by Andrews, Amy
And cried.
She cried like she fucked—full throttle—and Doyle knew there wasn’t anything he could do but let her use him again tonight, for comfort this time, giving her the shoulder she so desperately needed.
Eventually she slowed and stopped, but he kept rubbing her back, soothing her with his hands in a different way this time, until he felt her grow heavy against him and Doyle realized she’d fallen asleep.
He guessed a bucketload of tequila, one beer, and a world-is-nigh orgasm would do that to a person.
Sal barely stirred when he picked her up, cradling her against his body. Matilda meowed nosily as he disturbed her position under the stool, and Doyle prayed that she’d slept through their make-out session and they hadn’t exposed the poor creature to a lewd act as he headed for Sal’s bedroom, ignoring her still-exposed breast. He placed her gently on her bed, fixing her top as he reached for her sheets and covered her with them.
He looked at her for the longest time, the ambient light coming from the streetlight outside her window, illuminating her petite features—her cheekbones, her pointy chin, the full pillows of her mouth.
A mouth he’d wanted to kiss from almost the first moment he’d seen it, certainly from the first time she’d sassed him with it. And now he had.
And if she thought he was done with it—then she was dead wrong.
He didn’t know what the hell had gone on here tonight, what the impetus had been for Sal’s clearly out-of-character behavior, but he knew one thing for sure—there was no going back. She’d told him to stay away and he had. She’d drawn the line and he’d kept on his side of it. But she’d crossed the line tonight and, drunk or not, that boundary couldn’t be redrawn.
He was invested now.
She’d called the shots till now, and he’d been fine with that. But this wasn’t her show any longer, and Sal Kennedy had better get used to it.
Chapter Three
Sal’s head pounded like a son of a bitch the next morning, dragging her out of her deep, dreamless slumber with all the thud and roar of heavy earth-moving machinery.
Jaysus.
She groaned and dragged her pillow over her head as light stabbed into her eyeballs, shutting them tight, willing it to go away. This wasn’t her—she didn’t lie around in bed feeling sorry for herself. Not anymore. She sprang up, she kept busy, she soldiered on, but she didn’t think she was capable right at the moment.
Just how much had she drunk last night?
She knew Cuervo was the culprit—nothing but tequila kicked her like a mule the next day—but trying to think back to exact amounts just hurt too damn much.
She glanced at the clock. Shit! Seven fifteen. Double shit. She sat bolt upright, grabbing her head between her hands as it nearly exploded. The vet practice opened at eight, and even though it was just downstairs, she needed a shower. And coffee.
A lot of coffee.
Whistling wafted in from outside. From the kitchen. Whistling, for fuck’s sake.
Damn Doyle Jackson to hell. How dare he be so freaking chipper while she was in here dying? The man had been nothing but a pain in her butt since he’d moved in four months ago. Waltzing around with those broad shoulders and all easygoing charm and brilliant with animals and great with their owners and flirty with her nurses and all sweaty after his runs and just…always freaking…there.
She should never have offered to let him move in as part of the temp position. But he was temporarily homeless due to asbestos being found in his apartment block and she had the room. It had made perfect sense.
But now he was out there whistling!
Next time she had to find a temp in a hurry, she was asking the agency to find her a vet with breasts. Or a nice middle-aged grandfather figure with a comb-over.
No hot stuff candidates allowed.
She stood, the sudden rush to her head a veritable typhoon as the room spun and what had happened with hot stuff last night came crashing in.
She sat again just as abruptly and her brain swished around in her head.
Ho-ly. Fuck.
What had she done? What had she done?
It all came back to her. Getting drunk on tequila. Coming on to Doyle. Kissing him. Sticking her hand down his pants. His rejection.
And then…and then…
Sal dropped her face in her hands just thinking about it. She’d…humped his leg like old Mrs. Connor’s randy cocker spaniel, Jeremy.
God. What must he think of her? How was she ever going to face him again?
She’d been desperate last night for sure but…humping his leg? Of course, he’d also stuck his hands in her pants, but she hadn’t exactly stopped him. She’d practically begged him to shove his fingers inside her, and then ridden his hand like a pogo stick, for crying out loud.
The fact that the orgasm had been spectacular didn’t seem to matter in the harsh light of day.
Goddamn Cuervo—she was never drinking that shit again.
But in the meantime, she had some apologizing to do.
The whistling continued, bright and chirpy, and Sal actually contemplated pulling the covers over her head and waiting till he left. Maybe just not going down at all.
But then she’d be here, alone with her memories again. Back at square one.
What would Mack say? Mack, who had held her together for that first dreadful year after Ben and had made an art form out of bullying her into action.
Just get up.
Get up, get your arse into the shower, put on your big-girl undies, and face the music. Apologize for your behavior, assure him it won’t happen again, and put it behind you.
Okay, fine. She’d do it. Exactly that.
But it still didn’t stop her from wishing Mack were here with her in Brisbane and not all the way over on the other side of the world. She missed him. And Josie. Her best friend who had gone and fallen in love with him. She was happy that he and Josie were having the time of their lives in London, but right at this moment she’d give anything to have them here.
She thought she was done needing her big brother, but clearly not.
Matilda jumped on the bed and meowed at her, and the decision was final—she had to get up.
Sal sucked in a breath and dragged herself to the shower. The hot drum of water against her back was reviving, and the coolness of the tiles against her forehead was soothing to a face that still felt on fire from her embarrassing actions last night.
She shut her eyes and let the water needle her into some sort of viable state. And then…oh God. Her eyes opened. Something else came back to her.
Not only had she used his body to get off, but then she’d cried all over him, too.
Sal didn’t cry. Not anymore. She didn’t think she had any tears left after a year of lying in bed and doing nothing but.
Apparently, she’d been wrong.
…
Fifteen minutes later, with the whistling finally stopped but noises of habitation still evident, Sal took a deep breath and walked down the hallway.
Doyle was sitting at the breakfast bar in the precise chair he’d been in last night when she’d invaded his space and straddled his leg, riding it like a freaking cowgirl at the rodeo. Of course, he was sitting straight-on this time, his legs tucked under the counter as he read the morning paper and dunked a cookie into the steaming beverage.
Oh crap. She’d forgotten the bloody cookies, too.
He looked up as she entered. “Good morning,” he said, as chirpy as his whistle.
Like she hadn’t gone all rutting-beast then emotional-Armageddon on him less than twelve hours ago.
Sal, her vow to be nice and pleasant and apologetic forgotten, glared at him. How could he sit there all bright and breezy and act like nothing had happened?
“Speak for yourself,” she muttered, heading for the coffeepot.
“Oh dear. Didn’t sleep?”
Sal took a deep, steadying breath, her back to him. “You know I did.” She grabbed a mug an
d filled it with hot coffee, the aroma doing nothing to soothe her ragged nerves.
“Get up on the wrong side, then?”
Sal turned to face him, her butt leaning against the counter. His shoulders filled out his red scrub top to its absolute limit and the color complimented his tan and the dark stubble lining his jaw. Not even the two cute little paw prints above the white Kennedy Family Veterinary Practice stitching lessened his masculinity.
“I have a headache.”
He grinned at her. He freaking grinned. “I’m not surprised.”
She took a fortifying sip of her coffee, staring into it, searching for some gumption. It was now or never. “About last night,” she said, looking up at him, squaring her shoulders.
He looked at her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”
“I…don’t?” What the fuck? If he thought they were just going to coexist with her indiscretion going unspoken between them, then he was seriously deluded.
They needed to get this sucker out and get it behind them.
He shook his head calmly. “Obviously something was…going on with you last night and you had a little too much to drink and things got a little out of hand. I’m pleased I could…be of some assistance.”
Some assistance? Well, that was one way of putting it.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me what’s going on in your own time.”
Sal frowned. No way in hell she was ever telling him about the demons that lived in her head, the ones constantly nipping at her heels. Nobody needed that dumped on them—it was bad enough that she had to live with them.
“Ah…no. I won’t.”
“Sure you will.” He grinned. “I’m that kind of guy. Women tell me things.”
She was sure they did. Like how sexy he was and how big his dick was and how magic his fingers were. Things like do me now, Doyle. Women weren’t stupid.
But she didn’t like to encourage men.
Any man.
She made sure she held his gaze as she shook her head very definitively. “Not a chance.”
He smiled at her and the cleft in his chin, the one that had every female—employee or client—inside the practice all aflutter, made an appearance. She’d bah-humbugged it for months now, but she had a sudden overwhelming urge to lick it. She ground her sensible work boots into the floor.
“I think we should go on a date.”
Sal blinked. Whoa. Where the fuck had that come from? “What?”
“You. Me. A date.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think we started this whole thing a little bit arse backward, don’t you?”
“This whole thing?” She gaped at him. Was he mad? He’d gotten her off. It was great. Freaking amazing, actually. But that didn’t make it a thing. “There isn’t a thing.”
He stood, pushing away from the breakfast bar and advancing toward her, that whole lazy, easygoing thing sliding away with each purposeful footfall.
Something squeezed low and tight in her belly as he came to a halt within easy reach.
“Okay, Sal, you want to pretend there’s nothing between us, that there hasn’t been an attraction since the beginning, then you go ahead and be my guest. But I know you know that’s not true.”
Sal’s breath grew heavy like there was lead in her lungs as his frame seemed to loom over her, so large and bulky compared to her slender and petite. His soapy fresh scent wafted her way. Her heart pounded a little harder in her chest and she tried to back up, but the counter stopped her.
It had been a long time since a man had made her back up.
She glared at him. “I don’t screw—”
His nod interrupted her. “The crew. I know. You just use them as your own personal scratching pole, right?”
Sal blushed. She deserved that. “I’m sorry about—”
He laid a finger against her mouth. The same finger he’d buried inside her last night. Her lips tingled where it touched. Part of her wanted to bite it. The other part wanted to suck it into her mouth.
“No,” he murmured, his voice husky as he dropped his finger, dragging it a little along her bottom lip as he went.
Sal couldn’t decide if she was relieved or bereft.
“Don’t say sorry, and I’m not asking you to screw me, I’m asking you out on a date.”
She shook her head. “I don’t date.”
He chuckled then. “Oh yes you do. You date like you’re going for the world record. Hell, you date more than the damn Bachelorette.”
“Yes, but I don’t date date. It’s just a…prelude to something else.”
“So dating and screwing are synonymous in your head?”
Sal nodded, her heart rate settling now she was on much safer ground. “Pretty much. Why, isn’t it in yours?”
“Not usually.”
“So you’ve never gone on a date with a woman and ended it in bed together?”
“I didn’t say never, I said not usually.”
Yep. She didn’t think so. Doyle knew his way around the female anatomy. That technique he’d used last night came from knowing a woman’s body really freaking well.
Sal folded her arms. “So, you disapprove? You think I should be sitting around with my legs closed, saving myself for a knight on a white charger?”
For a moment Sal experienced a pang in the center of her chest for the woman who used to believe in such romantic nonsense. That woman had died in a fiery car crash on a dark, lonely highway, and the hardened cynic had finally emerged a year after from the chrysalis of her grief.
He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m all for freedom of sexual expression. Whatever lights your fire. Go for it, I say.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Gee, thanks, Doyle. I feel so much better now I have your permission.”
“Any time.” He grinned.
Sal rolled her eyes again and took a sip of her coffee. The clock said ten minutes to eight. “We have to get going,” she said, grateful for an excuse to get away from him as she headed in the direction of the overhead kitchen cupboards where the hangover remedies were kept.
“So it’s a no to the date?”
She turned to face him, exasperated by his persistence. “That would be a no. Honestly…I don’t even see the point in dating.”
He chuckled. “The point of it is to get to know someone. To build a rapport. Crank up the anticipation.”
“We’ve been living together for four months,” she pointed out. “And anyway, I prefer to get straight to it.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “I remember.”
The blush stole back across her cheekbones. “Okay. You got me. I’m a terrible human being. I sleep with men for recreation and I came on to you last night when I absolutely shouldn’t have. Are we done here? Because we’re going to be late for work and I need another coffee and about ten ibuprofen before I can function today.”
He kicked up an eyebrow. “And the date?”
She shook her head. “We work together. I’m your boss. You’re going to be gone in two months.” She did the leaving these days, not the other way around. “Just how exactly do you envision this going down?”
He slid her a slow grin, the cleft in his chin winking at her. “I was thinking it’d start with one date and then maybe we’d go on another.”
“So we what…we date a little, fuck a little? Then you leave?”
“You are obsessed with the fucking bit, aren’t you?”
“I have needs.” Sal shrugged. “And you have magic fingers. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He looked a little startled at her frankness for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I do?”
She rolled her eyes. He’d given her an orgasm, not cured world hunger. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t let it go to your head.”
It was only then that Sal remembered that while she’d gotten what she’d needed last night, Doyle had been kind of left high and dry. He’d actually rebuffed her advances. Denied himself a ch
ance at his own pleasure.
She looked at him speculatively. She owed him an orgasm.
But she didn’t do repeat performances.
“What?” he said, looking at her warily.
Sal shrugged. “It’s just occurred to me…you kinda got the raw end of the deal last night.”
Doyle leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest and his feet at the ankle, his long legs encased in quad-hugging navy. “A sexy woman kisses me and fondles me and rubs herself against me and then comes screaming all over me while I’m sucking on her nipple…I think I did pretty okay.”
Sal’s breath stuttered to a halt at about throat level as his graphic commentary on last night stirred potent images.
God, she’d been shameless.
And he’d been the perfect gentleman—denying himself while he’d attended to her…needs.
She cleared her throat. “I mean…you didn’t…you weren’t…”
Crap—why was this so hard to broach? Nothing ever had her this tongue-tied. And Doyle clearly wasn’t going to make it easier for her, standing there with a smile playing on his lips while she struggled for articulation.
She pulled in a breath, deciding to just come right out with it instead of searching for some polite euphemism. The man had shoved his hand in her underwear and sunk his fingers into her. They were past polite.
“I came. You didn’t.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“Oh…you…” Her gaze dropped to the bulge in the front of his sturdy work pants. It was hard to miss. On most men the scrub top would cover the fly area, but not on Doyle, who had to be six three or four—it didn’t cover much more than the waistband.
The man oozed testosterone and virility. She wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that he’d come a little early or he didn’t have any problems admitting it. Or, even more fascinating, that she’d excited him so much he hadn’t been able to control himself.
There was something oddly titillating about that.
He was still looking at her expectantly, obviously waiting for her to say something. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he murmured, the smile still hovering on his mouth. Considering she’d just suggested he’d prematurely ejaculated, he was taking it quite well.