“She’s not sure. She’s dropped some hints about me taking it over, but I don’t think that’s for me. I like to bake as a hobby, but doing it professionally is a whole other can of worms.”
He nodded.
“So why did you decide to go to medical school, Adam?”
“Probably because I was pre-med in college.” He winked.
“Funny. So what made you want to be a doctor?”
He shrugged, turning his wineglass by its stem. “I’m fascinated by the human body—the miracle of how it works and why, sometimes, it stops working so well. And when I was a kid and my grandpa got cancer, I remember telling him that I was going to be a doctor so I could fix him and make it go away.”
A lump rose in Nikki’s throat at the image.
Adam pressed his lips together and looked with infinite regret over the bay. “Of course, he died before I was even through junior high, but he took me very seriously. He said, ‘You do that, Adam. There are a lot of people like me out there who are going to need you. So study hard and pay attention.’ And I said, ‘Okay, Grandpa. I will.’”
The lump in Nikki’s throat grew larger. “So you want to go into oncology?”
“Yes,” he said. “Eventually.” He looked up at her. “It’ll take a while, you know.”
He said that with a slight, but very determined smile. She had no doubt that he would follow through. No doubt at all.
They shared a divine chocolate banana cake for dessert, along with top-notch cappuccinos.
“So what are your dreams, Nikki?”
She fiddled with her spoon. “Oh, besides paying off my medical debt, they’re pretty ordinary. I don’t need to set the world on fire. I grew up with just my mom, and things were hard for her. I guess if anything I’d like to help other women like her. Women who don’t have a lot of resources and who are bringing up kids on their own.”
“You didn’t know your dad?”
Nikki shook her head. “He didn’t stay around,” she said simply.
“Does that bother you?”
“Sure. Mostly, though, it makes me want two parents for my kids. And I would love to be able to stay home with them and watch them grow.”
“And what kind of guy is this other parent, your husband?” He looked at her speculatively.
You. The thought popped into her mind and rattled her. Wow, where did that come from? No, no, no—she was not going to be a doctor’s starter wife like Aunt Dee. Absolutely not.
She cleared her throat and said with sarcasm, “Well, of course, he’d be a crack addict with no future who beat me daily and sold me on the street corner for his fixes.”
“Charming. Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Yeah, me, either.” She stared into Adam’s eyes and he gazed right back at her, his own quizzical and full of humor and a trace of promise.
She looked away first, because the intensity of the eye contact made her squirm. “So. You want kids?”
He nodded.
The odd, expectant silence between them was broken only when the waiter returned to ask if they needed anything else.
“No, thank you,” Nikki said.
The waiter nodded, retreated and reappeared with the check. Adam palmed it and paid it with cash. She never saw the total.
He got up and extended his hand to her. “Ready to go?”
She rose and linked her fingers with his. “I don’t want this evening to end. That was a wonderful dinner, Adam. Thank you.”
“Nobody’s ending anything.” He squeezed her hand. “We’re just beginning.”
They walked out of Azul into the spacious hotel and then down to the Mandarin’s private beach, a stunning strip of white sand. The wind caught Nikki’s hair and toyed with it, blowing it this way and that. She inhaled a breath of fresh air, which was tinged with salt and moonlight, and then bent to slip off her sandals. Her feet settled into the cool sand.
Adam toed off his shoes, too, and took her hand as they strolled along and gazed out at the silvery water. The rhythmic rush, lap and recession of the waves echoed in her ears, an age-old island poetry. The ribbonlike leaves of the royal palms bent and swayed in the breeze, whispering seductively about magic and the moon.
She stopped and drank in the night, dropping her shoes on the beach. Adam caressed her shoulders and the warmth of his touch had her shivering.
“Cold?” he asked.
She shook her head and turned toward him. He looked taller, darker, more mysterious in the moonlight…so masculine.
It was a given that she’d sleep with him again, despite her big speech about not being a booty call. She was very attracted to him, even if he wasn’t a good long-term choice.
He ran both his hands down her nude back, up again to her shoulders and neck, then into her hair. He bent and kissed her as if tasting a delicacy, something exotic.
He slipped inside her mouth, toyed with her tongue, bit her bottom lip gently. “Do you know how much I want you right now?” he said in a low, hoarse voice.
She shook her head.
In answer, he slid his hands down to her hips and then her ass, which he cupped and pulled against him. He was hard against her stomach. “I want to be inside you more than I want to breathe.”
Electricity hit all her nerve endings at once.
“I want to pull up your dress and take you right here, standing by the water—make you come until you don’t know your name.”
She imagined it, her breath coming in shallow, short pants.
“You’re not wearing any panties, Nikki. Are you?”
She shook her head.
“So I could do it. I could lift your skirt and slide right into you, and you could ride me—”
“Stop it.”
“Why?” His hands released her derriere and then she felt his thumbs dip under the fabric at either side of her breasts. He unerringly found her nipples and rubbed light circles over them until a sound almost like a sob left her throat and her breath came in ragged bursts.
“Stop, you have to stop…you can’t do this to me here.”
“I can’t?” Adam glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was paying attention. Then he inched his fingers up the hem of her silk dress, blocking any curious eyes with his own body. He stroked her and the pleasure was so intense that she fell forward against him.
“You’re shamelessly wet, Nikki. Tell me what you want.”
With a moan, she rubbed herself against his fingers. She couldn’t help herself.
“You want me?”
“Yes!”
“Now?”
“Yes!”
He grinned, took his hand away and jerked her skirt down. “Bad girl, Nikki. You’re a very bad girl.”
She stared at him.
The wicked smile didn’t waver. “We can’t have sex in public. Are you trying to get us arrested?”
She was so hot that she didn’t care about the consequences, and he knew it.
“I’m going put my mouth where my fingers were, honey. And then I’m going to—”
“Get the car,” she begged.
And he laughed softly.
“Get the car before I—”
“Before you what, babe? Spontaneously combust?”
17
A BMW Z-4 WAS NO PLACE to have an orgasm. But as Nikki sat in the passenger seat, the powerful engine pulsed an insistent rhythm of vibrations at her core. She was already overstimulated from Adam’s beach foreplay, and a little wanton from the champagne.
Their headlong flight to his apartment was marred by several traffic lights, Adam screeching to a frustrated halt at each one.
Nikki shifted in her seat, but the vibrations didn’t get any less intense as they squealed up to a stop sign. Adam scorched her with a glance from his side of the car, and she began to feel short of breath again.
“Nikki?”
“Adam, it’s the weirdest thing, but I think I’m about to come—”
“No. Oh, no you don’t!” H
e gunned the engine and shot forward.
The accelerated vibrations made things worse. A deep tingle began between her thighs. “But I can’t help it…”
“Yes you can. Mind over matter.”
She willed the orgasm away, but the intensity in his tone was exciting and made it difficult. She parted her thighs and again shifted in her seat.
Adam burned rubber into his apartment complex and shot into a parking space. He vaulted out of the car, yanked her door open and pulled her out. She couldn’t help but laugh.
He hustled her to his door, just about kicked it off its hinges and tugged her inside before slamming it closed. Then he shoved her up against it, dropped to his knees and pushed up her skirt until it was around her waist.
Then his hot, taunting, talented mouth was on her, his hands digging into her inner thighs and his tongue circling her clitoris, then stabbing into her.
Nikki gave a low scream as a hot sea of pleasure engulfed her. Her whole body jerked spasmodically and her head banged back against the door. She would have fallen if not for Adam’s hands holding her up. And still, relentlessly he added to the intensity until she came apart a second time.
Finally he stopped, lifted her and absconded with her into his bedroom. He stripped off her dress, slipped off her sandals and laid her on the bed. She was vaguely aware that he put on a condom.
Then he slid into her, all the way home, and she loved the fullness, loved the way he seemed to lose his own sanity almost immediately and give in to the laws of pure pleasure.
“Too fast, too fast,” he murmured, and pulled almost all the way out of her. “But I solved the mystery.”
“What mystery?” She ran her hands over the smooth, taut skin of his shoulders and beautifully sculpted chest. She slid them down his muscular arms, covered his hands with her own.
“The mystery of how you wore that dress without a bra.”
“It’s built-in, silly.”
“Never knew they could do that.” He buried his face between her breasts and slid back into her with a deep groan. Then he toyed with her nipples, sucking first one and then the other into his mouth.
A medical student couldn’t figure out the lining in a dress? It wasn’t heart surgery. But she laughed. “As long as you can do this, then it’s okay,” she said.
“Mmm. I can do this very well.”
“Yes.”
“And this. And this, too…”
“Ohh.”
“You see, I’ve studied anatomy.”
“And what was your favorite part of the body?”
He drove into her, hard, and she squeaked. “I’m inside it right now.” He chuckled.
But the chuckle didn’t last very long. It soon gave way to ragged breathing as he built to his climax. This time she wasn’t along for the ride, but she took pleasure in his pleasure, in the minute muscular shifts of his body and the pounding of his heart. He drove harder and faster, and she arched her back and lifted herself off the bed to meet him and maximize their contact. She reached down to the underside of his cock and put two fingers against it, increasing the friction and sensation for him.
And he came almost violently, jerking spasmodically inside her. She gave a smug, feminine sigh and wrapped her legs more tightly around him.
“I think I may have just died,” he said, collapsing onto her.
She smiled in the darkness. “Then evidently you died a pretty happy guy.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “A lucky one, too.”
And he kissed her.
ADAM PUT ON SOME MUSIC—Vampire Weekend—and they drank more champagne. It was there, after all, and so were they. He was glad he’d chilled the glasses beforehand, and Nikki didn’t care at all that they were for wine and not champagne.
“Champagne glasses are a little frustrating,” she told him. “They don’t hold more than three or four mouthfuls.”
“Ah, yes…” he said in a terrible accent. “Ze French, zey think champagne should be sipped.” He mock-demonstrated, pinky flared out.
She laughed. “Well, I’m American and I like to drink it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Would you prefer a pilsner glass, then? I have one that will hold about half the bottle.”
She punched him playfully.
They talked.
And talked.
And talked some more…about everything from the Miami Dolphins to new research on a cancer drug, from movies they loved—his favorite was Inside Job; hers was The Thomas Crown Affair—to the best ice cream: Ben & Jerry’s versus Häagen-Dazs.
Nikki asked him for some ice water. “I have to stop drinking champagne, or my head will hate me in the morning.”
He laughed. “No, honey, you have to stop drinking champagne because it’s gone.”
She gasped. “Did we finish a whole other bottle?”
He nodded, wincing. He thought of his own probable champagne headache and how it would affect his concentration on his books tomorrow. Shit. He looked at his watch and saw that somehow, it had gotten to be almost two o’clock in the morning. So much for the four hours he’d allotted for the date.
“Is it past your bedtime?” Nikki asked, her tone light.
“Um.” He kissed her nose. “Yeah, kind of. I have to hit the books all day tomorrow. I should take you home.”
She was silent. “I could stay, and you could take me in the morning.”
Stay? As in overnight? That was very…girlfriendlike. And girlfriends needed a lot of time and attention and TLC. And he had so very little time. This was complicated. He hadn’t really thought beyond this date tonight. He wanted her to stay, but he would also need her to be gone in the morning.
No third chances, he reminded himself. You can only screw up your future once. The girl is gorgeous and sweet and funny and sexy—and a giant distraction that you cannot afford.
But Nikki was looking at him expectantly and he realized he had to say something. Now.
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “That’s the best offer I’ve had all night, but I have to warn you—I’ll get up at six to run.” There, that should do the trick. She’d be outta here.
“Six?” She was horrified. But she still didn’t ask him to take her home. “Don’t wake me.”
So she was staying. Adam tried to figure out how he felt about that. He yawned again and decided he was too tired for emotional introspection. He got up and extended his hand to her. “Okay, princess. You can sleep in.”
NIKKI TOLD HERSELF that she was imagining things. That Adam didn’t really want to be rid of her. That he was just tired and had tried to be a gentleman by offering to take her home.
Still, she couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that he didn’t want her there. She slept nude, and so did Adam. He kissed her—see, she was being silly—and then trailed his fingers down her body until he got to the little heart of hair at her mons. He was still fascinated with that, it seemed. Well, he’d better enjoy it while he could, because she was never going through that kind of sadistic torture again.
If nature had put hair there, there must be a good reason for it, even if that reason was mysterious. She drifted off to sleep with the scent of Adam’s skin in her nostrils and the warmth of him against her.
She awoke two hours later, dying of thirst. She slipped out of bed and felt her way out of his room and into the kitchen, where she found the light switch on the wall and flipped it on. She found a big plastic cup in a cabinet and filled it with cold water from the dispenser on the refrigerator, then gulped deeply as she looked around.
Adam’s apartment was furnished in Utilitarian Grad Student, with a mismatched sofa and chair and a racing bike and beige carpet and not a single plant. The most luxurious item in the place was the entertainment system, a flat-screen TV with stereo equipment. But even that was a brand she’d never heard of. A photo stood on an end table. It was of Adam and his family at the Grand Canyon. They all looked physically fit and breezily happy, without a care in the world. Nik
ki felt a pang of envy.
Her mother was under constant stress and had put on fifty pounds over the past few years. Of course, she spent her days making high-calorie pastries and cakes and breads. And despite Nikki’s nagging, she drank very little besides coffee. Nikki thought of the dizziness again and worried.
She drank every ounce of the water from the huge cup, and felt better. She wandered over to a corner desk that Adam had set up in the nook between the kitchen and living area. It was stacked with books and papers and binders of more paper. The books had titles like Metabolism and Reproduction, Host & Defense and Foundations of Medicine. They were fat and intimidating. She lifted the cover of the top one and took it over to the light, where she flipped through it. Medical and scientific jargon filled the pages, making her cringe.
Suddenly the ice-maker in Adam’s fridge churned out several cubes, making her jump. She dropped the book, which landed on her toes, and she couldn’t help a yelp of pain.
“Nikki?” called Adam, sleepily.
“Uh, hi. Sorry. I was looking at one of your books and dropped it.”
He came out of the bedroom, yawning and rubbing at his face. Though his hair stuck up in strange tufts and he had sheet marks on his face, he looked like any woman’s fantasy.
Broad, muscular shoulders topped a ripped chest with just enough hair to look masculine without the woolly bear factor. His belly was flat and cut with muscle. His hips were narrow, and…well, what lay between them was only semi-dormant.
Adam was hung.
As he took in her naked body while she still clutched the book, he came more fully alert. So did the rest of him, and she stared, fascinated.
He grinned at her. “What are you doing with my Metabolism and Reproduction book? Studying at 4:30 a.m. is my thing.”
She shrugged and held up the cup. “I couldn’t sleep, and I was thirsty.”
“Hey, beautiful. Stop snooping and come ’ere.”
“I wasn’t snooping!”
“Uh-huh.” He moved forward on those long, graceful, athletic legs of his and twitched the book out of her hands. Then he easily picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
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