can guide him home once more. I thrust my hips and rotate, grinding into him as Jason grips my hips to guide me in the dance. Our dance. I move faster, and the sensation intensifies, driving me into a frenzy. Every ounce of me reaches for him, pulling him into me, deeper and deeper. I cry out and shudder with the release.
He turns me onto my back and drives himself home. Pumping fast and hard, he shakes and crumbles onto me. Completely spent, Jason lays his head on my chest. His breath caresses my skin, and our hearts beat a duet of our passion, our love. We fall asleep in each other’s arms.
It’s dark when I wake and glance at the clock. It’s a little after one. Our legs and arms are tangled together under a down comforter, and I sneak out of the bed slowly to tiptoe to the window. The champagne and glasses sit untouched on the floor near the piles of our clothes. The moon lights the sky, and I can make out the mountains clearly. When I touch the cold pane, a chill runs through my body.
A sleepy voice calls out, “Hey, come back here and bring the champagne.”
The bottle is still cool because of the cold room when I grab it, and I say, “We missed midnight.”
Jason says, “No, we didn’t.” I make out his sly smile in the dim light as I hand him the bottle before I climb back in the bed.
I hear a pop as he opens the champagne. The pale-yellow liquid fizzes as he pours it into the glasses and asks, “What did you wish for?”
“Nothing. My wishes have come true.” I hold the narrow glass and watch the bubbles dance along the sides. “Do you have any wishes?”
“I don’t wish. I make things happen.” He clinks my glass. “Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.” Bubbles play on my tongue as I sip. I ask, “Make things happen?”
“Why do you think I moved here? I could have picked any mountain. But I picked Breckenridge because of you.”
“Oh, Jason.” I reach out and hold the side of his face. He leans into my hand.
“You’re the love of my life, Casey.”
“And you’re mine.”
He takes my glass and sets it down. “It’s chilly. Slide under here with me.” He pulls me under the covers, and my cold skin is warmed by his heat. His erection presses against my belly.
“Really?”
He breathes in my hair. “Get used to it. This is how you make babies.”
* * *
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Brave Hearts - Phoenix Sullivan
Lose your heart to Wild Romance!
Running from the memories of his devastated heart, ex-special ops veteran Peter Lawson hires on as a ranger at a Tanzanian animal sanctuary owned by Nicky Tarentino, a disillusioned Illinois veterinarian recently relocated to Africa.
The physical attraction is instant, the sex easy, but it will take the grief of a 'problem' elephant—who, shattered by the loss of her family, is as broken and wounded on the inside as Peter—along with the heartbreak of an orphaned elephant calf before Nicky and Peter will be able face the sorrow of their pasts and, just maybe, learn to trust and love again.
Copyright © 2016 by Phoenix Sullivan
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.
* * *
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More Books By Phoenix Sullivan
PROUD HEARTS (A Wild Hearts Romance)
SECTOR C (Medical Thriller)
1
Nicky
“Doctor Nic!”
I settled the handful of resumes I was reviewing and raised my brows at Melea’s frantic cry. She’d only been my clinic assistant for a month, although she’d been here at the sanctuary longer, but already I knew that everything to her was an emergency. By her voice and gestures alone there was no way to tell if a patient had just been brought in with a deadly cobra bite or whether we’d run out of disinfectant.
“It’s a kudu calf. Its mum was killed. One of the leopards, we think. It’s got scratches, maybe a broken leg. Abasi’s bringing it in.”
Outside, an engine growled as a vehicle pulled up. My 11 o’clock interview.
I sighed, wishing to hell they hadn’t brought the calf here. “Where is it?”
“In the Land Rover. Abasi found it on patrol. He’s getting a blanket under it now. I’ll help him carry it in if you’re ready.” She looked at me expectantly.
Well, what was I going to do if they’d come this far with it? Turn it away? I nodded, pushed the thin stack of resumes aside, and followed her out of my office into the thatched and brick-sided waiting room beyond.
Two big men, a blanket slung between them, were maneuvering through the narrow doorway. One was Abasi, my jumbe, the chief ranger for Kulinda Sanctuary, and the other—
“Peter Lawson?”
He turned a disarming smile on me before returning his attention to coordinating efforts with Abasi to move the calf into the single adjoining exam room. They laid their bundle on the steel table, then stood guard to either side. Melea took up a position at the baby’s rear to prevent it scooting off that way, and I approached the frightened youngster from the front. There was no denying its—her, I noted—appeal when it turned those big brown antelope eyes my way. My heart tugged too. Whose wouldn’t? But—
“Abasi, you know the rules.”
He ducked his head, clearly abashed. “She’s still a mtoto,” he said, and I easily translated one of the Swahili words I knew—baby. “You should have heard her pitiful bleating, calling after her mum. But,” he bowed his head, “no more mum to answer.”
I nodded toward the calf’s hind leg, angled out and needing no x-rays to tell that the strong but almost impossibly thin bones had been snapped cleanly in two. “It wouldn’t survive in the wild, would it?”
Lips pouting, brow furrowed, he shook his head.
“And now the wild dogs or l
eopards will find a healthy calf to kill instead. One who might otherwise have grown into a great bull. And what of that calf’s mother? How great will her grief be?”
In the wild, there were always consequences.
“Shall I take the calf back?” Abasi asked, clearly wanting to do no such thing.
Of course, he should. How many calves such as this one were orphaned each year? How many sick and wounded perished? We couldn’t save them all. Nor should we even try. Who were we to outwit a natural cycle eons old?
That, though, was my brain thinking. And while it often had some very good points to make, I had to admit it was rarely the thing in charge. The golden calf before me was a beautiful, living creature, hurting in both body and soul. My deepest, most fatal flaw was the empathy I shared with every beast I touched. This was no theory of the natural world trembling in pain and fright before me. It was mtoto, a baby—in need of help and love and the comfort of a warm bottle.
“Bring me a vial of medetomidine, then warm up a bag of Ringers,” I instructed Melea. “Let’s make her comfortable.” The sedative would calm her, and allow me to dress the claw wounds that, without probing, looked fairly superficial. Infection would be their greatest concern. The Lactated Ringers would provide an electrolyte boost and fluids to help counter shock. We’d blend our own kudu milk replacement later, when she was willing and able to take a bottle.
“You’re treating her, then?”
I had almost forgotten my interview, Peter, was there. Already he had two points in his favor—his willingness to help and his ability to not interfere. Three points if I included the leg-melting jut of his jaw coupled with those amazingly expressive deep brown eyes.
“What would you do?” I watched him carefully. I didn’t mean the question to be rhetorical, but rather as a test. He’d applied to be a ranger here in the sanctuary, and I liked to know the mettle of the men and women who worked for me.
He shrugged. “Lately, those decisions have been made for me.”
He’d been an army man, according to his resume. Special ops. The way his eyes hooded and his voice lowered, it was clear he hadn’t agreed with all the decisions that had been made on his behalf.
I nodded instinctively, knowing when you didn’t press a wild animal. Except in crisis, I could be a very patient woman.
When Melea returned with the needed catheters and needles and fluids, she held off a vein in the calf’s long, thin front leg without my needing to ask. Despite her one-note emergency mode, she really was a competent assistant.
As the strong sedative coursed through the calf, she visibly relaxed. When I prodded at the deepest slash over her ribs she didn’t flinch. It was only a matter of minutes to wash the wounds with a mild antiseptic then flush them with penicillin. The ends of the broken leg bones hadn’t pierced the skin, so for now, I used wooden dowels, cotton batting and soft, self-sticking wrap to stabilize the limb.
Abasi and Melea held the leg while I wrapped. Peter stroked the baby’s sharp, thin muzzle, the large human hand incongruous yet remarkably gentle against the little snout. It seemed a strong hand, a protective hand. A hand that could very well—
Heat blushed my cheeks. That hand had no business being where my imagination placed it and its delicate stroking.
I added a few cc’s of IV penicillin to the drip Melea had going, then there was little else we could do immediately. “If she’s taking a bottle in a couple of days, I’ll set the leg. If she isn’t…”
Just because she seemed hearty enough physically didn’t mean her spirit was equally so. She still had a devastating loss to endure. If her spirit wasn’t up to the pain of her heart grief she could die yet. “It’s just too early to know.” I quirked my lips at the little calf, my own heart breaking for her. “Take her to the barn and make her comfortable.”
Abasi and Melea nodded. The barn was little more than a thatched lean-to with a few dividers to mark out three stalls. It was empty now, so a little calf could snuggle into a pile of hay without worry.
I exhaled in a rush, moving from one priority to the next. “Can I get you some coffee?” I asked Peter.
“Please,” he said in a deep, dusky voice that made butterflies take flight in my stomach. I pointed him to the office while I went to the small kitchen and filled two mugs barely past the halfway points with the steaming, dark fluid that passed for coffee around here, not daring to fill them higher because of how my hands were trembling. Hands I counted on to routinely cut into living beings with surgical precision.
It had been a dozen years since I’d been a teenager; why was I reacting like one now? Yes, that man hit every “handsome” chord hardwired into me—no, that was an understatement; he hit every “drop-dead gorgeous” one—but I wasn’t some sweaty-palmed schoolgirl panting after the quarterback. I was a thirty-year-old professional in the middle of Africa, only here a month and still wondering what the hell I was doing. I had other life issues to think of beyond the occasional hookup.
When I got back to the office, I found him squinting at the framed degrees and licenses nailed to the walls. I was grateful at my prudence in mug-filling when the presence of him alone made me miss a step. His rugged, barely leashed dangerousness slammed into me the same way the leopard pair that camped out by the north fence had made me feel the first time I’d seen them.
“You went to school in the States.” He nodded at the vet degree.
I nodded, not quite trusting my voice just yet, and set the mugs down on the desk. I considered closing the door, then decided for both our sakes it was probably best I didn’t.
“And now you’re…here?”
I hoped to God the querulousness in his tone wasn’t a judgment call because I wasn’t prepared to defend my decision to yet another concerned party or chauvinistic male worried about my safety or sanity.
“And now I’m here,” I agreed, “and looking for a third ranger and general handyman to assist here under the direction of Abasi. He’s the man you were just helping with the calf.”
“The one who disobeyed your orders to bring it to you?”
I heard the underlying challenge clearly enough. I’d been in far too many fields with edgy bulls not to recognize the first signs of asserting dominance.
“Look, I know you’ve had recent military experience,” I countered, “but life here isn’t all about obeying rules without question. It’s also about knowing when to break the rules and follow your heart.”
His beautiful dark eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite trust what I was saying.
“Can you do that?” I asked. “Can you follow your heart?”
“I’m not sure I have a heart left to follow.” He sank into the guest chair in front of the desk.
My eyes widened fractionally. Peter’s voice was quiet; there was a rawness there in it, some past wounding that begged to be discovered. I waited for him to go on, to explain his somber, cryptic remark.
Taking a sip of coffee instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Hearts aside, I like animals, quiet and solitude. I’m a quick learner, and I’m not afraid of a little danger. You have some poaching trouble, I understand. That’s where my military background can help—in finding, targeting and stopping them.”
By the time he got to the word background, all trace of a wounded heart had disappeared in a cold and clipped litany of skills. But I neither needed nor wanted some military robot. “Why are you here?” I asked. “In Tanzania? Outside of some small, almost-off-the-map village like Liwale? Sitting here in my office today?” I needed staff willing to commit to the work and stay for at least a reasonable amount of time. There were enough headaches on Kulinda Sanctuary without worrying about constant churn. “What’s going to keep you here, if I hire you?”
It was all I could do to keep a business focus on the conversation. That primal part of my brain that didn’t give a hoot for business and that was seriously adoring everything about this man from the dark mystery of his eyes to the sensitive quirk of his l
ips to the easy way he sat a chair, silently screamed the answer it was dying to hear: You! You’ll be what keeps me here.
“Duty. Loyalty. I’ve never been a man to leave anyone in the lurch or to quit before a job was done. If you’re worried, I can sign on for a mutually agreed-to time.”
“Like a tour of duty?” I was pretty sure I’d failed to keep the sarcasm and disappointment out of my tone.
His eyes narrowed. “Does my service record offend you somehow?”
“No! Not at all. I’m beyond grateful for those who’ve served, and I have the utmost respect for the U.S. military. But…we’re a long way from all of that. And my sanctuary here isn’t a military operation. I want people to be here because they love what they’re doing—or at least love the idea behind it. I don’t want people staying only because they signed a contract. It’s that kind of enthusiasm I’m looking for. And”—my primal brain was silently but foolishly pleading, No! Don’t say it, for the love of God, shut up now!—“quite frankly, you’re over-qualified for the position that’s open. Usually it’s college students or recent grads who need a year or so in the field to pad their resume or as part of an internship that it would go to. If it were the jumbe position—the lead ranger role—I’d feel more comfortable about hiring you. But Abasi is my jumbe.” I fingered the thin stack of resumes on the desk, desperately hoping my decision was the right one despite that pesky primal brain weeping about what a fool I was being.
“I can’t pay you what you’re worth on just a ranger salary. And there’s not a doubt in my mind you’ll be able to earn more elsewhere. It wouldn’t be fair of me to indenture you for any length of time at the wages I’m offering.”
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