by Lisa Lace
“Not yet,” Kelly replied. “Dr. Carter said it’s not something she’s familiar with.”
“Something going around maybe,” Heather murmured. “There’s always some new strain of the flu that people get.”
“Maybe. Anyway, it’s just kinda strange, so I was wondering.”
“Okay, okay,” Keith broke in, dark eyes bright. “All this shop talk is interesting and all, but who wants to drink tonight?”
“Brilliant non-sequitur as always, Keith,” Heather deadpanned. “But don’t you have to work in the morning?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well, I have to work in the morning, and I’m functioning on too little sleep already.”
“Oh, come on, Heather. Live a little. These are the best years of your life.”
Heather could think of a million reasons why it would be a bad idea to go out and get drunk on a night when she had to work early the next morning, but when was the last time she’d had a fun night with her friends?
There was Sabin to consider, but she was pretty sure he’d be fine on his own for a few more hours. And she wouldn’t stay out late.
A night of fun with her friends might be just what she needed to clear the last of her weird mood away.
“That’s a terrible idea, Keith. Let’s do it.”
“Why do I let Keith talk me into these things?” Heather slurred as Kelly Ann helped her to her front door some hours later. “Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.”
Kelly gave her a sympathetic look. “Well, you were the one who kept ordering drinks, Heather,” she pointed out. “I did try to stop you, but then Keith yelled at me.”
“He’s so loud.”
“He is. Where are your keys, love?”
“Keys,” Heather said. “Keys?”
“Right,” Kelly replied. “You need them to get in the house. Wait, your lights are on. Should your lights be on?”
Before Heather could reply to that, the front door was swinging open and she was stumbling right into the very solid chest of her house guest. Strong hands came up to wrap around her arms and hold her steady.
“Are you alright?” Sabin asked, and Heather flushed. She’d almost forgotten about him.
“Um,” Kelly Ann said, and Heather wrinkled her nose.
“S’a friend of mine,” she explained. “It’s all good. He’s not a burglar. See you tomorrow, Kells.”
“Okay,” Kelly said weakly, and Heather let Sabin lead her into the house and close the door.
“You have been drinking,” he said, sounding stern.
Heather cracked up at that. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Tell me another one.”
He deposited her on the couch and stood back, arms folded. With his arms like that, she could see the muscles in them so clearly, and suddenly she was very aware of the fact that she hadn’t had sex in months.
Her mouth went dry with something that had to be want, and she blushed, biting her lip and looking up at him.
“Sometimes,” Sabin said, and she was amazed to hear that his voice was just as shaky as she would imagine hers would be if she were talking. “You remind me of someone I thought I loved.”
“You don’t even know me,” Heather pointed out and licked her lips.
“No,” Sabin agreed. “I don’t. But I think I’d like to.”
“In the biblical sense?”
He frowned, head tilted to one side and there was that puppy look again. “The what?” Sabin asked.
“Never mind,” Heather murmured. She got to her feet, a bit wobbly, though she was feeling more sober all of a sudden than she had been before. There was something about those golden eyes and the way he looked at her, the way his pale hair fell just so.
The way he still wasn’t wearing a shirt.
She just wanted to touch him, and the alcohol was making her bolder than she would have been ordinarily.
Holding his gaze, she walked close to him, getting right up in his personal space. He arched an eyebrow and she smiled, lifting a hand to touch his abs. Sabin’s skin was warm, and the muscles were firm under her hand. She wasn’t entirely sure what the strange whimper/whine sound she’d just made was, but she couldn’t help it.
Heat rose between the two of them, and Sabin’s gaze sharpened into something almost deadly. “What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Touching you,” she replied.
“You don’t even know me.”
Heather recognized her words from just a moment before and smiled. “I’d like to get to know you,” she said. “In the biblical sense.”
And god, when she was sober, she was going to kick herself for being this foreword, but after a night spent drinking and listening to Keith and Kelly Ann speculate about Dr. Woodward’s sex life and talk about their own, Heather just wanted one of her own.
Yes, this was probably a bad idea, and yes, Sabin could still turn out to be some kind of mass murderer, but she didn’t care in the moment.
“You aren’t in the right state of mind to make decisions like this,” Sabin pointed out, but his fingers were in her hair all the same, pulling it down from the messy ponytail it was always in for work, and carding through it. He tugged just a little, seemingly to just test the waters and see how she’d like it, and there was that little whimpering noise again.
She pressed closer to him, breath already coming faster.
“Please,” Heather murmured, looking up to meet his eyes. “Please?”
Sabin looked at her for a long moment and then growled low in his throat. The sound of it went straight to her crotch and she moaned and then gasped when his hands were suddenly grabbing her butt and lifting her up.
She found herself pressed between him and the living room wall, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and put her arms around his neck. Of course, she was pretty sure he could hold her up on his own with no problems, but she didn’t want to take any chances and fall. That would completely ruin the mood, and that was the last thing Heather wanted to do when he was looking at her like he wanted to eat her.
“Come here,” he said, voice rough, and she leaned her head up until they met in the middle, mouths coming together with a hesitant brush that grew in passion as Sabin seemed determined to devour her.
Heather had never been kissed like this before.
Sabin kissed with his whole body. His chest and hips kept her pressed to the wall, and his hands groped and squeezed her bottom as he kissed her, lips and tongue and teeth combining into something delicious that had her wet and wanting in a matter of seconds.
It was all she could do to keep up, meeting his mouth again and again and parting her lips when his tongue pressed insistently inside.
Heather moaned into the kiss and threaded her fingers into his hair, marveling at how soft it was. Her hips rocked in little circles, pressing the heat of her center closer to the rock hardness of his body.
Little gasps and heavy breathing filled the space of her living room as they kissed and kissed like their lives depended on it, like they were going to die if they didn’t keep kissing.
Every passing second just made Heather burn hotter and want him more, and she moaned louder into his mouth, panting for breath when they broke their kiss.
“You’re so hot,” she gasped, hips still moving. “I want you so bad.”
His eyes were dark with his own want, and he licked his lips, seemingly trying to decide whether or not this was a good idea. All of Heather’s signs were pointing to yes, yes, yes, and finally Sabin smiled.
“Your bed?” he asked.
Heather grinned and gestured with one hand. “Right through there.”
He carried her all the way into her room and then dumped her on the bed, pausing to look at her and smile. “Clothes off, if you can manage,” he said, grinning, and she stuck her tongue out at him and swallowed hard.
She wasn’t ashamed of her body at all. Constantly being on her feet and rushing back and forth from one place to another at work kept her in relatively
good shape. She had high, perky breasts and slightly rounded hips that tapered into shapely legs.
Men like Dr. Woodward hit on her all the time, and she knew she was attractive with her freckles and round eyes.
But Sabin looked like he’d stepped out of the centerfold of some kind of health and fitness magazine, and she didn’t know what kind of woman he was into.
Luckily, good old liquid courage was always there for her, and she used her buzz to aid her in stripping out of her t-shirt and pants, wiggling on the bed as she shucked them off. Those golden eyes were hot on her body as she reached for her bra and unclasped it and then shuffled out of her underwear, and no sooner had she turned back to him after dropping her clothes to the floor in a pile, than Sabin was climbing up onto the bed to hover over her.
“You are so big,” she whispered.
Sabin smirked. “Too big?”
“Doubtful.”
And okay, some of that was definitely the alcohol talking because she had no idea how big he was, but when he dropped his pants revealing that a) he wasn’t wearing underwear, and b) he was very, very generously endowed, Heather swallowed hard and licked her lips.
“Holy crap,” she murmured, reaching out a hand to wrap around his cock. It was long and thick, bigger than she’d been expecting, than she’d ever seen before outside of porn, and she was twice as horny all of a sudden.
Slowly she stroked from the base to the crown of it, watching as his eyes fluttered with pleasure. A bead of fluid welled at the tip, and Heather ducked her head and licked it up, licking her lips and glancing at him.
Sabin swore in a language she didn’t understand and then grabbed her hips and laid back so he could pull her on top of him.
“Still not too big?” he asked arching an eyebrow.
“I like a challenge,” Heather purred back. She was pretty sure at this point that she was wet enough that it wouldn’t be a big deal.
It was a tight fit, that was for sure, but somehow that just made it even better. Her toes curled and she had already come once by the time he was fully seated inside her.
Heather was astride his hips, his hands at her waist, and she moved slowly, watching as each amazing inch of that dick slipped into her body and then out again. Sabin’s eyes were closed and he groaned deep in his throat as he pushed up with his hips, burying himself in her again and again.
“You feel so good,” he groaned, fingers digging into her skin. His hands were big enough that both of them nearly covered her entire waist, and there was something so hot about how big he was, how small he made her feel.
He could easily hurt her if he wanted to, but he was clearly taking care not to, and that was a turn on. In fact, aside from the way his hips pushed up to meet hers, he was letting her control the movement and speed of this, and she smiled, head tipped back.
Every rock solid inch of him was buried in her, and she wasn’t even trying to hold back her little noises of pleasure or the way the friction made her writhe on top of him. Each movement of their bodies together sent sensation, white hot and amazing, pooling in her lower belly.
Heather wasn’t shy about getting herself off when she had the time, and she had a drawer full of toys for just that purpose.
But this was so much better. This was give and take and call and response. It was Sabin’s hands on her skin and his mouth on her neck when she leaned in and the way he murmured words that didn’t make any sense to her in her ears.
It was the way his hand found a place between her legs and those large fingers started stroking her clit as he encouraged her to come for him.
When she did, it was with a broken sound, the pleasure in her finally spilling over and taking her over. She gasped and moaned and squirmed on top of him, finally slumping over when the pleasure ran out.
Sabin stroked a hand down her back and kept moving his hips until he came with a broken noise of his own, shaking under her.
He said something else that she didn’t understand and she smiled. “English,” she murmured. “Or did you forget how to speak it?”
He laughed, and it was a rich sound that washed over her warmly. “That was very good.”
“Understatement,” she murmured back, not even bothering to cover her mouth when she yawned.
“You should sleep,” Sabin told her. “You were up late and then early.”
He’d only been there for a day, and already he felt like a part of her routine, which was weird. She would have been more concerned about it if she weren’t currently floating in a haze of good feelings and tiredness mixed with her lingering drunkenness.
All she could manage was a nod, and she let Sabin move them. He disappeared for a moment and then came back with a wet cloth that he used to clean them up. Then he lifted her with one arm and pulled back the covers so he could tuck her in.
“Strong,” she mumbled, yawning again.
“Comes with the territory,” he said softly, stroking a hand through her hair. “Goodnight, Heather.” He drew back, clearly meaning to leave, but Heather wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tugged.
“Stay,” she managed to slur with the last of her energy. “Please?”
Of course, she fell asleep before she could tell if he’d complied or not, warm and sated. She was too tired to worry about it at the moment, but she had no idea what she was doing.
Chapter 9: An Interlude
“She has no idea what she’s doing!” Sabin said, gesturing wildly at the television screen. “Her grip is all wrong, for one thing, and for another, she’s swinging it like some sort of mallet and not at all like a weapon like that should be swung.”
Heather rolled her eyes and leaned back against the couch. “That’s not even the point of the movie, Sabin,” she said. “Like, not even a little bit.”
“Well, then why did they put this part in it?”
“To keep it exciting,” she said.
Sabin rolled his eyes in turn. “It would be more exciting if it was accurate.”
She was beginning to see that watching action movies with Sabin was going to be an exercise in debating the relative merits of entertainment versus accuracy. “You have a problem,” she said. “Are you saying women don’t know how to use weapons?”
“Not at all,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve known plenty of women who were exceptional with their chosen weapons. I’m saying this particular woman doesn’t know how to use her weapon.”
“It’s a movie, Sabin. And anyway, how do you know so much about swords?”
Sometimes, when she asked him things like that, sadness would flicker in his eyes and she’d regret opening her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was callously stomp on old wounds for him, but she didn’t know what was bad to ask and what wasn’t.
After a moment, he smiled and looked at her, reaching up to stroke a lock of hair behind her ear. “I was once very good with swords,” he replied simply, and Heather let the subject drop.
She was, after all, far more interested in the way his fingers were stroking her hair and along the shell of her ear and how it made shivers run up her spine.
“I see,” she murmured, leaning into him. He wrapped one of those strong arms around her shoulder, and she relaxed against him.
It was funny, how they’d ended up like this. One drunken night had led to more sober nights, which had led to this comfortable camaraderie that wasn’t quite dating, but didn’t feel entirely platonic, either.
He kissed and touched her when he wanted to, and she welcomed it, pressing into his embrace or his fingers or his lips with an eagerness that she hoped wasn’t off putting.
It wasn’t like she could help it, after all. Not when he was always warm and strong and seemed like he could protect her. Her mother had talked about it being some kind of woman’s instinct to go to men who seemed like they could keep you safe, but Heather didn’t know if it was that or just the fact that those muscles were so enticing. She definitely wasn’t going to call her mom and ask, either w
ay.
With his arm around her, it was hard to concentrate on the movie, which was honestly fine by her because she’d seen it already. He dipped his head down and nuzzled at the skin of her neck and then down, nosing aside the collar of her shirt and smiling against the skin there.
“What are you doing?” she asked teasingly, shuffling closer to him.
“Nothing,” he replied. But he soon was pressing open mouthed kisses to her shoulder. “Savoring maybe.”
Heather giggled and then blinked, a little shocked that that noise had come out of her. “Savoring what?” she asked.
“You.”
It was said so matter of fact that she couldn’t help the flush that stole over her cheeks. No one had ever said anything like that to her before, and she would have said it was terribly cheesy if not for the way butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach and her body was suddenly flooded with warmth.
“Oh,” she breathed back. “Seems a little unfair that this savoring is only going one way,” she pointed out, biting her lip to hold back the moan that wanted to spill out of her when his teeth grazed her pulse point.
Without warning he was hitching her up and into his lap, and she laughed delightedly at the sudden change in position, legs spread on either side of his lap.
Heather hadn’t expected it to work like this at all. She’d thought that what had started as mere drunken fumbling would soon fade since they didn’t really know each other, but they seemed drawn to each other like magnets. Every day Sabin was waiting for her when she came home from work was a day that she let him kiss her hello and massage her shoulders and take her to bed to make the stress of the day seem like nothing at all.
Now he had his hands on her butt, pulling her in closer as their lips met. It was always with an explosion of heat, and this was no exception, the two of them melding together perfectly, mouths brushing, pressing, meeting over and over again, the television flickering forgotten behind them.
One of those large hands slid almost possessively up her back, and she swallowed hard, her own hands braced against the solid expanse of his chest.
His lips moved back down towards her neck again, and she tipped her head back, giving him room to maneuver.