Suddenly, he froze, his length in his hand. “Shit. I didn’t exactly bring condoms. Do you suppose Ryan thought of everything?” He glanced at the nightstand.
She shook her head. “I’m clean. It’s been a long time. And I’m on the pill.”
He smiled, that silly half grin. “I haven’t touched a single woman for over a decade.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come up here,” she demanded as she shoved herself backward to give him space. The bed was enormous. No reason to be dangling off the edge.
He crawled toward her and settled on his side next to her, surprising her with his nonchalance when she was currently feeling an urgency she would expect him to mirror. After all, she’d at least had one orgasm. He had not.
Instead, he propped himself up on his palm, stared down at her, and stroked her neck with his free hand. “I want you to know that I heard what you said earlier.” His voice was deep and soft.
She nodded slowly, unsure why he was bringing this up now or even what he intended to communicate. What she did know was that it seemed important to him, and it endeared him to her. Dammit. Why did he feel the need to add something meaningful to this tryst? Couldn’t they just have sex without making a big deal out of it?
As his fingers slid down to toy with her nipple, his gaze followed, but he kept talking. “I’m not intimidated by your strong personality. In fact, it’s attractive. I don’t know why anyone who spent even five minutes with you wouldn’t want to get to know you better.”
“Well, I have my own reasons for not wanting to encourage anyone to get close to me.” She pursed her lips after those words slipped out, hoping he wouldn’t press her for more information. The last thing she wanted to do at the moment was be psychoanalyzed.
He lifted his gaze back to hers but said nothing for several seconds. His next words headed in a different direction. “I’m pretty sure I swallowed my tongue the first time you spoke. Do you remember what you said to me?”
She nodded, seriously concerned about the depth of this little chat. She had been physically attracted to him since the day they met, but she didn’t want to get so deeply emotionally involved that he had the ability to break her heart.
Forget the possibility that he might die. She could handle death. What she worried about was the probability that he might walk away from her any day if his damn ego got in the way and he decided it would be best for her. Especially now. Especially since he’d seen her naked. Especially after he finally slid inside her.
She realized he was watching her, waiting for words to go with her nod. “I said, ‘It’s not a bad idea, you know.’” She would never forget that moment.
He smiled. “It was corny, but you got my attention.” He inhaled deeply. “What I’m trying to say is, any man who could walk away from you would have to be extremely insecure with himself. Strong women should not repel a man.” He leaned his face closer and nibbled a path to her ear.
She shivered.
“I don’t care if you’re bossy in the bedroom or not. Feel free to do so any time you want. But I’m also going to enjoy making you scream. Can you handle that?” His top leg slid between hers, nudging her knees apart, his thigh pressing against her heat.
She didn’t answer him. She couldn’t.
Instead, she reached for him with her unpinned hand, threading her fingers with his over her breast.
When he pinched her nipple exquisitely, she arched into him and moaned. Please. Oh, God, please…
Chapter 12
Dade was mesmerized. Blair hadn’t said much while he rambled on probably incoherently, trying to tell her that he didn’t care if she was dominant or submissive in the bedroom. It wasn’t a deal breaker for him either way. And in his opinion, it shouldn’t have been for any other man either.
He had no idea if she had a dominant side in bed, but he suspected from her words earlier and her actions now, that she at least got off on him leading.
With her fingers tucked around his, he slid his hand down her belly and reached between her legs. She started to pull her hand away when he stroked his middle finger over her clit, but he stopped her. “Leave it. Shadow me while I touch you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t attempt to draw away again.
He was so hard it was growing difficult to concentrate, but he wanted to bring her back to the edge before he entered her.
She had no idea how sexy she was every minute of every day, but right now she was so much more. He kept glancing at her face, memorizing the way her emotions were written all over. Her cheeks were flushed. Her blue eyes darker than usual. Her pupils wide.
She had a look of desperation, and yet she didn’t ask him to take her, nor did she give any indication she might flip roles on him and take for herself.
When he pressed one finger up inside her, taking her own finger with him, she gasped, her mouth falling open and her eyes rolling back. He dragged his finger over her G-spot, and when he noticed how her belly dipped as he did so, he did it again.
She was so responsive to everything he did. It made him harder by the second to know he did this to her. He drove her to this edge. This place that put that look of sheer bliss on her face.
“Blair, look at me.”
She blinked, trying to focus on him.
He smiled. “God, you’re gorgeous when you’re aroused. You sure you want this?” He wasn’t playing fair asking her that while he flicked the tip of his finger over her G-spot, the palm of his hand pressing against her clit. “Tell me to stop and I will.” He was harder than hell. Stopping would kill him if anemia didn’t. But he had always been extremely careful to make sure what headspace every one of his lovers was in the first time he had sex with them.
She frowned, confused. “Are you asking me if I want you to make love to me? Is it not obvious? Do I seem reluctant or uninterested?”
He slowly smiled. Maybe she had more of her wits than he thought. She was quite coherent. “Is that a yes?” he teased, to see what she would do next.
She dropped her head back and groaned. “Dade Menke, I’m still stronger than you. Don’t make me hurt you.”
He knew she meant those words to infer what she might do to him later. Right now, she made no aggressive moves. She wanted him to take her. And he had never been so pleased.
After pulling both of their fingers out of her, he drew them to his mouth to suck her sweetness from their combined hands. Releasing her, he climbed between her legs as he propped his elbows near her shoulders. His erection lined up with her entrance as if there were a magnetic pull between them.
He lowered his lips to hers and claimed her mouth in a slow kiss, his chest brushing against her amazing breasts as he eased himself into her.
Damn, she was tight. Apparently it had been a long time for both of them. He had to release her lips to concentrate, or he would come too soon.
It was hard to hold her gaze, but the emotion he saw in her eyes was mesmerizing. Her lips parted as he inched deeper, and she gasped when he finally thrust the rest of the way into her tight channel.
He held still, fighting against the need to come. Shit. Oh, God. He was losing the battle. Even without moving, he struggled to stop the rush of blood to his erection.
“Dade, please…” Her sweet voice urged him to move. Releasing his breath, he pulled almost fully out and thrust back in. Every slide of his length against her stretched channel was a victory. He squeezed his eyes closed, concentrating on the feel of her, the way her breath hit his lips, the way the tight pebbles of her nipples grazed his chest, the way her thighs hugged his…
Bliss.
He picked up the speed as the pressure and need intensified. She would understand his lack of stamina. He would make it up to her later.
When he couldn’t stop it another second, he thrust deep one last time and released a groan as the pulses of his orgasm took him to heaven.
Spent, he lowered his forehead to the mattress next to her temple, holding her tight.
He was aware she hadn’t come a second time, and he fully intended to rectify that as soon as he could move.
She squirmed beneath the pressure of his body, undoubtedly needing to come.
“Hold still, baby,” he encouraged next to her ear. “Give me one second. I’ll get you there.”
She moaned. Her hands were on his waist, and they smoothed around to cup his ass and squeeze. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”
She was not fine by a longshot. He could tell by her breathing, the disconnect in her words, and the way her body wouldn’t still.
The second he could move, he lifted one leg to straddle her thigh, let his length slide out of her, and landed on his side next to her. When he pressed his thigh against her sex, she gasped. He smiled against the side of her face, knowing she couldn’t see him. There was nothing sexier than a woman on the verge of an orgasm.
His fingers were shaking, but he smoothed his hand down her belly and wiggled it between his thigh and her warmth.
Her breath hitched beautifully when he touched her sensitive clit. As he circled the swollen nub, he propped his head up to watch her face. She grabbed his forearm, though he doubted she had any idea if she was pulling or pushing him away. It didn’t matter. He was strong enough to hold his ground.
Circling her clit made her hold her breath. Tapping it made her wiggle her butt. Flicking it made her moan. So, he did all three, watching her as she grew closer to the edge. He knew she was there when her heels dug into the bed and she attempted to lift her torso off the mattress.
And then she came.
He flattened his fingers against her clit so he could feel the pulses of her orgasm, mesmerized by the experience as if he too were feeling the waves of pleasure. In a way, he was. By extension.
Her body collapsed like Jell-O against the bed when the orgasm passed.
He hated for the moment to end. He wanted to continue watching her as she came down from the high, but his body was too heavy and sated to comply, so he dropped his cheek next to hers and tucked her against his side.
As his heart rate returned to normal, he realized he was in deep dog doo-doo. Blair Rollans was not just some woman he had sex with. This had been special. Amazing. Life-altering.
Fuck.
They lay there for a long time, both breathing heavily. He could feel her heartbeat against his palm between her breasts. When she lifted her hand and set it on top of his, a sense of peace and contentment spread throughout his body.
“Dinner was probably burnt before you turned off the stove. I can’t imagine what it must look like now.” She giggled, the sound musical.
He kissed her shoulder. That was as far as he could move at the moment. “It’ll be fine. If not, we’ll toss it.”
“Give me a minute to recover, and I’ll go check. As soon as my legs start receiving messages from my brain.”
He stroked the space between her breasts with his fingers. “No rush. Relax. Don’t move yet. I like you right here. Besides, your mattress is amazing. I might fall asleep and never miss dinner.”
She twisted her face to see him. “You said the one in the other room was fine.”
“I lied.” He grinned.
Her eyes widened. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I didn’t want you to give up your room or order a mattress or something crazy and unnecessary.”
She sighed. “Martyr.”
He chuckled. “Maybe.”
She smoothed her hand over his, stroking the back of his. “We just had sex.”
“We did. You okay?”
“I’m more worried about you.”
“Me?” He lifted his head a few inches to see her expression more fully. “You’ve been dating some strange guys if they’ve had regrets after sex,” he joked. When did this get so serious? The moment you slid into her.
She rolled her eyes. “First of all, I haven’t dated many guys at all, so it would be difficult to use the short list as a test group. But I can tell you that none of the men I’ve been with currently believed they were dying, nor did any of them need protection against an unknown enemy who might want them dead. So, yes. I’m more worried about you.”
He groaned. “Look at this from my point of view instead. I’ve never had sex with a woman knowing full well I was going to die on her and that I was putting her life in danger just by spending time with her.”
“See? We have a difference of opinion. I’m a trained professional bodyguard, so not a chance someone is going to off me. And you’re not dying.”
“You find a cure for AA2 while I was out chopping wood?”
“Yes. Optimism.”
He rolled onto his back, wishing like hell they hadn’t spoken at all. He’d been so relaxed beside her and even inside her. Why did they have to go back to this place where she insisted on keeping an unreasonably optimistic view while he scrambled to find a way to live? “You do realize good vibes, incense, and prayer are not going to fix my malfunctioning bone marrow, right?”
She rolled to her side, propped her head on her hand, and looked down at him. “Of course, but an improved drug, a bone marrow transplant, or the stem cell thing might work. I prefer to have hope.”
He turned his head away from her and closed his eyes. He never should have slept with her. What was he thinking? Now she was going to be even worse than before with her optimism.
“Now what?” she asked, exasperated.
He shifted his gaze to face her again. “I prefer to live in the real world. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to paste on a smile and pretend life is great when the truth is, I’m probably going to die in a few months. If you spend all that time pretending that isn’t my reality, it will annoy me.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt. The words tumbled out of his mouth without him thinking them through first. He might have sounded a little harsh.
“Fine.” She rolled away from him and climbed off the opposite side of the bed. After snatching her clothes off the floor, she stomped to the bathroom and shut the door.
“Dammit,” he muttered. Nothing like a pissing off a woman right after having sex. Good job, Dade.
He pushed off the bed and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He was just zipping them up when she came back out of the bathroom wearing those damn leggings and a new T-shirt.
As she walked by him, she mumbled something about checking the food.
He followed her to the kitchen, barefoot, jeans, no shirt. “Blair…”
She shook her head to deny him. “Don’t. Let it go. Let’s eat.” After peering into the pans, she grabbed plates. She must have determined her cooking looked edible because she filled a plate and then stepped around him without touching him to go sit in her favorite chair in the living room.
Dade took a deep breath and filled another plate. It smelled good. It was cold, but he didn’t think it was ruined from either her cooking or from the passage of time. He followed her to the living room and plopped down on the couch, but he couldn’t imagine swallowing. His chest was tight from arguing with her.
He couldn’t stand the idea of making her angry with him, but he also couldn’t picture weeks on end of her pretending he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t convinced any of the options to save his life would work.
Ten years ago, he’d devoted every waking moment to finding a cure for AP12, racing against the clock to save his own life. Fate was a cruel bitch to have him wake up a decade later only to repeat the same frantic search for AA2. What did he do in a past life to deserve this?
One thing he knew for sure was that he indeed needed to regroup and get his head in the game. He didn’t have time to play around. It wouldn’t do any good to develop a relationship with Blair if in the end he died because he was busy having sex instead of researching anemia.
He needed to find more studies. He needed to get back to work.
He needed more time.
Blair was going to be a distraction. More now than ever, especially if
she got the idea that just because they’d had sex, he was going to move into her bed and spend long leisurely hours fucking. He couldn’t afford to do that.
He needed to be alone somewhere where he could work undistracted until he either figured out a solution or died trying. Resolved, he glanced at her to find her eyeing him suspiciously. She probably knew he was about to speak. “I think it would be better if I wasn’t here.”
Chapter 13
For a moment, the air in the room stood still. And then Blair’s plate slid to the floor and she jumped to her feet. “You selfish asshole,” she shouted.
His eyes went wide as he set his plate on the coffee table and then leaned back with his hands on his thighs. “What?” He knew she was pissed off, but he didn’t understand this reaction at all.
She stomped toward him, anger turning her cheeks red. “You don’t fucking get to decide that.”
He flinched as she got closer. “Decide what?”
“Don’t look at me like it’s no big deal. Don’t even joke about something like that. It infuriates me when people make such flippant comments.” She leaned over him, shaking a finger in his face, furious. “It’s never too late. I don’t care if you’re sorry we had sex. Fine. If you want to go back to the way things were before, fine. If you’re scared, fine. If you want to work night and day looking for a cure, fine. I’ll help or stay out of your way or hand you food or whatever you need. But don’t ever, ever fucking say something like that again.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t know what to say. Her rambling stream of words made no sense to him.
She kept talking. “You’re not even sick. You’re perfectly healthy right now. I just experienced firsthand how healthy you are.” She flung a finger toward the bedroom as if he needed the reminder of what had happened in there so very recently.
Reviving Dade Page 11