Husband: Some Assembly Required

by Marie Ferrarella

  Murphy felt Shawna tremble against him as he brought his mouth down to hers. He was startled by what he discovered in her kiss. It was almost savage in its neediness. The groan that vibrated between them could have come from either of them. Murphy had no idea where its origin lay. He didn’t care. All he knew was that, for now, she belonged to him.

  Just as much as he belonged to her.

  Murphy swept her up into his arms. Shawna felt excitement racing up and down her body, like lightning along a metal rod. It felt delicious, almost decadent, to be carried off like this. What she didn’t feel, she realized, was helpless. Instead, she felt safe, cherished.

  And perhaps even, just for the moment, loved.

  It would be foolish to build dreams on transparent foundations. But for now, she could pretend. There was no harm in that. As long as she remembered that it was just pretend, nothing more.

  It felt as if she was standing on top of a high peak, overlooking a valley that was filled with such wondrous colors it nearly blinded her.

  Encircling his neck as she nestled against his chest, Shawna sighed. “I can walk.” There was absolutely no feeling behind her softly voiced protest. She was reluctant to leave this haven he’d created for her.

  “I’m sure you can do a lot of things.” Murphy kissed her again, nipping her lower lip. She tasted of desire and ecstasy. “But indulge me a little. I like holding you like this.”

  Teasing her mouth, he walked toward the stairs. She was hardly aware of her surroundings, of where they were going. All she was aware of was the comforting beat of his heart against her chest.

  And the anticipation that was vibrating through her like the wings of a hummingbird.

  When she opened her eyes they were in his bedroom. She could detect the faint scent of his cologne here as she looked around. The drapes were drawn, shutting out the world. Muted browns and grays were spread throughout the room. On the king-size bed there was a turquoise comforter that paled before the intense color of his eyes.

  His eyes. They held her prisoner as firmly as if she had been shackled to him.

  More.

  He thought of setting her down on his bed, a prize to be examined and worshiped, but instinctively knew she would feel better if they worked up to that slowly. Murphy set her down on the floor, releasing his hold on her by small degrees.

  When her feet touched the rug, Shawna discovered that her knees were no longer fully functional. Her arms remained around his neck until she regained her sea legs.

  “What’s next, Counselor?” The words came out in a breathy rush. He had splayed his fingers along her rib cage. She could feel the heat from his palms as he cupped her breasts. Desire soared through her instantaneously.

  “We switch roles.” There was just a hint of mischief in his eyes. “You cross-examine me,” he explained when she looked at him quizzically. “And I play doctor.” Then, to seal the bargain, he pressed a warm kiss to the pulse in her throat.

  Her head dropped back as every fiber in her being absorbed the kiss, hugging it to her soul.

  “Where does it hurt?” he murmured.

  If she were a string on a harp, she would have been vibrating madly. She ached for him. It had no center, no beginning, no end. It just was. “Everywhere.”

  Murphy smiled. It encompassed his entire face. “Then we’re just going to have to examine you everywhere.”

  Shawna caught her breath as she felt his hands undo the single tie that held her dress anchored at her side. The pale pink material immediately loosened from her body, like a sigh that was leaving it.

  “Is that necessary, Doctor?” she quipped, though how she managed to form the words was beyond her. Her mouth was drier than dust.

  “I believe in being thorough.”

  That she could readily believe. He had thoroughly undone her and he had only begun.

  She was silent, her eyes wide. Her sharp intake of breath as he slowly slid the halter from about her neck echoed in his chest. “No more questions, Counselor?” he urged.

  She moved her head slowly from side to side, her eyes never leaving his. “The defense rests.”

  “Not for long,” he promised.

  Murphy let the dress fall from his fingers. He only had eyes for her. She was standing before him, Venus rising from the sea, standing in silver-strapped high heels instead of on a seashell. There was just the barest bit of silk covering her. And it would be gone soon. He fervently hoped he wouldn’t tear it off her.

  The way he wanted to.

  “You are magnificent.”

  Shawna tried not to think about the fact that he had probably said those very same words to at least a dozen other women before.

  Tonight, those words belonged to her. Tonight, she wasn’t Shawna Saunders, she was someone she had once fantasized about. A woman Murphy made love with.

  Summoning all her strength, Shawna took a step back, just out of his reach. His eyes were smoky and he looked confused. Dazed.

  Good. At least she wasn’t alone in this. She needed to know that she was having an effect on him, that he felt at least partially as unsettled as she did right now.

  A spark of triumph shot through her.

  When he reached for her, she shook her head, a completely foreign, playful look slipping over her face.

  He misunderstood. Was she having second thoughts? “The jury can’t adjourn to deliberate the verdict yet,” he told her, his voice thick with wanting as he reached for her.

  Her smile grew. “I told you earlier today that turnabout was fair play, remember?”

  His brows drew together, but he couldn’t clear his mind. She was in every corner of it. And only her.

  “Vaguely. A hundred years ago.” He took a second to pull himself together. The last thing in the world he wanted was for her to think of him as some out-of-control animal. But with her standing before him like that, her body bathed in the dim lamplight, it was hard not to give in to the passion that was beating within him. “What did you have in mind?”

  Moving forward, she slipped her fingers gingerly beneath the first button of his shirt. His skin was hot, singeing her. “I was thinking I shouldn’t be standing here, nude, while you look as if you’re about to go out to dinner.”

  “Dinner is the furthest thing from my mind.” He moved closer, fitting his hands lightly on the swell of her hips. “And you’re not nude.” His eyes swept possessively over her body. “Not yet.”

  She swallowed, fighting to keep her voice steady. Her pulse was a lost cause. “You have to catch up.”

  Murphy raised his hands in complete surrender. “Make me.”

  Her eyes on his, Shawna began to work on freeing the second button, and the third, until his shirt hung open on his chest. The shiver that overtook her was more from wanting than from the cold. Impatience beat a heavy tattoo through her. She wanted it all now. She wanted him to make love with her the way she knew he could. With tenderness and with a mind-blotting passion that would send her reeling.

  She moved her hands to his shoulders, sliding along the smooth material. “You’re high maintenance, do you know that?”

  “No, I’m not.” He shrugged out of his shirt, savoring the feel of her long fingers along his skin as she slid the sleeves from his arms. “I even left my armor in the closet for you.”

  She felt her smile budding from the depths of her very core as she recalled his knight-in-shining-armor allusion the night those men had broken into the clinic.

  With a quick tug she unhooked his belt. “I guess I should be grateful for small things.”

  He watched her hands as they moved competently over him. “Small? Weigh your words carefully, Doctor. My ego bruises easily, remember?”

  Shawna opened the button at the top of his trousers, then stopped.

  Murphy placed his hands over hers, guiding her back. “Oh, no, you’ve come too far along to stop now, Shawna.” His stomach tightened like a newly wound spring as he felt her slide the zipper down. “Tell you
what.” He feathered a kiss along her temple that had her senses spinning. “I won’t make you give me a sponge bath.”

  Her heart rate increased as she slipped her hands between his briefs and his skin. “Nurses do that.”

  Very slowly he outlined her ear with the tip of his tongue. And smiled when she quivered. “How do you feel about expanding your horizons?”

  Like a person seeking warmth from the cold, she pressed closer to him. All the while, her hands worked the material down his hips. “Wonderful.”

  He laughed and she felt the sound rumble in his chest, touching her. “That’s my girl.”

  She stopped and looked at him, her heart thudding against her rib cage so hard she was certain it would leave a permanent dent.

  His girl. His.

  The sound surrounded her, infiltrating her senses until she was almost dizzy. It was silly to react this way about a line he probably didn’t even know he’d said a second after it was out of his mouth. But no one had ever said anything like that to her before. No one had ever wanted her that way before.

  His.

  Murphy realized his error immediately. She probably thought he was attempting to back her into some sort of commitment, after he’d promised he wouldn’t. He was getting himself tangled in the strings he’d said wouldn’t exist. “Just a figure of speech, Shawna.”

  “I know that.” Her voice was low, like brandy being poured into a snifter. It was too low for him to detect the sadness in it.

  He stepped out of his trousers, kicking them aside. They gathered about the pool of her discarded pink dress. She was still wearing that small piece of silk that he found hopelessly enticing. Murphy hooked his thumbs on either side of her hips and slowly drew it down.

  “No more barriers, Shawna,” he whispered. The words tasted tempting against her mouth.

  Her eyes half-shut, she lifted her head. “No, all the clothes are gone.” She wished that the other barriers were as easily shed.

  And then there was no space to wish anything at all. No space to think.

  It was all flash and fire from then on. Like a discarded Christmas tree, left out in the field with a match put to it. One moment it was there, dried up and faded, the next moment flames were consuming it with a breathtaking voracity. And then it was gone.

  Just as she was.

  His hands, worshipful and gentle, stroked her until she ached. It was as if they had always been lovers. He seemed to know all the right places to touch, all the things that would set her off.

  And yet, all this was so new to her, so overwhelmingly wonderful.

  Shawna felt like a virgin being taken for the first time, but with none of the accompanying awkwardness. None of the shyness.

  She didn’t feel shy at all. She felt deliriously wanton, deliciously wicked. Murphy was making things happen to her that she had never read about in textbooks, that had never been hinted at in any clinical anatomy lesson.

  She had nothing to go by, no road maps to follow. The memories she had to draw on did not begin to touch upon this. She’d sipped club soda and this was champagne.

  Shawna gasped as Murphy, with just a few strokes of his hand, took her over the first crest, bringing her over it before she’d even realized that she was approaching it. Flares exploded within her and her eyes flew open in dazed wonder.

  Shawna hurried to keep up.

  He knew then what he had only suspected before. That he would never find anyone who matched him so perfectly as she did. With only instinct to guide her, she seemed to second-guess him to every turn. She wanted everything that he wanted, needed it the moment that he did. Offered it the moment that he sought it, as instinctively, as willingly, as if she could read his mind.

  As if she could read his heart.

  How could an innocent know so much? And she was an innocent. She might have been married before, but it was evident that no one had loved her the way she’d deserved to be loved. The surprise was there in her face, at her own responses and at his.

  Murphy held himself in check as best he could, determined to show her this brave new world she hadn’t even known existed until now. Needs and desires beat impatient wings within him, desperate to be sated, desperate to be released. But for this moment, it was enough for him to see the rapture in her eyes.

  They had tumbled onto the bed. He had no idea when. The comforter had somehow been bunched to the side and the sheets were becoming tangled as the intensity between them heated to a temperature no gauge could measure.

  He felt her fingers as they tightened on his shoulders when he brought her up and over yet another crest. There’d be scratches there tomorrow, he thought. Those would fade. The ones across his soul would last longer.

  She’d had no idea it could be like this, so exhausting, so exciting. So continuous, like spun sugar trailing off forever.

  Shawna sucked air into her lungs. She couldn’t manage to get enough. Not enough air, not enough him. Gasping, Shawna didn’t know if she could withstand any more ecstasy.

  And still there was more, so much more. Layers and textures she hadn’t dreamed about.

  Or perhaps, in some secret compartment of her soul, she had.

  She let her instincts flow and lead her. With a hand guided by a desire to reduce him to the same consistency that he was reducing her, Shawna touched him. The surprised groan that came from his lips delighted her.

  Empowered, her soul swelling, Shawna glided her hand lightly along the outward sign of his desire. Murphy twisted and turned against her, making her feel that much more confident.

  And that much more a prisoner of her own mounting passion.

  He couldn’t hold back any longer. He might have if she hadn’t touched him, delighted innocence flowering on her face. But she had and it wasn’t humanly possible for him to resist giving in another moment.

  When he shifted his body, moving over her, Shawna was more than ready to accept him. More than ready to join in the final act that would irrevocably seal her to him no matter how much she denied it. It did no good to tell herself that it was just for now. She knew there would be consequences she wouldn’t want to pay for this feeling.

  Her thoughts broke like soap bubbles in the wind.

  His eyes on her, Murphy linked his hands with Shawna’s and crossed the last barrier. He slipped inside. Sheathed, he began to move slowly, ever so slowly, though holding back now was almost killing him.

  She felt as if a torch had been put to her.

  “Now, Murphy,” she begged, forgetting that she never begged, never asked. “Now.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  As the rhythm increased, so did the desire that quaked and trembled within each of them. He heard her cry out his name against his ear.

  When they had both finally crested, the sensation exploding in wondrous colors, drenching both of them, Murphy knew in the core of his being that there was no turning back, not for him.

  The portal that he had stepped through had closed behind him forever. And nothing would ever be the same again.

  Chapter Twelve

  He couldn’t get enough of her.

  Not her scent, not her flavor, not the deep richness of her mouth, which stirred him to heights that he’d never ventured to before. It wasn’t the lovemaking that left him wanting more. That was infinitely satisfying and incredible. It was her. Somehow, just by being, and by not being like the others, Shawna had managed to pierce the shield he’d slipped around his heart.

  And she’d done it all entirely without meaning to.

  Shawna stirred and woke up by degrees, like someone reluctantly leaving the warmth of a bubble bath to venture out onto the cold tile floor. When she finally opened her eyes she saw Murphy looking at her. He was propped up on his elbow, just watching her, as if he’d been doing that for hours. She should have felt embarrassed, remorseful. At least something grounded in contrition.

  She didn’t.

  It would probably come later, she guessed, grateful for the res
pite. She stretched like a cat, then raised her head to look past Murphy’s shoulder toward the window. Tiny shafts of daylight were poking through, like probing swords.

  She sighed. “It’s dawn.”

  He knew what time it was. He’d been awake for a while now, content just to watch her as she slept. “Follows night like clockwork.”

  She was very aware of the length of his hard body beside her. With a hand that was far more steady than last night, she ran a tentative fingertip along it and was pleased that he didn’t remain unaffected. He drew her closer against him.

  “I have to go home.” There was no enthusiasm in her statement. No energy.

  He didn’t want to think of her leaving his bed, didn’t want to think of anything beyond this moment. “Makes me wish for Alaska.”

  Shawna raised herself up on her elbow and looked at him, her long hair raining down the slope of her shoulder. She tucked the sheet around her breasts. “Alaska?”

  He nodded as he began to tug at the sheet, slowly slipping it away from her body. “The nights are six months long there.”

  Shawna shivered as she felt the sheet sliding off, but made no attempt to pull it back. She liked the way he looked at her. “So are the days.”

  With enough leverage available, he worked his hands beneath what was left of the sheet and cupped her breasts. Watching her eyes, he teased the tip of her nipple with his thumb. “I’d make sure that I picked the right time.”

  It was hard to keep her mind on what he was saying when he was arousing her passion again. She would have sworn that her supply was depleted. She’d never even known she could be like this, feel like this, until last night.

  “Yes, I’m sure that you would.” She moved her head to kiss his lips and saw the flash of pain pass over his face. Concern immediately gripped her. “Murphy, what is it?”

  He felt like an idiot mentioning anything about it. The sensation had passed almost before it had materialized. “Nothing.”

  Annoyed that he would lie to her after what they had shared last night, she sat up, the sheet falling from her completely. “I’ve never beaten a naked man before, but I could make an exception with you.”