by Jill Monroe
The head of his penis replaced his gently exploring finger, and all thoughts of math and time and calendars fled. Now she was all about sensation.
With a shift of his hips, Owen slid inside her with a slow and steady thrust. Her inner muscles instantly clamped along his length and she held her breath.
“You with me, Stella?” he asked, his deep voice strained. “You’re so tight. You feel amazing.”
She lifted her eyes to his face, and while it was too dark to read his expression, Stella felt the tension emanating from his body. Oh, she was with him. Stella nodded.
But still he didn’t move. Sweat broke out along his brow, proof of his effort to hold back so he wouldn’t hurt her.
“I’m with you, Owen. I want you so bad.”
Slowly, as if the man didn’t trust himself, he withdrew from her only slightly, then thrust inside again. She moaned as a surge of pleasure made her shiver. “More. Again.”
Owen didn’t hesitate this time, pulling from her body and thrusting over and over. He easily found the tempo that drew the deepest moans and most powerful trembles from her body.
She’d been right. Owen knew exactly how to work his body. And hers. Stella locked her feet behind his back and his free hand found her breast. He rubbed the tip with his thumb and she lifted her hips to meet his thrusts.
She grabbed the hand that was cuffed to hers and he twined his fingers through hers. An unexpected wave of tender intimacy rushed through her and sensation exploded inside her. Her muscles clenched with the power of her orgasm, and her shoulders and hands shook.
His big, beautiful body pumped into her, and then he came, too, his moan lingering in the air like something to be savored. He slumped beside her on the narrow bay window bench, their cuffed hands still intertwined. Her breathing was harsh but his was even more ragged.
She smiled, content to watch the shadowed lights of the city through the sheerness of the curtain.
After a moment he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down into her face. He ran his finger along the curve of her jaw.
“I want to make some joke right now about how I still have a fire that you need to put out.”
“I think I could help you out with that. Or I could tease you about how you’re almost a doctor so you should have the perfect prescription for this discomfort I get right here.” He drew her hand to his cock. “It happens whenever I’m around you, Doc.”
She gave him a mock stern look. “Sounds serious.”
“But we’d never make those kinds of jokes.”
“Nah, nothing that corny,” she agreed. Then Owen swooped down and landed his mouth against hers and kissed her. As he cupped her face, his tongue slid between her lips. Her free hand went to the back of his neck to draw him closer. Stella pressed herself against his chest, giving as much to their kiss as she took.
And suddenly they were no longer playful, or looking to make corny jokes, and she was not chalking their night up to ending her man-fast.
“I want to spend the weekend with you,” he said.
Had there been sweeter words? His statement was exactly what she wanted to hear, and she hadn’t even realized she’d wanted it.
“Me, too.”
“Just not on this uncomfortable bench. I barely fit.” And then he swooped her up in his arms and dumped her on the bed. He stretched out beside her and she rested her head on his chest. His heart pumped a steady rhythm beneath her head, enticing her to doze. “Now that’s more like it,” he said, his voice heavy with sleep.
She stifled a yawn behind her hand. “I think our eventful night is catching up with me.”
“Same.”
“I mean, I’ve never been kicked out of a roller rink before.”
Owen’s chest rose as he chuckled. “I’ll never get a big head around you.”
She lifted her head to gaze at the glowing red numbers on the bedside clock. “It’s been hours since PharmaTest gave us that medication. Even if we weren’t on the placebo, with the passage of time and the adrenaline we’ve burned through since escaping that place, I’m thinking any immediate effects would have passed. Guess we really didn’t need the cuffs. Memories of tonight still intact.” Forever.
“I’d search again for the keys, but I have this gorgeous brunette pinning me to the bed.”
She snuggled against his side. “You complaining?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You know, I kind of feel sorry for that lady who checked us out.”
“Larissa?” he asked.
Stella snapped her fingers. “That’s her name—good memory. Poor woman. There she was, just trying to do her job, and she wound up with the four of us.”
“And she was right. Participating in medical studies like that is important to me, and we made it way more difficult for her.”
Stella bit back the urge to ask him more about why he’d participated in the drug trial. She’d been volunteering for medical experiments since her freshman year of college. Growing up in a house of physicians, she understood the value of medical research. But Owen had suggested he’d lost someone. This drug trial must have been much more personal for him.
“How’d you end up at PharmaTest? The plates on your truck say Colorado.”
“The building used to be the volunteer center for a different organization. Thought I might kill a few hours there until I met up with my family. Which reminds me, I should call my mom so she’s not waiting.”
“We should also call Larissa. Just to let her know we’re okay.”
“Good idea. I think the number was on the ID bracelets.”
Stella slid out of bed and started for the dresser across the room, only to be jerked back. She lost her balance and landed on the bed with a flop. “That didn’t go as planned.”
He leaned over her, his head upside down in relation to hers, and kissed her forehead. “Guess we’ll have to go together.”
He walked behind her toward her partially torn blouse. It had been so cute at one point. Oh, well, no use mourning when her top had given its life for her pursuit of pleasure.
“Please tell me you aren’t going to try to put it on for a third time.”
“Hadn’t crossed my mind.” Yet. She tugged her phone from the pocket of her discarded shirt and grabbed the PharmaTest bands off the dresser, Owen close behind. She turned and his gaze lifted.
“Were you checking out my butt?”
“Not anymore.”
Because now his gaze flipped between her breasts and her eyes. Her nipples hardened like they’d been caressed, and Stella smiled. She enjoyed being desired by this man. She wanted nothing more than to slip between the sheets beside him again.
After carefully dialing the number on the bands, she pressed the speaker function on her phone. The call went to voice mail.
“Hi, this message is for Larissa at PharmaTest. This is Stella Holbrook.”
“And Owen Perkins,” he said into the phone.
“We just called to let you know we’re great and you have nothing to worry about. In fact, we’re staying in the most beautiful room on the second floor at the Market Gardens. We hope we didn’t cause too many problems for you when we bailed on the test earlier. Bye.”
Stella pushed End.
“Do you feel better?”
“Yes, and we made that call just in time. My phone died.” Stella left her phone on the bedside table and tossed the wristbands into the trash. After the shortest conversation a man could have with his family, Owen closed his phone and leaned against the stack of fluffy pillows. Then she settled against his chest and closed her eyes.
He drew a lazy pattern on her back. “Stella, this was kind of a rough day for me, and tonight, being with you...just, thanks.”
“Mmm.”
“You falling asleep on me?”
“Who are you again?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.
Beside her, Owen tensed. “Are you serious?” he asked.
“Just kidding,”
Stella told him, her mouth wide with a smile. But she couldn’t keep her eyes from closing again.
His arm tightened around her shoulders while his cuffed hand gently squeezed hers. “Say my name,” he urged.
“Owen.” Then, like a patient inescapably lulled by the pull of anesthesia, she succumbed to sleep.
* * *
STELLA’S EYELIDS FLUTTERED open slowly. It was a rare day when she woke up without the help of an alarm. On one side, she was deliciously warm. But on the other, her backside was frozen against the hard, cold marble of a...bathtub?
She forced her eyes open. She wasn’t snuggled into a cozy blanket; her head was cradled on...on a warm male thigh.
And the man...whoever he was...his body clearly liked what it assumed would be happening next.
“Ahh!” Her voice was a cross between a yelp and a shriek. Stella scrambled away from the man, her hand slapping against his skin. She flew up and off the stranger at a record-setting pace, only for something to catch her wrist and force her back down. Hard.
Her eyes met his, then lowered. Was that a flame tattoo on his...
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, looking up. Way up.
His eyes narrowed, the brown in his hazel eyes growing dark. “Who am I? Who are you? And careful, you almost got me. You’ve got a mean left arm.”
Yeah, because her right arm was cuffed to his left. “Sorry, I was startled. I don’t wake up every morning with a man’s hardware staring me in the face.”
“This is new to me, too,” he mumbled. “This marble is cold. How about we get out of the tub?”
And maybe they could find him a robe or something, because...wow. When she wasn’t noticing his tattoo or his hardware, she realized this man packed a pretty serious punch. A solid chest with that perfect T of chest hair. Ripped and toned, the guy worked out. Religiously. Normally she didn’t go for the big-and-strong type. She preferred the science geeks, like her.
She wrapped her hand around the corner of the black-and-white marble tub, and together they stood. She sucked in a breath.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just a little stiff.”
He rotated his shoulders. “Yeah, the tub was cramped.”
But the bathroom was bigger than the kitchen in her apartment. Although the soaker tub dominated the space, a two-person rainfall shower shouted come rub shower gel all over your lover. And whose design idea was it to put floor-to-ceiling mirrors on every wall? Everywhere she looked, she was blasted by images of his naked body. And hers. But mostly his. Seriously, his ass was like something out of a plastic surgeon’s wish-list book.
She stepped out of the tub and onto the fuzzy bathmat, and the man beside her followed. They padded into a bedroom. A king-size bed with all the sheets and blankets askew greeted them. Of course. Decorative pillows looked to have been launched all over the room and an economy-size box of condoms lay on the nightstand.
“At least we practiced safe sex.”
“Always,” he assured her.
A bubble of panic rose and lodged somewhere in her chest. Stella took a deep breath. You are not going to panic. There’s a logical explanation. Then Stella realized she wasn’t panicking. Which was odd. Why wasn’t she freaking out?
Work the problem.
She’d start with the man beside her. Just because they were alone in a hotel room with a box of condoms didn’t mean they’d actually had sex. One-night stands had never been her thing, and despite nothing but studying, tests and observation for the past two plus years, she doubted she’d turned over the casual-sex leaf simply because she finally had a well-deserved break in her schedule.
Stella faced him then. She must have appeared more worried than she felt, because his hazel eyes softened. Gorgeous eyes. Gorgeous body. Yeah, she’d probably straddled this guy half a dozen times last night. Plus, her body felt deliciously exercised.
He seemed embarrassed, which was a big point in his favor.
“I don’t usually forget a woman’s name.”
Just when she’d thought this scenario couldn’t get more awkward.
“Stella,” she supplied. She raised her arm. “And the handcuffs?”
He shook his head. “Not my thing, but if a lady requests it...” He shrugged as if to say, Who am I to say no?
“You think these are mine?” Ugh, her voice teetered on sounding like a shriek.
The interest fled from his eyes, replaced with concern. “How much of last night do you remember?”
3
LARISSA WINSTON HAD been able to keep it together until she checked out her last patient. Then she locked the office door, turned the placard to Closed and leaned her forehead against the wall. In through your mouth, out through your nose.
Thirty seconds. She’d allow herself only thirty seconds to freak out completely, and then she’d start working on a plan. Her hands shook and she squeezed her eyes shut, stifling the shriek that had been building inside her since she’d begun checking out, so slowly, this morning’s test subjects.
Twenty-five seconds. So she’d lost four patients. Four.
Twenty seconds. The shaking became a full-on assault on her stomach. Larissa swallowed several times to keep from throwing up, and the wave of nausea passed.
Fifteen seconds. She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes. The muscles in her feet and calves relaxed. The pent-up tension and stress eased just a bit and she began to unwind.
Ten seconds. She finished out her freak-out with a mantra. Don’t rush. Don’t panic. Don’t make it worse than it already is.
Time’s up. Larissa wiped the sweat from the back of her neck and secured her red hair with the elastic she’d slipped on her wrist. She opened her eyes and slid her shoes back on her feet. Freak-out done. Slowly she switched off the lights in the reception area and turned the wand on the miniblinds. All normal. All tasks she’d performed dozens of times.
She slumped on the couch in the staff lounge. Now that she’d gotten the inevitable losing-it portion of the morning out of the way, she could find the bright side. Because there was always a bright side.
The four runaways had signed the waivers. Ding ding ding. Yes! First bright side, and it was a biggie. She’d warned the test subjects of the dangers of leaving and tried to keep them in place, and they’d left against her advice.
What the hell had happened last night? No one had ever reacted so strangely, and then boom—there’d been four. In the past, Larissa usually spent Thursday night of the test herding sleepy patients to their private bunks or offering board games and drinks to them in the patient activity room. Her Friday mornings were then passed gently waking patients, pushing caffeine-rich coffee onto the volunteers and completing paperwork.
But those four hadn’t been lethargic or anywhere near sleepy. They’d been charged. Racing into the night. Hooking up!
They’d released her of liability, she could let it go. Volunteer subjects fell out of research studies all the time. She could just mark these four down in that column—no-shows and dropouts. It was just that—and this was what negated that booming big bright side she’d discovered earlier—no one had ever bailed while under the influence of the medication. Funding was tightly competitive, and grants weren’t given to drug trials with blank spaces. Dr. Durant’s work depended on that money. She needed to follow up on the runaways. Who knew what those four had done last night? Could she be so lucky that they’d all just gone home to sleep it off?
Investigating what happened to the four wasn’t part of her job, but it was the right thing to do. And not just for the individual test subjects, but also because of the potential of HB121. If it worked the way Dr. Durant claimed it did, the drug would save countless lives. And if it was corny to say she wanted to leave the world a little better than how she found it, then slap on the butter.
The phone rang, and her stomach flip-flopped when the caller ID revealed Dr. Durant’s number. Panic replaced the flips. He never called. His MO was to drop by the
offices, looking scholarly and sexy, to pick up the results himself. Had he found out somehow about the lost patients?
Her fingers shook as she picked up the receiver. “PharmaTest. This is Larissa Winston.”
“Ms. Winston, this is Mitch, er...Dr. Durant.”
Her fingers squeezed around the handle. “Good morning, Dr. Durant.” Had he just referred to himself as Mitch to her?
“I’ll be around the PT offices earlier than usual. I thought if you hadn’t eaten we could catch some breakfast. Together.”
Panic upon panic layered with more panic twisted up inside her. He’d arrive before she could track down the four missing patients, and she’d have to confess that she’d lost them. “Oh, that’s okay. You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. You’re an important part of the HB121 team, Larissa. Of my team.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. He’d just called her Larissa. He’d never done that before. And had there been a special emphasis on the word my? Did Dr. Durant think of her as more than just the tech who took care of the test subjects? Larissa’s roommate, Kay, said that when Larissa wasn’t looking, the man could barely tear his gaze away from her. She’d just laughed it off and chalked it up to Kay’s attempt to instill a little false courage in Larissa so she’d make the first move toward the über-hot doc.
Her shaky fingers found the hem of her scrubs and she began bending over the material in tight fold after fold. “I, uh...really have a lot to do here.”
“Oh.”
An uneasy quiet hung between them over the line. Dr. Durant actually sounded disappointed. Like his invitation hadn’t been that of a coworker politely asking another to tag along for a meal. Was it the goddess of irony or the god of bad luck she had to thank for messing up this opportunity? Any other day, she would have been offering to pick him up after even the slightest encouragement.
“I guess I’ll see you when I stop by to look over the results. Bye, Ms. Winston,” he said, the politely professional Dr. Mitch Durant back in place.
After dropping the phone into the cradle, Larissa hugged her legs to her chest and rested her forehead on her knees. No, no, no. Why now?