Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  With strong arms, Hank pulled her firmly against his body, his palms singeing her back. Again, his lips burned a trail from the corner of her mouth down her neck. Callie felt herself light up everywhere at once. His confident fingers slid under the hem of her T-shirt, his thumbs raising goose bumps on her stomach. His kisses soldiered on, his lips teasing her collarbone.

  Following his lead, Callie’s own hands ducked under Hank’s shirt. She’d wanted to touch his inked chest since the moment she’d first laid eyes on it. But when her hands grasped his waist, he stiffened, his mouth stalling on her neck.

  Whoops! She realized her mistake immediately. Callie had grabbed him right on the transition band—that tricky spot where his injury had wreaked havoc on his nerve endings. Anyone with paralysis had a hypersensitive spot, and she of all people should have known better.

  “Sorry,” she said quickly, extracting her hands. Backtracking, she raised her hands to his head, skimming her hands over his short hair.

  “Mmm,” he said approvingly, his arms relaxing around her. His hands slid up the bare skin of her back.

  She kissed him again, and all seemed forgiven.

  Then, with the slick grace of the well-practiced, Hank unclasped her bra. One hand reached up under the slackened silk, his thumb grazing the swell of her breast. And that was when she began to feel like tinder in a fireplace. His fingers were the matches. A single brush of his thumb across her nipple ignited her. Then both his hands cupped her breasts while his kisses thundered onward. The low moan she heard was of her own making. She was so deep into him then that she could taste more of him than of herself.

  Hank eased her down onto the generous sofa. The weight of his hips on hers was tantalizing. How long had it been since she’d been touched? God—a ridiculously long time. Since Nathan. But here she was, flat on her back on Willow’s sofa, with the sexiest man she’d ever met splayed on top of her.

  He broke off their kiss to slide her T-shirt over her head, and pull her bra away. These were flung on the floor. And then her breasts were in his hands, and he was kissing and licking and sucking their pebbled tips until her hips began to twitch on their own accord.

  Willow, guess what I did on your couch? Callie was able to withhold her laugh, but not the giant smile on her face.

  “Slide over, gorgeous,” Hank said, his voice husky. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled the two of them carefully onto their sides. Callie was trapped against the back of the couch, and she couldn’t imagine any better place to be. He hitched himself close, drawing two fingers down from her ear to her jaw. Then he kissed her again, his lips full and wet. She hugged him close to her, the solid wall of muscle that was Hank. The smell of fresh air and apple musk lingered on his clothes.

  Hank’s free hand slid down her bare torso, through the valley of her breasts and on to her tummy. She shivered as he grazed her navel and headed south toward the waistband of her jeans. “Ohh,” she sighed, unashamed of the signal it sent. His hands were very welcome on her body, and there was no point in pretending otherwise.

  He listened, fingering the button on her jeans until it gave way, then drawing down the zipper. She gasped as he slid one hand down into her panties, leaving shivers in his wake as he teased the skin below her belly button with his fingertips.

  Callie wanted to touch him, too. But how to do that? His shirt was in the way, and she didn’t want to try reaching underneath again, even to get at that beautiful chest. She ducked her head, kissing as much of his neck as his tee would allow her to reach.

  “We don’t need these,” he growled, yanking on her jeans.

  Callie lifted her hips just in time to feel all the fabric that had covered her falling away. And then she was bare. Hank’s hand slid down to cup her between the legs. She took shaky breaths as his tongue stroked hers, and his fingers pressed into exactly the place she wanted them. His thumb grazed her clit and she practically shot upward from the thrill. She hadn’t felt this turned on, this out of control in a very long time.

  Doctor Callie didn’t ever do things like this. Doctor Callie kept the lab coat on and worked double shifts. And look where that had led her? To endless months in an empty bed. To lonely nights critiquing the medical inaccuracies on reruns of Breaking Bad.

  Hank plunged his tongue into her mouth and his finger into her willing body. She was on fire, and happy to put herself at his mercy. His fingers circled, and her body wept with joy. She pressed closer to him, wanting more. Wanting everything. But Hank was wearing entirely too many clothes. Callie reached down and flipped open the button to his jeans.

  Was it her imagination, or did he hesitate then? It was true that they were moving awfully fast. But he’d gotten her naked already. Surely he wasn’t going to bail now? She kissed him hard, double checking his enthusiasm. His answer was a sexy groan.

  That was all the confirmation she needed. Today she wasn’t going to be the nerdy girl who was afraid to make a move. She put her lips against his ear, because even the bravest version of Callie couldn’t say what she was about to say above a whisper. “Fuck me, Hank,” she breathed. Then, with her fingers on the pull of his zipper, she yanked it down.

  And that was when everything stopped.

  First, he caught her invading hands in his. Then he let out a long breath. And then he sat up. “No… No. I can’t do this.”

  “What?” she gasped. She was buck naked and sprawled on her friend’s couch, panting from lust. And now he was facing away from her, his head in his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the air in front of him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to end up here.”

  Callie sputtered, struggling for words. What on earth did he want from her? “How did we end up here if you didn’t want to end up here?” Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears.

  With his face hidden, for a moment it was absolutely silent. “Old habits die hard,” he muttered eventually.

  “So…” Her head was spinning. “I wasn’t…” She didn’t even have a theory. “You got a look at the goods and decided to put them back on the shelf?”

  “That’s not what just happened.” His voice was gruff, and yet he didn’t look at her. And it was almost a blessing, because it would be difficult to imagine a more mortifying picture than the one she presented just then. “Callie, I’m sorry.”

  “Just go,” she said, looking around for her clothes. Only her jeans were handy, the panties tangled inside. With shaking hands, she wriggled into them.

  His head down, Hank transferred to his chair. He leaned over to shove his feet into his shoes. And then he wheeled toward the door. Callie hunted for her bra while he navigated the old farmhouse door, and the uneven threshold outside. She heard a bump and a curse, but there was no way on earth she would walk over there bare-chested to help him. He probably wouldn’t want her to, anyway.

  Finally the door slammed shut behind him. Moments later, she heard the engine of his car roar to life.

  Callie flopped back on Willow’s sofa and let out a giant breath of air. Her heartbeat still felt thready, but she kept it together. She held it all in until the timer beeped several minutes later. The sound of Hank’s tires peeling down the driveway had already died. So it was safe to wander over to the oven and open the door. The scent of spiced apples and butter rose into her nostrils. With Willow’s oven mitt, she extracted the pan from the oven, setting it on the stove top to cool.

  The tart was beautifully browned and bubbling hot. And the sight of it caused a prickle to hatch behind her eyes.

  * * *

  With his hands white-knuckled on the wheel and the gas lever, Hank cranked up the stereo, but even Citizen Cope could not drown out the noise in his head.

  He’d been so very stupid.

  His mistakes churned in his gut. He should have known better. It was just that he liked her so damn much, and it had made him hope. And hope was an evil bitch. Hope led him down this path, and whispered a lie in his ear.

  The lie was simp
le: that he could still please a woman. And in a sense it was still true. In some alternate universe, there existed a version of events that ended with her creamy thighs spread wide, and his tongue flicking across her clit until she screamed his name. With a little luck, it might have played out like that.

  At least for today, anyway.

  With Callie, he’d always intended to take things slow. Under no circumstances should he have gotten that amazing girl naked. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. But she was just so goddamned willing, her smooth body reaching for him, opening up to him. If he had only taken it slow, he could still be there with her right now. She might be torturing his mouth with that sweet tongue of hers, and those lips that pursed like a cat’s.

  But that wasn’t what happened, and he’d been a fool to expect her to want him the way he was. She’d asked him for the one thing he couldn’t easily give her, and when she’d spoken it—that little three-word request, one he’d welcomed many times in his former life—he’d known the jig was up.

  And then, he panicked. Spectacularly. The realization that she was about to put her smooth hands on his useless body…the hopelessness of it all had hit him hard. Because who was he kidding? Eventually it would have all come out.

  Or, rather, it wouldn’t come out, which was the actual problem. Even if he hadn’t gone cave man with her on the sofa, it would only have postponed the awkward conversation, and inevitable let down.

  No, that would still have been better. If he’d taken it slow, he could have spent more time in her company, pretending that he still had a happy life. And he could have avoided embarrassing her. The intimate words that had sprung from her mouth were still vibrating in the air when he’d abandoned her. She’d been horrified. The look on her face was going to haunt him.

  Hank pressed down on the custom hand control and cornered the car around a series of tight curves in the old road. But the memory of her face—the disappointment and the hurt—would not fall away. Hank slowed his speed and was even more honest with himself.

  It was a huge mistake to have even kissed her in the first place.

  He couldn’t be the man she wanted. That guy cracked his back on a half-pipe and disappeared. All that was left was this broken man, who still wanted women but could not hold up his end of the deal in the sack. Where did that leave him? Alone. Video games and beer in his decadent bachelor pad. He was thirty-one years old, and all the good times were behind him. And it wasn’t only the joys of fucking that he’d miss, but also the possibility of finding someone really special.

  He pressed down on the accelerator. Driving fast was often a consolation. But today, even that didn’t work. Shit. The fucking road was getting blurry. So Hank pulled over, coming to a stop on the shoulder. He rolled down the windows, hoping the October air and the darkening sky would cool him down. Three cows on the other side of the road looked his way, and then went back to chewing their cud.

  Hank cut the engine, and then the silence was complete. Even the crickets were done for the year. Aside from his own lonely breathing, the quiet echoed in his ears. He’d better get used to that sound.

  The only thing that might take some of the sting away was to go home and crawl inside a bottle of Macallan 18. But even that had its risks. If he ended up in the hospital again, he might manage to embarrass himself to the same woman twice in one day.

  Damn.

  It was all so fucking wrong, and nothing in the world would ever make it right again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning was Monday, and Callie had to go to work. But her mortification still hadn’t faded. An entire container of Cherry Garcia had not done the trick. She’d lain awake half the night alternately replaying the event and trying to imagine the horror of bumping into him at the hospital this week.

  Just to mix it up a little, she also spent an hour or two kicking herself for (almost) hooking up with a study participant. Strictly speaking, they did not have a doctor/patient relationship. Still, there must be a rule against it in some book, somewhere.

  When nine o’clock Monday morning inevitably arrived, Callie did what any self-respecting woman would do. She hid from Hank in her office.

  Eventually Callie would have to face him. Someday soon, she would have to buck up and offer Hank a smile in the hospital corridor, or a wave in the parking lot. But his rejection was still too raw, too fresh in her mind. So, after checking the therapy schedule like a stalker, she retreated to her desk at 9:40 a.m. Even if he was twenty minutes early for his ten o’clock, they couldn’t bump into each other.

  She logged in to her computer and got to work entering study data into a spreadsheet. By a few minutes past ten, she began to relax. But then came a knock on the door, and she steeled herself. “Come in.”

  The door swung open and Hank rolled in.

  Damn. It.

  He wheeled past the open door and turned to face her desk, his expression unreadable.

  Callie stalled, staring down at the clipboard on her desk for a beat. But then she forced herself to meet his eyes, and all the heat she’d felt yesterday threatened to reappear. All too recently she’d had her body wrapped around those big shoulders. Those gorgeous, masculine lips had worshiped her neck and her shoulders. Thank God for the desk acting as a barrier between them. All the things she felt about him were too raw for close proximity.

  Hank took a breath that looked pained. “I came to say that I’m sorry I was an ass. I hope we can still be friends.”

  She had to give him points for bravery. It couldn’t have been easy to knock on her office door this morning. But… Friends. What woman doesn’t dread that word? She could think of literally nothing to say, and there was only a small chance she’d kept the flinch off her face. For the past sixteen hours she’d tortured herself, wondering what she’d done wrong. He’d kissed her like a starving man, and then practically launched himself from the room.

  The worst part was that she’d actually said the words “Fuck me, Hank.” They had tumbled from her mouth for the first time in her life. She’d let her guard down completely in that moment, and it all went bad. Each time she remembered saying it, she felt like throwing up.

  “Callie.”

  She looked up at him, and an uncomfortable silence settled over the little room. It was her turn to say something, and she found she could not.

  A shoe squeaked in the doorway, startling her. Callie swung her chin toward the open doorway, which now framed Nathan.

  Damn, damn, damn! How much worse could a morning get, than having both of her romantic disasters lurk at her office door?

  Oblivious to her discomfort, Nathan cradled a little paper plate in one hand. “Morning, Callie. This apple tart is amazing! Did you make this?”

  And now her mortification was complete.

  She cleared her throat. “You know damned well I don’t bake, Nathan. And I’m kind of busy here…”

  He swallowed a bite. “I was hoping you could work a shift for me tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow?” She hesitated. The only positive thing about Nathan’s intrusion was that it helped her to stall. She still didn’t know what she was going to say to Hank. “Nathan, that’s the third time in a week you’ve asked me to cover for you.”

  He shrugged. “Your swishy new job leaves us all in the lurch, Callie. Besides, it’s a Tuesday night. I’m not asking for New Year’s Eve, babe.”

  Her blood pressure kicked up at notch. The implication was obvious. What did Callie need her evenings free for, anyway? “Why, Nathan?”

  “What do you mean, ‘why’?”

  “Tell me I’m not covering for you so that you can watch Dancing with the Stars.” She knew all his quirks, and she wasn’t afraid to point them out when it suited her.

  At this, Hank chuckled, and Nathan turned to look down and around the half open door, spotting him for the first time. “Oh, sorry,” Nathan said, forking up another bite of apple tart. “I didn’t see you down there.”

  N
athan’s apology could not have sounded more dismissive. Callie cringed again. Lately, she had become very sensitive to the stupid things people often said to wheelchair patients.

  This was her life now—a series of embarrassing moments strung between long shifts in a lab coat.

  But Nathan went on, oblivious as always. “Since you asked, Shelli and I are going to the Somerset Inn to taste wedding-reception entrées.”

  Of course they were. And Nathan wouldn’t have offered that detail if she hadn’t asked for it. Well played, Callie. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

  “Well, will you do it?” he pressed.

  Misery made her bold. “Nathan, I’ll do your shift if you put the snow tires on my car.” They both knew how much she hated going to the dealership. The guys there were slow, and they always treated her like a stupid little woman.

  Nathan gave her a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  He ate the last bite of apple tart. “Fine,” he said, chewing. “That’s another two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

  “Nathan, my time is valuable, too.”

  “But there’s overtime pay…” He frowned. “Screw it. You win.” He turned around to go. “Can I have another piece of this apple thing?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she snapped. Finally, he walked away, and Callie dropped her head in defeat. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said after a beat.

  Hank pushed the door closed. “You just convinced that other doctor to change the tires on your car?”

  Callie pressed her forehead into her own hand. “He’s not going to do the work himself. His manicure is safe.” Nathan’s fastidiousness had always bordered on obsessive.

  “So the apple tart was good, huh?”

  Good was an understatement. Standing alone in Willow’s kitchen, she’d eaten a single piece while it was still warm. And it was pure bliss—the crust perfectly flaky, the apples tart and spicy. This morning she’d put the rest of it in the break room, because looking at it made her want to cry. Now, Callie took a deep, slow breath in through her nose. “I can’t… Why are you making me talk about this?”