“I’ll do a taste test. Later.” I laughed at her shiver. “But now, I could use something a little more substantial.” She unfastened my pants and shoved them to the floor.
“Oh yeah, like what?” She had me in her hands, stroking with just enough pressure as her gaze stayed fixed on mine. Her heat sucked me in closer and closer to the damp vortex between her thighs and she pulled me in.
“Rory.”
“Like this?” she asked, and I flexed my hips, sinking in.
“Rory,” I groaned again as her heat enveloped me and I slid in all the way. “God, you feel so good.” She was so wet and slick, I felt my legs tremble and I held onto the counter to stay up.
“You feel even better,” she groaned, rolling her hips and squeezing my cock like a vise. “Kane, please.”
I knew what she wanted and I was too damn eager to give it to her, pumping my hips like a man on a mission as I chased down her pleasure and mine. She cried and moaned, mewled so loudly it strained the bounds of my control, ripped it to shreds as I drove deeper and faster like a wild man. Mad with lust and the desire to reach the ultimate pleasure. “Rory,” I growled a warning feeling my control close to snapping.
“Kane,” she said, breathless as her legs crossed behind me to change the angle so I could slide deeper, falling into that dark abyss. She convulsed and shuddered as her orgasm built, clutching me in a soft glove that felt like heaven. “I’m…oh!”
“I know,” I told her, sliding in faster and deeper while I rubbed quick circles on her clit. “Let go. Now.” Watching Rory come apart ranked up there with seeing the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower. She was a work of art, a sight to behold, as her skin flushed, her nipples pebbled and her lush mouth formed a sexy ‘o’ that had my mind conjuring up all kinds of other sexy images.
“Kane!”
Hearing her cry my name over and over like it was the refrain of her favorite song pushed me over the edge. “Oh, Rory,” I growled in her ear before stealing her mouth in a dirty kiss while I rode out my pleasure on her body. “Fuck.” Shivers made it impossible to move and I felt so wrung out, so satisfied I thought maybe the kitchen counter wasn’t so bad after all.
Then Rory laughed. “That was great and all, but right now I’m literally between a rock and a hard place.” She shook with laughter, squeezing me with her muscles.
“If you don’t stop that we’ll end up here all night.”
With the most serious expression I’d ever seen her wear, the little minx squeezed again.
* * *
“You didn’t have to bring food, you know.” Rory sat on the sofa, her legs stretched out across several cushions with her feet buried under my bare leg. She wore the white t-shirt I had on when I knocked a few hours ago, eyeing my bare chest as she ate duck with noodles from a paper carton.
“I know I didn’t have to, but it’s selfish on my part since you’ll need the fuel.”
One auburn brow arched in amusement. “Just me?”
I nodded. “You said earlier you wanted to try being on top.” My cock had instantly gone hard when she said that, only moments after I’d bent her over the sofa and fucked her until we were both cross-eyed and boneless. “I’m just doing my part.”
She laughed but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Look at you being all kinds of helpful. You’re a regular good Samaritan, aren’t you?”
I wanted to ask about the look in her eyes, but I knew she wouldn’t tell me so I shrugged. “Some might say so.”
With a laugh, she rolled her eyes and deftly picked up her noodles with chopsticks. “I appreciate it even though this isn’t about…that.”
I was sure my face showed the confusion I felt. “What?”
“Anything more than sex. I just want you to know that I get it. I’m new at this, but I know what it is. That’s all. Plus I love noodles. And duck,” she said and put more in her mouth.
I wanted to ask more questions but like she said, this was about sex. Not long dinners and interesting conversation. But still. “There’s no reason we can’t talk and get to know each other Rory. We are neighbors.”
She thought about it and then seemed to agree. “Why did you choose fertility and obstetrics?”
“I wanted to be a surgeon, but on my ER rotation I helped a woman through a tough delivery. She was so worried because she’d gone through a lot just to get pregnant. It kind of stuck with me, I guess.” Now was my chance to learn more about her. “How are you still a virgin?”
She flashed a bright, goofy smile. “I’m not. I lost it to a hot doctor.” I rolled my eyes and she laughed. “My mom split when I was fifteen so I had to take care of myself or end up in foster care until I was eighteen. Since I graduated when I was sixteen that would have put my plans on hold, so I got a job and stayed in the apartment, keeping my head down so the manager wouldn’t find out. I couldn’t risk getting distracted by boys or getting kicked out, so I didn’t date.”
“Wow. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” It made me feel like a jackass for some of the assumptions I’d made about her.
She shrugged like it was no big deal, but we both knew it was. “In college I was so much younger than everyone, always. I didn’t even get a real date until senior year. I was twenty, still too young to get into bars so even that relationship lasted about a month.”
“And after that?”
“Grad school and work kept me busy.” She looked at me head on, expecting pity, and ready to hate me for it but she didn’t find it.
“How did your wife die?”
I frowned. “She’s not dead.”
Green eyes went round in shock. “Oh, well, Syd said she was gone forever and I just assumed…” She went back to her food and then froze, turning her gaze back to me. “Please don’t tell me you’re still married to her?”
“You think I’d be here with you if I were?” She shook her head but her eyes swam with uncertainty. “She left. Her high school sweetheart, the man she’d always loved, divorced his wife and found her on Facebook. She said they were meant to be, so she left us and started a family with him. It took a year to find her in the wilds of Montana, but I did and served her with divorce papers. she gave up all rights to Syd.” I shrugged because to me it was old news. “We haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
“That bitch!”
I smiled at her quick defense of my little girl. “That’s how I felt for a long time, but I figured if she could leave so easily, we didn’t need her.”
“Screw her and screw women who leave their kids,” she said, stabbing the air with one of her chopsticks. “You’ve done a good job with her. She’s bright and sweet and kind.”
“Doesn’t hurt that she’s a big fan of yours.” Shit, the last thing I should be doing is mentioning my daughter during a dirty weekend. I didn’t want Rory getting the wrong idea about this thing between us, and maybe talking about my daughter would confuse things. “Someone else is a pretty big fan too,” I told her, feeling my body respond when her gaze landed on my cock.
“A very big fan, I’d say.” She put her food down and slid across the sofa and onto my lap. Yanking the shirt over her head so her breasts were right by my mouth, she grinned. “That’s good because I’m becoming a bit of a fan girl myself.”
She smiled and kissed me. And then she finally got the chance to be on top.
Rory
“I don’t think I can feel my legs,” I laughed so hard my whole body shook but I really couldn’t feel my legs after the things Kane had just done to my body.
“You should have thought of that before you joined me in the shower,” he said, lying beside me on the bed, both of us still wet. “At least we finally made it to a bed.”
I knew he’d say something about the fact that we spent the past three days having sex everywhere but the one place we were supposed to. It had been a calculated move on my part, an attempt to mitigate the fallout from this ill-advised fling.
Despite my words of bravado, I
could already tell my feelings were getting wrapped up in this, and I couldn’t let that happen. This was just scratching an itch, nothing more. I knew that, I really did. Unfortunately, my body and my dreams did not. “Yeah,” I sighed, still fighting to catch my breath.
“This is a good bed. Firm with just enough bounce to be helpful and big enough to be adventurous.”
I smiled at the smile I heard in his voice. He had done a lot to me in this bed, hence the tingling numbness in my legs which he set about massaging and it felt so good I moaned. “You certainly were that.” He was a whole lot more than adventurous, and that meant getting rid his presence in here would be impossible.
“Hey, you okay?”
“You mean other than paralysis and complete satisfaction? Yep. Good.”
He pressed a kiss to the side of my breast and I suppressed a shiver. “When do you hear back about your thesis?”
“Soon. Could be tomorrow or next month.” I held my breath everyday waiting for a call or an email that never came. I knew it was a process, but other than a few minutes a day I didn’t focus on it because my nights with Kane had given me so much material for my newest novel. For now I could put my energy towards that while I waited to hear about my future.
A buzzing noise sounded in the distance and we both sat up and froze, listening for the source. “I think that’s my phone. Shit!” He stood and walked purposely from the room, giving me the perfect glimpse of his naked ass, so round and tan and muscular. He grumbled the whole way down the stairs to wherever his pants had been left. “It’s the hospital,” he called. “I have to go in.”
I hadn’t expected as much time as I’d gotten with him, yet I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get anymore. “Okay,” I called back, sliding his t-shirt over my naked body and meeting him downstairs. I had no idea what to say. What did you say to your long weekend fling before he left? “Have a nice life?”
“I’ll probably have a long night tonight, so.” He was at a loss as much as I was.
“We both knew you’d have to go some time.” That much was true, I was just the fool who thought it would be sometime tomorrow evening. “This was fun.”
He stepped into his jeans and smiled. “It was more than fun Rory, it was wicked and delicious. Incredible,” he told me and pressed a hot but soft kiss to my neck. “You have my shirt.”
I looked down like I didn’t realize it and grabbed the hem, pulling the shirt over my head and handing it to him. “So it is.”
Pride swelled in my chest at the way his gaze roamed over my body, lingering on the curve of my breast, the triangle between my legs. “Temptress,” he groaned and pulled me into his arms, kissing me with so much need it began to feel like a whole lot more than a four-night stand.
* * *
In the days and weeks following my weekend with Kane time seemed to fly by. The weather grew hotter as it tended to do during magnificent Portland summers, and I spent the mornings I didn’t have to work in the yard working on my novel. Or spending time with Sydney, who had proven to be a fun companion. I hadn’t seen or spent any time with Kane privately or otherwise since he was called away to the hospital, and when I did see him—at work or at home—I kept things professional and neighborly. From my perspective, he had forgotten all about the time we spent together, both in and out of bed, barely sparing me even a glance when he would retrieve Sydney from my place.
I shook it off as best I could and focused my energy elsewhere. I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t know what I was doing when I’d agreed to his long weekend of nothing but sex, utterly satisfying and wicked sex, but sex all the same. What I hadn’t realized, had no way of realizing, was just how difficult it would be to separate my emotions from the act itself. The fact that I was hurt and disappointed told me I was more invested in him than I realized. Now I knew though, and I wouldn’t be making that mistake again. Not with Kane or anyone else.
* * *
Watching him smile into the camera from the sidelines was bittersweet, because I knew he would never lay that sexy smile on me again. Luckily the taping was over, so I gathered my laptop and notes and shoved it all into my bag as I made my way from the cool dark halls of the studio and out into the eighty-seven degree heat. I pulled off my jacket and gathered my hair off my neck as I slid into my car and cranked the air conditioning. “Time to go home,” I said and smiled to myself as the phone rang. “Hello?”
“Hello, Aurora Cochran? My name is Tessa Whidbey from Kismet Publishing and I received a copy of your manuscript from Wendy Higgins. Aurora we all loved it. You found a way to make the coed and the professor insanely hot and unique.”
What? “Um, thank you Ms. Whidbey.”
She laughed. “Call me Tessa,” she said and then launched into an offer for a three-book deal as I sat in my car, shocked and thrilled. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m in shock,” I answered truthfully. “But I am also very flattered and interested. Really interested,” I added to the sound of Tessa’s tinkling laughter. “Oh, and I’m half way through a second book.”
“Wow! That’s amazing Aurora. If you really are interested I’ll have my assistant call you to set up a meeting in our offices here in LA. Will that work for you?”
“Please call me Rory and yes, that will definitely work.” We made plans to get together at my earliest convenience before ending the call. I screamed in excitement inside the confines of my car. This was it, finally some small nudge into the future. “I need to celebrate.”
So I stopped at the market for some grill essentials—beer, burgers, potato salad—and went home for a solo celebration. But not before I called Dr. Higgins to thank her and share the good news.
It was nice to have someone to share the news with and it highlighted just how little effort I made to include other people in my life. Hell, my best friend was a seven-year-old girl and I’d only known her for a few months. I hadn’t bothered to form attachments at all since my mom left, which meant I was completely alone. But it was what I knew best, so I figured it was best not to dwell on it too much.
“Hey whatcha doin’?”
I looked down from my place at the grill in the far corner of my side of the yard, flipping my garlic chicken burgers to see Sydney looking adorable in her pink tank top and denim overalls. “I’m grilling, what are you doing?”
She gave an exaggerated shrug. “Nothing. Can I stay here?”
“Sure, but only if you promise to share a burger with me.” Her bright smile warmed me from the inside out as she pulled up a seat and watched my moves intently.
“Okay.”
Syd fell silent and I figured her little mind was working on something big. “Do you remember your mom?”
Ah, that’s what it was. It made sense because we both were motherless. “I remember some things, but I try not to think about it. What I remember most is her perfume and the careful way she always put on makeup, it always seemed so glamorous.” Even though it was always so she could go out to a party or a date. Someplace that didn’t include me.
She mulled that over before asking another question. “Do you think my mommy left because I was bad?”
Removing the burgers from the grill I went and took a seat beside her, gathering her into my arms. “I don’t think that’s it at all sweetie. Being a parent is hard and for some people it’s just too much. But you know it’s better to have one really great parent than one who doesn’t want to be around, right?”
She nodded against my chest, sniffling and squeezing me tight around the neck. “I’m hungry,” she said, the sadness temporarily forgotten.
We sat at the picnic table and ate mostly in silence, both of us deep in thought. All too soon Margaret called her inside for her bath, so she gave me a quick hug and shot inside like the bundle of energy she always was. I wished I still had that much energy as I cleaned up and went inside.
At some point, I’d put on my pajamas and fallen asleep while binge-watching old episodes of 30 Rock bec
ause when I woke up there was a pounding on my front door. Disoriented I looked around to make sure everything was fine before I stood, stretched and then shuffled towards the door.
“Yes?”
Margaret stood on the other side of the door looking flustered and confused, her silver bun hung off to the side in a messy heap. “The child! She’s having some sort of attack. Come on and help me out, quick girl, quick!”
As her words penetrated my sleep fogged brain I finally heard them. Syd was in trouble. My feet began to move, pushing past her until I found the little girl lying on the sofa with labored breathing. “What’s wrong sweetie?” She pointed to a plastic container filled with chocolate cookies and I frowned. “You have an allergy?” She nodded and my heart rate began to skyrocket as I struggled to think straight. I didn’t know much about allergies, but I thought we needed an ambulance and told Margaret as much. “Do you have one of those pen thingies?”
In lieu of an answer her breathing became shallow and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I scooped her up and headed to my car before doubling back for my keys and purse. We needed to get to the hospital and I broke every speed and traffic law in the city to get her there before it was too late.
Kane
“Congratulations Mom and Dad,” I told the new parents who were each holding a crying bundle of baby girl. The night seemed like it would never end as I spent the past four hours elbow deep in pregnant women. I loved my job, I really did, but nights like this were hell. It was part of the deal my partner and I made with the hospital, but damn it left me exhausted.
My phone buzzed again for the twelfth time in the past hour and I groaned. I pulled it out to verify it was the same insistent caller. Rory. I didn’t get it, we’d been doing just fine ignoring each other for the past few weeks and now she was blowing up my phone and I couldn’t figure out why. So I picked it up and did nothing to hide my annoyance.
“What is it Rory?”
“Where have you been, and why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?”
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