“I didn’t mean it,” she repented, without hesitation. Her eyes took on a serious hue, shone up at him with wide-eyed sincerity. “I want you in my life. Always, Blake. Just you.”
His stomach somersaulted, making his insides churn. Just him. Noting the tremble in her lower lip, the fruit on her breath, he stared closer. Another growl rumbled from his throat. “How much liquor did that jerk ply you with?”
“Liquor?” She blinked, tightening her arms around his neck, laughter in her eyes as she toyed with the hair at his nape. “Trey didn’t give me liquor. Just punch.” She licked her lips. “Mmm, it was good. Best punch I ever had.”
He might have laughed at her innocence if her pink tongue tracing over her lips hadn’t put his entire body into a vice, hadn’t grabbed hold of every nerve cell and demanded full attention.
“You’re drunk, Darby. I should take you upstairs.”
“I’m not drunk.” She stared at his mouth. “But take me upstairs, please.” Her long lashes brushed her cheeks. “What would you like to do to me first?”
Blake almost tripped over his feet. A million different items volleyed for first place in the “what he’d like to do to Darby” list. He wanted to do them all. He wanted to act on each and every vivid thought in his head. With Darby.
He gulped. “Maybe going back to our room isn’t such a great idea.”
Darby’s lower lip pouted. “Why not?”
He tried to laugh off the way he felt, as if he didn’t believe she was serious. “I might take advantage of you.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” Her fingers tightened in his hair. She stood on her tiptoes and looked deep into his eyes, her expression inviting. “Let’s go. Take advantage of me. Now.”
There she went, getting Darby bossy again.
Didn’t she know that turned him on? That she turned him on? More than any woman. Her earlier words seared through his mind. She’d told him to butt out of her life. Words that had cut deep. Words he should heed rather than the ones she currently shot at him. A smart man would butt out of her life.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do.” She tugged on his hand, moving against him in a slow sway. “I want to make love with you. Now.”
She spoke loud—loud enough that the couples around them heard and snickered.
“Guess we know for definite that Dilly didn’t die a virgin.”
Blake wanted to assure them Darby was the least likely woman to die a virgin. But, although Darby had occasionally dated, she’d managed to keep each of the boyfriends at arm’s length, never really letting them close, finding faults in each that allowed her to remain in control.
He’d always admired her control. Now he wondered if her control had been a safety mechanism, a way of making men butt out of her life when they tried to get close.
He suspected he knew more about her, that he was closer to her than any man she’d dated, and until today he’d never so much as kissed her. Was she a virgin?
The idea was impossible for his brain to wrap around.
No way was the hottest woman he knew a virgin.
Still, the possibility struck him and he couldn’t let it go—no matter how many times he tried to dismiss the notion as ridiculous.
“Are you?”
She rested her head against his shoulder, swaying in rhythm with him on the dance floor. “Am I what?”
“A virgin?”
Still punch-happy, she smiled up at him, her eyes starry, her lower lip pouty, begging to be kissed. “If I was, would you promise to save me from my ‘most likely’ curse?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DEAR Lord, had she really just asked Blake to make love to her? To save her from her virginity?
Darby giggled to cover her nervousness.
She was nervous. For the first time she’d asked a man to make love to her. Not just any man, but Blake Di Angelo—the man she’d been waiting for her entire life.
Because she loved him.
Had always loved him.
“Is that what you want, Darby?” His hands brushed across her cheek, cupped her face so he could study her so intently she wondered what he saw. “For me to make love to you?”
More than her next breath.
Calling upon every ounce of courage she possessed, she stretched, tentatively touched her mouth to his, hoping to show him as words couldn’t convey just how much she wanted him.
Would he push her away? Tell her she was crazy? That he couldn’t want a woman who was more brains than beauty, who was so the opposite of the women he usually dated?
She tasted the soda on his tongue, tasted the mascu-linity that was pure Blake. Eyes wide, she deepened the kiss. He let her set the pace, but his rapidly hardening body was far from immune to her kisses.
He pushed her into a darkened corner of the ballroom, lifted her chin. “I want you, Darby. Tell me you want me to make love to you because you want me and not because you’re drunk.”
She barely registered when the music stopped, the lights brightened, and Mandy spoke into a microphone.
“I’m not drunk.” She pulled back, smiled softly up at him, her fingers twisted in the hair at his nape. Lord, how she loved his hair. How she loved him. “I want you. Take me to our room and make love to me.”
Blake’s black eyes narrowed, his body tensed, and Darby wondered if she’d made a mistake. Had she lost him forever with her boldness? In admitting so much of her heart? He’d said he wanted her, too. Surely he wouldn’t be frightened away by her honesty in telling him what she wanted? Namely him.
Or was Blake like Trey? Were his words loosely spoken during make-out sessions? Uncertainty flooded her. What if he didn’t really want her? If he’d realized she could never be good enough? What if they made love and she couldn’t please him? What if he decided he liked her better for her brains than her body? She wanted Blake to want both. The whole package. All of her.
Please, God, let him love her.
Because, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequences, tonight she was laying her heart on the line. Because she didn’t want to be just Blake’s business partner or his friend. She wanted him. As her lover. As the man who wanted to share his life with her. Always.
If they weren’t meant to be, she didn’t want to go through life without knowing, without having taken that chance at grasping her dream.
Because in that moment her biggest fear was never taking that risk with Blake, never knowing what if…?
His jaw shifted. “You’re sure?”
“More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.” She was. She didn’t want to continue pretending that she didn’t love him when she did. She didn’t want to pretend her heart didn’t race when he walked into a room. She didn’t want to pretend not to want to spend every moment of her life with him. Unable to guard her heart, she stared at him, willing him not to hurt her. “Please want me, too.”
“I do. More than you’d believe.” He cupped her face, kissed her so thoroughly she thought she might melt. He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go, Dilly.”
“About time, City Boy,” she quipped back, practically running to keep up with his long strides out of the ballroom.
Nervous excitement fluttered in Darby’s belly.
Tonight she was going to give herself to Blake and take whatever he was willing to give of himself.
The elevator door slid shut, locking out the world. He stared straight ahead, not looking at her.
“Blake?”
“Not now, Darby,” he barked, startling her into taking a step back.
She wilted. This had all been a bit of a fantasy. One that she should have known better than to believe. “You’ve changed your mind?”
He turned, scorched her with his hot black eyes. “Unless you want me to wrap those long legs of yours around my waist and take you right here in the elevator, and the world be damned, I advise you to stand over there, look pretty, and be quiet.”
Her
lips rounded in a surprised “O”. Why had she doubted him? Been so quick to think he’d changed his mind? That she’d be lacking in his eyes?
She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was a grown woman who knew the man she wanted and was wanted back by that man. She wouldn’t doubt him again.
She took a step closer to him, displaying a smile on her face and a great deal of leg.
Blake shut the hotel room door, taking Darby in his arms immediately. She tasted good. Like a tall drink of water—and he was a man dying of thirst.
If the elevator hadn’t dinged that they’d arrived at their floor the moment it had, they likely wouldn’t have gotten out.
Her fingers curled into his hair, tugging him closer, urging him to kiss her more deeply. Her body squirmed against his, pushing him to the edge of sanity.
When her tongue slid between his lips and into the recesses of his mouth he fell. Deep. Hard. Swiftly. Fell into an abyss that was only him and Darby and the intense passion burning between them.
He wanted to be inside her. Had wanted to be inside her all evening. All day. Forever.
A warning rang in his head. A warning he would usually have listened to, but not tonight. Tonight he was going to have Darby. All night. Every way. She was going to be his.
Darby was his.
Tomorrow he’d worry about the consequences. About the nagging voice that kept saying he shouldn’t do this.
Tonight was his, to explore her body, to kiss every inch of her, to commit every nook and cranny of her body to memory.
Tonight he’d know what it felt like to drown in the blue of her eyes, to lose himself in her smile, to taste the sweetness of her skin, thread his fingers into the long tresses of her thick hair, and to know Darby belonged to him.
She stared up at him, her eyes hazy, her lips swollen from his kisses. “Love me, Blake.”
With her demand, she reached for his belt, undid the catch with amazing speed and pulled the leather strap free from his pants. Her fingers curled around the belt.
He clasped her wrists, took the belt from her with ease. “Slow down, babe. We’re not in a hurry.”
Although he longed to reach the finish line, this was one race he planned to savor every step along the way.
With a clang, his belt landed on the bureau.
He turned back to the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, the most seductive. Slow and tender, he claimed her mouth, capturing her sigh of pleasure.
“Blake…” she murmured against his lips. She pushed at his jacket, dropping it off his shoulders and down his arms. He stepped back to let the jacket fall to the floor.
Her gaze locked with his, she undid the buttons of the blue shirt that matched the exact shade of her desire-filled eyes. A shirt he’d bought for that very reason—because the color reminded him of her. When she’d undone the last button, she tugged the material from his waistband, brushed her hands over his chest and removed his shirt.
Bare-chested, standing in his dress pants, he waited to see what she’d do next. He wasn’t disappointed.
She ran her fingers along his abdomen. Sighing in appreciation, she bent, pressed her lips to his sternum, his collarbone, his throat. She rained kisses over his goose-pimpled flesh until he could stand no more.
“I want to taste you, Darby. Let me.”
“All you had to do was ask.” She turned, presenting her back for him to help remove her dress.
Inch by torturous inch he lowered the zipper, revealing more and more of her creamy skin, more and more of the black strapless bra. When he reached the indention of her low back, he pushed the blue spaghetti straps from her shoulders, slid the dress down her hips and let the material puddle at her feet.
She stood in the skimpy black underwear and garters he’d fantasized about only the night before, wearing heels that made her legs endless and his fantasies eternally grateful.
He swallowed, knowing her image was forever burned into his brain, knowing he never wanted to forget the way she looked or the desire for him in her eyes.
“You’re beautiful.” His voice rasped like that of a schoolboy, but he was thankful sound came forth at all, considering how thick his throat had grown.
“Thank you.”
“I mean it, Darby.” He ran his palms over her arms, laced his fingers with hers. “You are beautiful.”
“So are you.” Her gaze raked over him, reinforcing her praise, making him even harder.
She stepped into his embrace.
She tucked her head beneath his chin, wrapped her arms around his neck, and swayed to a tune that only they could hear.
He moved with her, each sway of their bodies exciting him more, each kiss, each touch building the momentum of what was to come.
His hands moved lower, trailing along her spine, cupping her bottom through the black silk. He lifted her to him, hip to hip, his hardness pressing into her softness. The contact wasn’t enough. He needed to be closer to her, needed to be inside her.
With him supporting her weight, and her arms wrapped around his neck, she raised her legs, pressing snugly against him, encircling his waist.
His legs turned to water and, not wanting to drop her, he moved forward, sitting her on the bureau. Her legs remained around him, the juncture of her body pressed enticingly against his groin. They kissed, over and over, touched, explored each other’s bodies in hungry greed.
Blake undid the back clasp of her bra, freeing her breasts, taking a taut nipple into his mouth.
“Oh, Blake, that feels good. So good,” she moaned, arching her spine toward him.
“It’s going to feel better.”
“Promise me you won’t stop,” she begged, her hands cupping his face, forcing him to look at her. “Ever.”
“I’m not stopping, Darby. Not tonight. Not ever.” Why would she think he’d stop? “Unless this isn’t what you want?”
“You are what I want.”
He’d never heard sweeter words. A rumble caught in his throat, emerging as a low growl. “As long as you want me, I’m yours.”
Darby couldn’t believe how bold she was. Blake might have been right when he’d said she was drunk. She certainly felt light-headed, intoxicated. Intoxicated, but amazingly powerfully feminine at the same time.
Blake’s body responded to every caress of her fingers, to even the lightest touch of her mouth against his flesh.
Never had she imagined a man could be so in tune with her thoughts, her body, her desires. Never had she imagined she’d be so able to read how her touch made his skin burn, how her mouth triggered heat deep in his gut.
Knowing Blake wanted her as much as she wanted him was the most amazing feeling of her life.
He scooped her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and jerked the comforter back. He laid her down, kissed her, removed a condom packet from his wallet, and shed his pants with lightning speed.
She’d been right. He was beautiful.
“I want to make this good for you.”
Didn’t he know that as long as it was he who touched her, this would be good?
He unhooked her garters, slid her panties from her hips, pausing to kiss her thighs, her knees. Careful not to tangle the material on her heels, he pulled the scraps of black silk free from her body, then kissed her again. All over.
Holy smoke. How could a kiss light so many fires?
Fires that raged burning hot. How could his fingers trailing over the same places cause such tingling? Such liquid heat at her very center?
He was torturing her with his slow touches, his purposeful seduction of her senses. She wanted him. Inside her. Making her whole.
Pulling on his shoulders, she tugged him to her, locked her mouth with his, rotated her hips beneath him in a seductive rhythm. His body matched it, grinding against her, above her, pinning her beneath him, pressing her into the bed.
He slipped on a condom. Then he was filling her, breaking every barrier, stretching her body to accommodate his girth.
She muffled her cry of pain into the curve of his neck, dug her fingers into his shoulders, and prayed he didn’t notice.
“Darby,” he groaned, staring down at her with concern in his black eyes. “You weren’t really a virgin, were you?”
“I’m not a virgin,” she promised, not wanting him to stop, afraid he would. Afraid she wouldn’t feel the ultimate pleasure his kisses, his fingers had promised would be hers with their consummation. She raised her hips, taking him deeper, moving her body against him, feeling pain give way to the pleasure she sought, welcoming the electricity spreading through her inner thighs.
She hadn’t lied. She wasn’t a virgin.
Not anymore.
Darby’s head throbbed, her eyes burned, and her muscles screamed in protest at the night’s activities. Her lips felt bruised, and she’d tossed her head back and forth to the point she’d never get the tangles from her hair.
Still, she smiled as she stretched.
What an amazing night. She ached in places she hadn’t known she could ache. A good ache. Like when you’d run a marathon and won. Like when you’d been made love to over and over by a man who couldn’t get enough of you.
She had.
Sweet and tender, hot and fast, Blake had claimed every inch of her body.
She’d done some claiming, too.
She smiled at the memories. Blake’s groans of pleasure at her touch, his worshipping of her body and his teasing her awake with kisses when she’d thought she was too tired for more. She’d been wrong.
Not bad for a beginner.
With the way Blake had held on to her afterwards, she’d say not bad at all. They’d been good together. She didn’t have to have experience to know they’d shared something special.
Was it because she loved everything about him? His eyes, his smile, his spicy scent, his pin-up abs that she’d licked every indention of, his intelligence, his…? Oh, she loved him. Enough said.
Rolling onto her side, she opened her eyes, ready to wake him and tell him every emotion in her heart. Instead she looked into black eyes.
Black eyes that were filled with regret. And guilt. And more regret.
The Surgeon's Miracle / Dr Di Angelo's Baby Bombshell Page 25