The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  HE wasn’t gentle.

  And why, Ava wondered as his lips molded to hers, had she assumed that he would be? This was a man who knew what he wanted. And knowing, took.

  Hadn’t he ended up here, with his mouth on hers, despite all her efforts to the contrary?

  Hadn’t he herded her like a damn sheep?

  Pride pricked, Ava raised a hand to his chest, considered bringing him to heel after she’d gotten a taste, just a taste of him.

  But when she parted her lips, Jordan charged like a warrior into battle.

  Open-mouthed and hot, his lips plundered hers, tongue dancing inside to pillage with light, teasing strokes. The fingers of one hand tangled in her hair, and forming a fist at the base of her skull, tugged it like a rope. With her neck exposed, he traded lips for teeth.

  White knight? More like a damn Viking.

  He pulled her in close, heart pumping so that she felt it like her own. A shudder coursed through her, vibrated through him. And when his hand closed over her breast, Ava heard herself moan.

  “Probably,” she sucked in air, felt it burn her lungs like flame. “Probably we should slow down. Try to get a grip.”

  “I like the grip I have.” Ava’s eyes nearly crossed when his thumb found her nipple. He rolled it to a hard peak, then shifted his hand, cupped her. “All those meals you haven’t been skipping? Definitely keep that up. Your body is…” he let his eyes roam. “Sorry. I think my brain just fried.”

  “You do have a way with words.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers in greedy little nibbles, and Ava threaded her fingers into the curls at his nape. The hair there was soft, and sifted through her fingers even as the power to reason slipped from her mind. She knew she needed to stop, needed to consider, but it was all she could do to breathe.

  One more kiss, she thought vaguely. And then got lost in the taste of him again.

  It was like drowning. In heat. In pleasure.

  When he nipped her by the hips, she flowed like liquid onto his lap. The protesting squeak of the cot was no more than an echo through the waves.

  “Ava.” He breathed her name, the murmur hot against her neck. His fingers skimmed her collarbone, slid down her arms to squeeze her hip. When he eased her dress up the length of her thighs, she sank her teeth into his bottom lip.

  “Jesus. Ava, let me see you.”

  Aggressively now, he pushed at the clingy fabric. Tried to pull it with hands that weren’t quite gentle over her dampened skin.

  “It’s just cruel,” he said between gritted teeth “to make a dress like this out of glue.”

  “I… it’s… oh, hell.” Ava gave up the protest, and added her efforts to his.

  The dress was halfway over her head when the cot collapsed.

  “Shit.” Ava was swamped by a sea of red. As Jordan had muttered the same curse, though, she was pretty sure the second thunk she’d heard was his head hitting her office wall.

  Discarding the dress in a heap, she saw that she was correct. Hand pressed against his stitches, the unmistakable look of pain glazed Jordan’s eyes.

  “Oh, poor baby. Let me see.” She lifted his hand away and saw the telltale streak of blood. “You opened up your stitches.”

  And her own blood cooled, degree by degree, as she studied the wound.

  And studying the wound – the wound her uncle’s men had inflicted – reminded herself of exactly why she shouldn’t be sitting here, half naked, on the verge of having what no doubt would have been incredible sex with Jordan Wellington.

  “NO biggie,” Jordan hissed, although it hurt more than a little.

  But the headache was nothing compared to the pain in the part of his anatomy currently doing the thinking. Her bra was pink. Pink satin sort of… cut out here and there to reveal pieces of black lace. Eyes burning, Jordan made an effort not to swallow his tongue. “Where were we?”

  He reached for her, but Ava evaded his hands. “We were just about to go back to an exam room so that I can stitch you back up.”

  “What? Wait. What?” Had she just said something about stitching his head? “My stitches are coming out tomorrow.”

  “Not anymore, they’re not.” She stood up and made a grab for her dress. “The skin on the head’s delicate. It splits relatively easily, and tends to bleed a lot. You’ve broken at least two sutures. I’ll patch you up, and you can call your doctor tomorrow and tell him what happened.” She pulled her dress over her head and held out a hand to help him up.

  “But… but…” Jordan sputtered, unsure which horrified him more, the fact that the pink satin – and all it barely covered – had disappeared, or the idea that Ava actually thought she was going to stick a needle through his scalp.

  “Can’t we just skip that part and go back to the underwear?”

  “You’re bleeding on my wall.”

  “So give me a band-aid.” When he saw that was getting him nowhere, Jordan took a different tack. “Ava, you’re a vet,” he pointed out.

  “No kidding.” She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Come on, big guy. I promise I’ll be gentle.”

  “But, you can’t stitch my head.”

  “Why not?”

  Jordan blinked, having a hard time understanding why she needed to ask that question. Being a sane, rational person, he thought the answer should be perfectly clear. “Because you’re a vet.”

  Storm clouds gathered behind her eyes, sending out small, angry bolts of lightning. “Yes, well you’re a horse’s ass, so I think that makes me qualified.” Turning on her heel, she and her underwear sailed out the door.

  “Wait a minute!” Jordan struggled to gain his feet. Exactly how, he asked himself, had the situation deteriorated from the fulfillment of three days’ worth of lustful dreams into him defending himself from a needle?

  She was a veterinarian, for God’s sake.

  “Ava!” His voice echoed off the cinderblock walls as he hobbled off to find her, his body protesting the fact that the other half of the mating ritual had flown the coop. Cursing, he staggered down the hall until he located her in the room where she’d examined Finn.

  Her back might have been toward him, but the wave of ill will that slammed into him when he approached made it clear she knew he was there.

  “Ava, I appreciate that you want to help but…” His voice died on a strangled sound as she turned, suspicious looking hypodermic in her hand.

  “Look. You can’t be serious.” Could she? “I mean surely there’s some… code or ordinance or something that prevents you from working on humans.” He shifted his bare feet, damp flesh sticking to the linoleum. He would have wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, but was mortified enough as it stood.

  “You’re the lawyer,” she said after a beat. “Why don’t you tell me?” Giving the hypo an almost infinitesimal push, she sent a small stream of liquid from the tip.

  “Ah-ah.” That sucking noise was the sound of his testosterone drying up. “Well, off the top of my head I guess… no, no – I’m certain that your license limits your practice strictly to veterinary medicine. Unless you have some secret M.D. lurking around that I don’t know about.” He did a quick scan of the walls, half afraid that he might find one.

  Shit. He hated stitches.

  “Jordan.” Ava tilted her head to the side. “Are you afraid of letting me stitch you up. Or are you afraid of stitches in general?”

  It was a trick question. Just like the thing about her weight. Because either way he answered, he was going to come out looking bad. The first way he insulted her, the other he looked like a wuss.

  And when it came to doctors and needles, his wuss quotient was pretty high.

  Damn that cot to hell and back.

  “Uh. A little of both.” Given a multiple choice question, he figured it best to pick all of the above.

  Ava seemed to relent. She laid the hypo back on the metal tray behind her. Thank God. “Okay. If you don’t want me to do it, that’s fine. Your other choi
ce would be to go to the emergency room. If you’ll get your shoes on, I can drop you off.”

  “I don’t need the ER for a couple stitches.”

  “Well, you’re probably right. We’ll just leave that wound open, hope it doesn’t attract bacteria. What’s a little staph infection, anyway?”

  Oh, the woman was good. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “Do?” She batted her eyes. “I’m just a lowly veterinarian. Why would I be trying to do anything to your thick head?”

  Jordan eyed her. Her dress was inside-out, her hair mussed from his own hands and her lips swollen from his kisses. And despite the fact that his mind screamed “Sex!” whenever he looked at her, there was no question she was an intelligent, capable professional. And had presented a logical argument that he would be stupid to ignore.

  Sort of like when he’d given her the choice earlier over accepting a ride from him or calling a cab.

  “Hell,” he said out loud, and meant it. He, the resident king of herding, had somehow allowed himself to be fenced in. “That syringe,” he eyed it warily “it’s not filled with some kind of horse tranquilizer, is it? What with me being one of their asses, and all.”

  With only the slightest quirk of her lips, Ava picked it up. “Much as I’ve enjoyed your little bout of trypanophobia – that’s the fear of needles, by the way – I’ll set your mind at ease. This is your basic lidocaine, used by human healthcare professionals everywhere. I keep it on hand, and have been trained in its proper usage, because animals are unpredictable creatures. A beak here, a tooth there. I’ve had to stitch my own skin more times than I can count.”

  And yes, that was his stomach, doing that long, slow roll. “Okay.” He fought down the nausea, the panic that wanted to rise like bile. “Okay. If you take a solemn oath to forget the whole… girly nerves thing ever happened.”

  “Promise.” But when she started toward him, Jordan held up a warning hand.

  “One more thing.”

  “WHAT’S that?” Ava tried not to smile. It was so damn cute that he was afraid of a little needle.

  Jordan eased closer. Then drew her closer still. He drew his finger down her nose and brought it to rest on her lips. “After you’re finished, you have to kiss it and make it better.”

  Despite the firm talk she’d just had with herself about not going there with Jordan, Ava’s heart fluttered. How could anyone, anyone not dead and buried resist those incredible eyes? “All part of the service.”

  He dropped his lips to hers, softly this time, and the sweetness of it flowed through her like honey. This kiss, so different from before, stirred something in her beyond lust.

  It occurred to her that Jordan Wellington was the kind of man women fell in love with.

  Luckily, he distracted her from that thought. “Does that mean you make a habit of kissing your patients?”

  “Only the ones who whine about getting stitches. Now buck up, Blue Eyes.” She patted her hand on the seat of the folding chair beside her. “This will only take a minute.”

  Jordan didn’t move. “What did you just call me?”

  “I called you Blue Eyes. Why? They happen to be quite striking. In fact, I’m sure it’s not the first time someone has commented on that particular feature.”

  “Yeah, I get that. It’s just…” The sentence trailed off.

  “It’s just what?”

  “NOTHING.” He shook his head, and dropped into the chair. And because he was trying to recall why that sounded so familiar, he didn’t even feel the needle.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHEN her internal alarm told her that morning had come, Ava was mildly embarrassed to find herself wrapped around Jordan like a human bow. Head pillowed on his shoulder, legs tangled with his, and damn if her fingers weren’t clutching a handful of his shirt.

  His shirt. She gave the article in question a little pat of relief. At least they both had on their clothes.

  Had their clothes on, she mused, because the tenor of the evening had changed after she’d pulled the last suture through his scalp. The work had cleared her own head, reminding her that a sensible, intelligent woman, a woman with a healthy instinct for self-preservation, didn’t just fall into bed with the enemy. Or let him into hers. Well, technically, he was in her bed at the moment. But the point was they hadn’t had sex.

  She’d half expected him to leave when it became clear that that possibility was no longer on the table.

  But he’d stuck.

  And part of her – the part she tried to keep buried under a thick layer of self-sufficiency – couldn’t help but be grateful. Couldn’t help but wallow a bit, she admitted, sliding her hand across his warm chest. Couldn’t help but feel foolishly female, safe and protected in his arms.

  Jordan was a good man. The first man in as long as she could remember that made her feel… delicate.

  Ava cursed that notion as soon as she had it. She wasn’t some damsel in distress.

  Okay. So maybe she was a damsel, and her life situation at the moment might fit anyone’s definition of distressing, but that was beside the point.

  She had always been able to take care of herself.

  She didn’t need a man to look after her. And more importantly, Jordan, by nature of whom and what he was, was no safe port for her storm.

  If anything, he was an iceberg waiting to take her down.

  But despite all that, she couldn’t help but appreciate how nice it felt simply to be held. Of course, it had felt pretty nice to be kissed and groped and fondled as well. And as her brain climbed out of the thick muck of slumber, she began to wonder how it would feel to be kissed and groped and fondled again.

  Pretty damn good, she decided.

  Squinting against the stream of daylight intruding through her cracked office door, Ava tried to stop that thought from developing. No point in going there, being as she was a sensible, intelligent woman.

  But she could hear Jordan’s steady breathing, feel the rise and fall of his chest under her hand. And considered how easy it would be to slide that hand just a few inches lower.

  To see exactly how the good and luscious counselor felt about the case she could make for morning sex.

  She doubted it would take him more than a minute or two to agree to cross-examination.

  Ava stretched her fingers, and the front door chimed.

  “What? What happened?” Jordan shot up, dragging Ava with him. His arm tightened around her as he blinked like a bat rousted from the cave.

  “At ease, soldier.” Ava sighed against his chest, unsure whether to be grateful to or annoyed with her assistant. “Katie came in, that’s all. She’s early. Or I’m late. Either way, I have to get up.” She started to throw the sheet off, but Jordan grabbed her arm.

  “Not yet.” He pulled her toward him, heavy-lidded eyes warm on hers. His cheek was creased from the wrinkled sheets, his hair standing up at odd angles. The smell of the antibiotic ointment she’d used over his sutures tickled the back of her nose.

  She’d never seen anything so sexy.

  He kissed her forehead, a gentle press of lips. “Good morning.”

  The sweetness of it made her smile. “Good morning to you, too. Sleep well?”

  “Are you kidding? This mattress has the approximate density of a piece of cardboard. On top of that, I have two new stitches that are already starting to itch.”

  “Whiner.”

  “Yeah?” He splayed his hand over her back and inched her closer. “Well you remember what your policy is regarding patients who whine.” He settled his mouth against hers.

  “Oh. Wow. Sorry.” Katie leaned oh-so casually against the doorframe. “And to think I came in early to check on you. Guess I should have slept in. Good morning, Jordan.”

  “Ah… Back at you. Katie.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling awkward?”

  “It’s just you,” Katie assured him. “I feel absolutely divine. I have doughnuts.�
�� She gave the white bag in her hand a little shake, releasing the scent of cinnamon and spice.

  “From Sugarplum’s?” Jordan eyed the bag with interest.

  “Uh-huh. Just made. They’re still warm.”

  He let out a helpless groan. “If you give me one, I’ll be your slave.”

  “Come on.” She jerked her head to indicate that he should follow her to the break room. “I’ll make some coffee and you can tell me how you talked Ava into letting you spend the night.”

  “Coffee? Doughnuts? Forget Ava, and let’s talk about you, instead.” Dumping Ava off his lap, he stepped over the mattress. “I was thinking that we’d keep the wedding simple, and how do you feel about two kids and a dog?”

  “I’m sitting right here,” Ava reminded him, as Jordan threw his arm around her laughing assistant.

  “Yes,” Jordan cast a pitying look over his shoulder. “But let’s face it, Doc. You don’t have doughnuts.”

  “SO.” Clay sipped his coffee as Jordan stood at the kitchen counter, checking his tie in the mirrored backsplash. “Have you been fitted for your collar yet?”

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to work that into the conversation.” Jordan tugged the ice-blue knot into place, turned. “Shower, breakfast, and two cups of coffee. Your restraint’s to be commended.”

  “A man who’s getting cozy with a vet has to expect a few leash and neuter jokes. Not to mention the obvious doggy-style innuendos. No offense, Finn.” He tossed a piece of cold bacon to the dog sitting hopefully at his feet. “Did Doctor Red Dress make you wear one of those cone things last night?”

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  “But I do it so well. I’m just glad you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to notice that little number she was almost wearing. Bet she looked even better out of it.”

  Jordan, who’d never had a problem with a little harmless locker room talk in his life, found that he just wasn’t interested in doling out any details about his night with Ava. Jokingly or not. “She’s an amazing woman.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Jordan fixed Clay with a stare. “What do you mean, uh-oh?”