by Andrews, Amy
“I’d like more.”
He went very still on the stool as he stared at her. Clearly he hadn’t been expecting that. “What are you saying, Sal?” he asked as he folded his arms across his chest.
She shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, to not betray how rapidly her pulse throbbed in her neck. Suddenly wanting—needing—him to say yes, more than she needed her next breath.
“You’re here for a couple more months…” It was good to say it out loud. Doyle was leaving. Off to his next temp position in less than two months because that’s what he did—he was transient, he shifted around. But knowing someone was leaving was vastly different from him being unexpectedly wrenched from your life.
So she’d be fine.
“And it’s obvious we have some pretty insane chemistry going on between us. I think we should…use that to our advantage.”
He blinked at her and Sal could hear the hammer of her heart in her ears. “So, to clarify,” he said after long silent moments just looking at her, “you want to…keep doing what we did last night?”
Sal nodded. “Yes.”
“And I suppose this is where you say we can still stay friends afterward?”
“Hell no.” Sal shook her head; what she felt for Doyle had nothing to do with friendship. “I’m pretty much always going to want to tear your clothes off.”
“So…you just want to…use my body?”
A glitter took up residence in his eyes, warning her he didn’t appreciate the direction this conversation was heading. But she was just trying to be honest with him. Would he rather she go back to plan A—pretend it wasn’t happening?
“Yes. But to be fair, I’m okay with you using mine, too.”
His jaw clenched. “Gee, thanks.”
She regarded him, his obsidian gaze hard. “Okay…you’re pissed at me.”
“You think?”
She held up her hands. “I’m sorry I thought you wanted more, too. I thought it could be…mutually beneficial.”
“So you want me to be your fuck buddy?”
It sounded so bald and ugly when he said it like that, but yes, that’s exactly what she wanted. “Yes,” she said, glaring at him now, also pissed. “Why not?”
He stood, glowering down at her. “Oh no you don’t, Sally Kennedy. No. You want to have sexual relations with me? You want some of this?” Doyle slapped his pecs, and Sal’s gaze was drawn to them like a moth to flame. “Then you’re going to have to go on a date with me first.”
Sal’s gaze snapped back to his. “That again?” she groaned.
“That again.”
She glared at him. “Jesus, you’re stubborn. You are like a cracked freaking record, Doyle Jackson.”
“Those are my conditions.”
“Why?” she asked, exasperated. “We’ve bypassed the need for dating.”
“Because you’re more to me than some body to use,” he snapped. “Because you were so great stepping up for Harry and the kids at her school and I want to get to know that woman better. Because I like you, Sal. And I want to be more than a body for you to use.”
She shrugged. She never asked him to like her. “Well, that’s all I’ve got.”
“Is it so wrong to want some kind of commitment from you to at least try to get to know me? You have heard of the C-word, right?”
Sal snorted. “This from a man who hasn’t stayed in one place longer than six months for the last five years.”
“I temp because I like challenges and variety,” he snapped. “Not because I’m afraid to commit.”
“Yeah, well, I date because I like variety,” she snapped back.
“Fine,” he said, picking up his plate and heading for the sink. “Let’s see who cracks first, shall we?”
Sal stared at his retreating back. The one she’d marked like a wild animal last night. “What are you talking about?”
The plate clattered into the sink and he turned to face her, folding his arms across his chest again, which somehow just seemed to emphasize the breadth of him.
“You think I don’t know you after living with you, observing you, these last months? You like sex, Sal, you enjoy it. In fact I would hazard a guess that you need it more than most. So I know, after the awesome that was last night, you’re going to be so horny for more, you’re going to be begging me for a date.”
Sal gaped at his audacity. “Oh yeah? What makes you think it’s me who’s going to be doing the begging?”
He snorted as if the answer was evident. “Just a hunch.”
“You think I can’t make you change your mind about the date proviso, Doyle? I notice you gave it up pretty damn quickly last night. How much do you think it would take me to sway you tonight? Or tomorrow night? I’ve been told I can be persuasive when I put my mind to it.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You think I can’t resist you?”
“I think you’re a man, just like any other.”
“Oh, no.” Doyle’s eyes glittered again. “That’s one thing you will learn, Sal. I’m one of a kind. And you haven’t even begun to see my stubborn side.”
She glared at him. “You have no idea how dirty I can play.”
He laughed. “Bring. It. On.”
Sal didn’t think he meant it as a turn-on, but the sexual gauntlet had been thrown down, and he was dead wrong if he thought she wouldn’t rise to that challenge.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said, smiling sweetly as she picked up her plate, took it to the sink, and rubbed her breasts against his arm as she turned around and walked out of the room.
Chapter Twelve
She fired her first warning shot on Monday.
Doyle had barely seen her on Sunday. She’d gone out for a few hours and when she came home, he’d headed out to the pub with some mates, not getting in until after tea. She’d been in her bedroom, and as much as he’d wanted to knock on her door just so he could see her, he refrained.
She’d already given him a heads-up that she was going to play dirty. He wouldn’t put it past her to be lying naked on her bed, nipple clamps in place, surrounded by her collection of vibrators.
A vibrator he could handle—hell, he could even handle vibrators, plural—but he doubted his libido was strong enough to resist nipple clamps.
He’d been bluffing yesterday about his degree of stubbornness. He could be very stubborn—but she was definitely his Achilles’ heel. He’d been disappointed Sunday morning when he’d woken to an empty bed, although it hadn’t surprised him, either. But then she’d really pissed him off, so casually admitting she wanted to use him for his body, like he was just another warm male.
Plentiful. Pliant. Disposable.
And he hadn’t expected it. He’d planned for her resistance, her denial. For her to scurry back to her position of emotional isolation. Her proposition had taken him by surprise. It had also cheapened him and what had happened between them.
Doyle had been with enough women to know that what he felt for her pretty much from the beginning didn’t come along that often. And he sensed she was also conflicted about him. That she’d tried to resist him and failed. And that confused her because she didn’t fail where men were concerned.
Which was why he’d thought she’d run in the other direction.
Instead she’d offered him something equally unpalatable.
Unfettered access to her body.
Did he want that? Fuck, yeah. Did he want only that?
Fuck, no.
His need for her had gone beyond the physical, although his body did throb for her. And he sensed that there was more there for her, too. He was just going to have to wait, be patient, and stay strong in the face of any seduction attempts.
Not cave like he had on Saturday.
He had to show her he wanted her for more than her body. That he wanted her stories and her conversations. Her hurts and her truths.
But he for damn sure shouldn’t have challenged her like he had. He figured she had some heavy-duty
artillery in her arsenal, and the truth was he only had to look at her and he wanted her. Hell, he only had to think about her.
His resistance, where she was concerned, was zero.
Below zero.
And there it was, his warning shot, Monday morning as he hit the shower. A bra and a pair of undies hanging over the glass of the shower cubicle.
And not just any set of lingerie but the red-and-black lace-and-satin ones she’d been wearing Saturday night. When he’d torn her dress off. And laid her on the kitchen bench and eaten fairy floss off her body. Made her come as he buried his face between her thighs and licked it out of her.
His cock grew hard just thinking about it, and he almost groaned out loud, reaching up to touch them. They were damp—she’d obviously washed them out in the shower. But he doubted she’d somehow just forgotten to take them with her when she exited the bathroom.
In the whole time he’d lived here and shared a bathroom with Sal, she’d never left her underwear behind.
He had no doubt it was a deliberate attempt to tease him.
And it had worked.
God help him if she ever decided to actually touch him.
…
That came the next day as she squeezed between him and the examination table in front of him to grab a bag of fluid. She could have gone around; she could have asked him to pass it.
But she didn’t. She slid into the gap, her front to his, murmuring, “Sorry,” all low and husky as she took her time easing past him and, “Sorry,” again as she took her time easing back.
Gemma narrowed her eyes as she spotted the slinky little maneuver. She shot him a what the fuck look, and he just smiled and shrugged.
Later that day, she did it again, except this time her butt met his front, pushing back into him as they both reached for the staff room door together, then had to stand out of the way as a delivery trolley came through. She took full advantage of the door partially hiding them, rubbing herself against him, then walking away cool as a cucumber like nothing had happened.
Her touching campaign continued relentlessly over the next week, and he had to admit it was smart and subtle. He’d been primed to fend off a full-on sexual seduction, but he had no defenses against the constant arm rub, the body brush, the hand pat, and the finger stroke.
Not that long ago, she’d avoided any contact with him, but now she was into invading his body space any opportunity she got. Brushing past him in the clinic, touching his forearm as she introduced him to someone, accidentally bumping into him as they passed each other on the stairs.
And his absolute favorite—stroking her finger against the outline of his cock under the cover of his gown as she’d groped in the pocket of his scrub pants for his beeping pager. He’d been all scrubbed up and sterile, about to start an operation, and they’d been alone in the operating room.
His cock had twitched and she’d done it again, his harsh intake of breath loud in the silence despite the muffling effect of the mask. “Jesus, Sal,” he’d groaned.
“Sorry,” she’d murmured innocently as she’d pulled it out of his pocket and read off the message for him.
Doyle had grunted. “How am I supposed to perform intricate surgery with a massive erection?”
She’d smiled at him. “I could lock the door and help you with that?”
Fuck! He’d never been so tempted to perform an indecent act at his place of employment before.
But puppy preschool had been the most torturous. For starters, her clothes had gotten briefer and briefer until she was all but wearing her bikini. Yes, the weather had become unseasonably hot, but she was not helping cool anything down with her itty-bitty shorts and form-fitting crop tops.
In fact, he was pretty damn sure the international climate commission could arrest her for contributing to global warming.
She sure had upped the temperature of every male dog owner in the class.
And then on the walk home, she stuck close, their arms brushing more than was necessary as she jiggled along beside him, all bouncy and perky. At least she was chatty for a change—trying to distract him from her sly little touches. She never really let anything personal slip, but he learned a lot about Mack and Josie and the history of the practice.
In all these instances, to the untrained eye, Sal’s touching would appear to be nothing more than the expression of affection and intimacy between two friends, but Doyle knew it was far more potent than that.
It was all part of her campaign to lull him into acceptance of his touch, paving the way for something much more irresistible.
She was grooming him, for fuck’s sake!
Either that or she was just trying to keep him in a constant state of arousal, making him so damn hungry and horny for more than her butterfly caresses that he’d be the one to blink first. That he’d drag her into the storeroom and put them out of their misery.
…
By the end of the week, he was jittery as hell, strung taut, wanting to touch her but determined to hold fast. It was the last straw when he got in from house calls one evening to find her standing at the back of the couch, watching something on the television while eating a packet of fairy floss in nothing but a bath towel.
Fuck. She was going to kill him.
“You’re kidding me,” he growled, stopping short.
She laughed. “It’s not what you think. Your sister called around earlier and dropped off a couple more bags she’d discovered stashed in Harry’s room that she’d forgotten about and she didn’t want Harry to eat, so I left them here on the counter for you, but then just now as I was about to get in the shower the phone rang, so I came out to answer it and I spotted the bags, then I got distracted by this Hendra virus study thing on the news, and then I made the fatal mistake of opening the packet…”
Doyle wished he could drag his eyes off the pale slope of her shoulders and the dip of her cleavage where the knot holding her towel in place was the only thing keeping Sal decent.
Relatively.
There was nothing decent about how good she looked in a towel. There was sure as shit nothing decent about the direction of his thoughts.
Scrunching noises dragged his gaze upward and he met her eyes, shimmering hot and blue, like a flame. The packet was empty. “Sorry,” she apologized. “There is one for you, too.”
Doyle didn’t give a rat’s arse about the fairy floss as their gazes meshed and held, the air between them heavy with want. He ground his heels into the floor to stop himself from taking a step toward her. “Go have your shower,” he said, an ache taking up residence in the angle of his jaw.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Or what?”
“Sal.”
“Will you pick me up and throw me over your shoulder like a fireman and deliver me to the bathroom? Or will you bend me over this couch”—she patted the cushiony top—“and spank me?”
Doyle shoved his hands on his hips as heat slammed into his groin. Sal Kennedy was going to be the death of him. “You should be spanked.”
She moved quickly then, placing both hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward a little and spreading her legs like she was about to be patted down. “Is this good for you?” she asked, her eyes big and round as she looked over her shoulder at him.
“Sal…”
“No? What about this?” She lifted her hand to her cleavage and in a split second had loosened the towel. It slithered off her body and fell to the floor at her feet.
“Oh…Jesus,” he whispered as nothing but acres of fine, pale female flesh presented itself. Clearly her time for being subtle was done.
Slender calves and thighs led up to the smooth pillows of her arse cheeks. She arched her back, which pushed them out a little and gave him an unfettered view of that little patch of nirvana between her legs.
He followed the curve of her spine all the way up to her shoulder blades, then let his gaze drift around to her front where her small breasts sat perkily on her chest, rosy nipples erect,
waiting for some tongue action.
“You want me to lean over some more?” she asked, dropping her chest to the back of the couch, her breasts squashing into the soft cushions. The action presented her arse to him even further.
She looked like she was preparing for a strip search, not a spanking.
He was torn between wanting to sink to his knees and bury his face between her legs and ripping down his zipper and plunging inside her.
God knew he was probably hard enough to split her in two at the moment.
“Well?” she asked, a small smile playing on her mouth as she wiggled her arse and looked at him over her shoulder.
Doyle stretched out the muscles on either side of his neck, his gaze still glued to her butt as he tried to bring his raging hormones under control. “I’m…going for a jog,” he said.
A long one.
Possibly a marathon.
She pouted at him and wiggled her hips one more time before turning to face him. “Your loss.” She shrugged, bending over in front of him to pick up her towel, then straightening again. “Think of me all wet and soapy in the shower, will you, while you’re out there getting all sweaty?”
“Oh, you can count on it,” he muttered.
She grinned at him, then slunk off, buck naked and utterly unashamed of either her nudity or the tactics she’d just employed.
Doyle headed for his bedroom and his jogging gear, ignoring the demand from his cock to kick the bathroom door in and end what she’d started.
It could bitch all it wanted. He was a grown man—not a horny fifteen-year-old who’d just seen his first naked woman. He was fully in control of his body.
And he was damned if he was going to be the one to blink.
…
Two hours later, his cock, along with the rest of his body, was too exhausted to bitch about what Doyle had traded for physical exertion of another kind. Sweat poured down his face and neck, his muscles ached, and he could easily slam half a dozen cold beers given the chance.
But he needed a shower first.
Shower. Beer. Bed. Do not pass Sal. Do not collect whatever she was offering.
She was sitting in the lounge watching television when he entered the apartment, Matilda stretched out beside her. She was wearing her short black silky gown with the Chinese writing on the front panels and he wasn’t entirely sure she was wearing anything else.