by Laurie Paige
Carrying the cup, she led the way to the porch chairs. Although the night air was chilly, the porch sat in a protective alcove and was pleasant. The soft darkness seemed soothing to her taut nerves.
“It sometimes takes me a while to wind down, especially after an emergency such as we had tonight,” she said. “I like to sit out here and listen to the quiet. The constant roar from the highway becomes white noise. I no longer even notice it.”
“I do the same at my place,” he admitted. “Where I live, there’s no traffic sound at night. You can’t hear the freeway because there’s a hill between it and the house.”
“Mmm, that must be nice.”
“Yeah.” After a minute, he added, “But it can be lonely, too. Some of the at-home wives complain about that.”
“Is that why you stay at work? Because you find the house too lonely now that your wife is gone?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. She was slumped down in the chair so her head rested on the back. She now rolled it to the side so she could study him in the faint light coming through the pleated shades at her windows.
When he looked her way, she couldn’t read his expression. He was probably trying to think of words to put her in her place.
“Maybe it’s the guilt that haunts me,” he at last said.
“Guilt because she chose to drive off in a huff when you quarreled?”
“Guilt because she was right,” he said, his voice low so she had to really listen to hear. “She was angry because I’d worked late. Again. She’d wanted to go check on a new shipment of furniture. It was time to furnish the baby’s room, she said.”
“Didn’t she understand that as a trauma specialist, you had to stay for emergencies? Like tonight, that wasn’t something one could predict or schedule. People have to be fair in picking their arguments. You have to be fair with yourself, too, in taking or ascribing blame. My dad says it takes to two to make a marriage…or to break one.”
She heard Eric let out a long, slow breath. She shouldn’t be saying these things to him. His life was none of her business.
Liar, a part of her whispered. She wanted very much to be part of his business. She wanted him…in very basic and elemental ways. It was startling, but there it was.
“It does,” Eric agreed. “Both partners have to consider the other in marriage. That’s what I didn’t do. I didn’t call when I was going to be late. I thought she should understand that I was working and that it involved lives.”
“She didn’t see it like that,” Jenna concluded.
“No. She said I could spare a moment to let her know what was going on. She wanted me to tell her about the cases when I got home.”
“But you were tired and didn’t want to talk about anything,” Jenna guessed.
“Yes.”
“I’m that way, too, sometimes. At times, when I get home, I can’t make another decision, not even about what to eat. It just seems too much. If I had to be nice to another person, I’d probably explode.”
“That’s why it’s easier not to date or see anyone.” He met her gaze in the dim light. “Is that why you chose an anonymous donor for your baby?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t met anyone who fit my ideals, I suppose.”
“Maybe your standards are too high. No mere mortal can live up to them.”
She had to laugh at that. “I don’t think that’s the problem,” she said, using his dry twist of humor. “Perhaps we see too much of the human condition at the hospital to be willing to put up with it at home.”
He hesitated, then chuckled. “You may be right.”
Their eyes met again. The laughter faded and the silence grew…and grew…
Arcs of electricity flew between them, dazzling in their brilliance. Liquid gold poured through her veins instead of blood, heating her from the inside out.
“I want you,” he said, so low she almost didn’t catch the words. “I want to kiss you.”
“Then do it.”
She dared him with her gaze. Inside, she thought she would melt at his feet if he didn’t move, didn’t catch her before she slipped from the chair like a rag doll.
When he stood, she did, too. He laid his hands—his long-fingered, magical hands—on her shoulders. A shiver of anticipation ran over her. She lifted her face and leaned into his lean, powerful frame. He wrapped her in his arms, holding her securely, but delicately, as if she were as fragile as a flower.
“Jenna,” he said, a groan that spoke of needs he couldn’t voice.
She heard them all and understood them, because the same ones were in her. Lifting her arms, she let herself cling to him. The warmth between them increased. She felt his breath touch her forehead, her cheek, her mouth.
Then it was his lips touching hers.
The kiss spun out of control at once. She luxuriated in the feel of his masculine body against hers and the way his hands slid down her back and cupped her hips so that they fit together perfectly. She arched into his embrace, the hunger erupting like a storm that had no build-up, gave no warning to the unwary.
She moaned low in her throat, demanding more from him, wanting everything he could give…
“Jenna, I…this is crazy,” he murmured, strewing a thousand kisses along her neck.
“I know. It’s the hunger. I didn’t know it could be this way, this strong.” She gasped when he left a trail of fire along her neck to the dip between her breasts.
His mouth moved to the side and he bit gently on her nipple. It contracted with painful suddenness.
“Come inside. I want to see you…have to…”
At his murmured phrases, she nodded and followed him into the house. He closed the door behind them. She heard the lock click into place. Hand in hand, they went up the steps and into the bedroom.
His hands went to her top, then paused. “If you don’t want this—”
“Shh,” she said, laying her fingertips over his mouth. “I do. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.” She gave him a rueful smile when he peered deeply into her eyes. “Sometimes things are that way, I think.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed.
When he observed her with a troubled frown, as if unsure that she knew what she was doing, she smoothed the lines away from his brow, then let her hands drift to the buttons on his shirt. She unfastened one, then another, and then another…
His chest lifted. He caught her against him in a fierce, but careful embrace. “I can’t go this slowly,” he warned, a second before deftly pulling her top over her head and disposing of her slacks in the next instant.
He cupped her breasts and studied the darkened nipples through the thin material of her bra. Slipping his hands behind her, he unfastened the hooks, then slid the bra down her arms and tossed it aside.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes sexily dark and appreciative of her charms. He bent and laved each breast with liquid fire.
“I’m going into meltdown,” she warned him, holding on to his forearms as the room spun dizzily.
He laughed, stripped the covers out of the way and laid her on the bed. When his hands moved to his clothing, she sat up and silently insisted on helping. Her breath caught in her throat when she gazed at his masculine strength, fully unclad before her.
She laid a hand on his thigh. The hair was thick and dark on his legs. She liked running her hand over it. When she touched him intimately, he, too, caught his breath, then he pushed her hand aside and stretched out beside her. Their legs meshed as naturally as vines wrapping around each other, forming one perfect whole.
Leaning forward, she planted kisses over his chest. The hair tickled her nose, making her laugh. She pulled it with her lips.
“You’ll pay for that,” he told her. He flicked her nipples playfully, then bent to her mouth.
They kissed hungrily, like starving castaways stumbling upon a feast on some exotic shore. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. “I want…oh!” she said, feeling his shift
in weight, then feeling his legs making a place for themselves between hers.
She felt the smoothness of him against her and the moist readiness of her body where he rubbed seductively. It took only a smallest movement to deepen the embrace.
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Not quite yet.”
He stroked down her body, paying attention to her breasts, then her waist and the rounded curve of her abdomen before gliding lower until his touch made her writhe in ecstasy. “Eric,” she whispered, a demand.
“Easy.” He moved against her, tantalizing her with the promise of fulfillment.
As the hunger rose to unbearable pleasure, she cried out and bit lightly at his lips, his throat and chest, wanting more from him.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said as he thrust the tiniest bit.
“Yes,” he echoed.
When she wrapped her legs around his hips, he rose, positioned himself and thrust slowly, deeply until they were merged completely.
She opened her eyes and gazed into his, caught by the emotions that spun like golden threads between them. She couldn’t define the feelings in her or in him. Stroking down his sides and onto his hips with her hands, she pressed upward with her hips, bringing them just a fraction deeper, more intimately connected.
Still gazing into her eyes, he began to move smoothly and rhythmically. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and closed her eyes as the flood of need became a roaring storm tide, ripping through her until she bucked and plunged wildly beneath him.
Eric held her securely and sipped the passion from her lips, absorbed it from her body as tremors raced over her. She sobbed his name as the tempest rolled through her and caught her in its peak and held her there…
“Yes,” he said in deepened tones, his own need now desperate and wild. “Yes.”
The storm surge took them both and deposited them on a faraway beach. He never wanted to return. Reality could never be as good as this….
CHAPTER 7
The problem with tomorrow, Jenna thought when she woke on Thursday morning, was that it always came. And with it, all the troubles of the previous day.
She lay still with her eyes closed and enjoyed the tactile sensation of a very masculine leg thrown over hers and an arm lying across her waist. Moving slowly, she rubbed up and down his leg, liking the sensation of warmth from his skin and the enticing brush of the short wiry hairs against the sole of her foot.
The muscles of his arm flexed, then he turned his wrist and cupped her breast. She snuggled closer. Against her hip, she felt his erection surge to life. It added to the excitement building in her body. She stroked her hand over his shoulder and turned her head to nuzzle his collar bone.
“Mmm,” she murmured, a demand in the sound.
His lips moved over her throat, then down to her breast. The morning, she mused, was off to a perfect start.
“Shower?” she suggested.
He helped her up and they went into the master bath. It wasn’t until she adjusted the water, then stepped inside the large shower and turned to him that she became aware that his silence indicated more than early-morning lassitude.
His eyes were on her abdomen, the pain and remorse in those dark depths plain for her to see.
Following his gaze, she looked at her body, seeing it as he did—the thrust of her breasts, larger now than they used to be, and the nipples circled by a pink aureole that was darker than before the pregnancy. Her abdomen was a plump mound.
“I look as if I’ve swallowed a soccer ball,” she said, laughing to dispel the tension she sensed in him.
“You look beautiful,” he corrected, his voice hoarse and strained.
Realizing the magic of the night was definitely behind them, she managed a smile. “Thank you, kind sir.”
Standing under the spray, she let it wet her hair, her shoulders and back. She didn’t push him to join her, but instead closed her eyes and lifted her face to the stream.
Hands touched her tummy and slid gently over the curve of the baby. She felt the child kick. Opening her eyes a slit, she observed Eric’s expression as he lingered at the spot where the baby tapped against his hand. He looked so unbearably sad, it made her ache, too. The heat of the moment had left his body, she saw.
“Let’s hurry,” she said. “I’m hungry.”
She showered quickly while he stayed carefully out of her way. When she stepped out, he moved into the stream and soaped up. She finished quickly, dressed and, pulling her damp hair into a ponytail, went down to the kitchen.
When he came down, she had cereal and toast ready. They carried plates and cups to the little porch and ate outside.
“It’s okay,” she told him when they’d finished eating and were sipping the coffee while watching the ducks on the tiny lake. “Last night wasn’t a commitment to anything.”
His eyes met hers. Her ego was slightly bruised at the relief on his face. Ah, well, worse things had happened.
“I don’t want to start something that has no place to go,” he said in his solemn manner.
He tried to play fair. She appreciated that about him. “I understand.” She managed a wry smile. “Let’s chalk it up to moon madness and let it go at that. Perhaps we can still be friends?”
He didn’t answer right away. When she glanced at him in question, she found him studying her intently, as if looking for flaws or hidden motives.
“We can try. Truthfully, I’m not sure about that. Once sex has entered the picture, things tend to get…out of hand,” he ended, after an obvious struggle to find the right descriptive words.
Huh. If he only knew how right he was. Her reaction was to leap into his arms and make him forget his scruples. She didn’t, of course. Like him, she had to play fair.
“I think we can control our wild impulses.” Her heart rattled around her chest as if in protest. She had to laugh.
“What’s funny?” he asked, looking both perplexed and annoyed about the whole thing.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed harder. “Us,” she tried to explain. “One night of passion isn’t a lifetime commitment. Consider it a minor trauma, doctor. We’ll get through it the same as we do at the hospital.”
He set the cup down and frowned at her.
“What?” she said.
“You.”
She shot him a questioning glance.
“It can’t be this simple. Women don’t take things in a simple fashion.” He looked at his watch. “I’m due at a meeting in thirty minutes.”
“You’d better go home and change,” she told him. “Thanks for your help with the baby shower gifts.”
“I think you’ve thanked me enough.”
She tensed. Then she saw he was smiling, a tiny, wry smile, but a real one. “You’re teasing me,” she murmured. “The stern Dr. Thompson knows how to joke. Wait till I tell the other nurses,” she said in exaggerated wonder.
“Make sure that’s all you tell them,” he ordered sardonically, still smiling.
With a wave, he headed down the sidewalk to his SUV, parked in a guest parking slot.
On the hiking path, two of her neighbors walked briskly and chatted. Jenna saw them pause as they spotted Eric on the walk, then her on the porch. Other than him, no one had spent the night at her place since she’d moved here over two years ago. His appearance obviously surprised them.
Join the club, she thought wryly. It had surprised her most of all.
* * *
Eric used the electric razor, then changed to a fresh shirt and suit. He was aware of his body in a new way. There was a bounce to his step when he returned to his vehicle for the drive to the hospital meeting of department heads.
He’d slept better last night than any other night he could recall in recent history. In two years, he admitted.
The smile left his face. Jenna had made it easy for them to return to friendship…or to a strictly professional relationship, if necessary. Was it merely her training or perhaps the years they’d worked tog
ether?
Pulling into his usual parking space at the hospital, he counted up the time. It must have been seven or eight years ago that she’d completed advanced training in trauma and moved to E.R. He’d noticed her skill on the first case they’d worked on together as a team. As time passed, he’d come to depend on her calm manner and smooth functioning.
She was like a second pair of hands connected to his brain, he thought. Last night had been similar, except he’d been the one who’d known instinctively what she’d wanted from him during their passionate lovemaking.
He waited for the guilt to hit him in a hot tide of remorse. It did, but to his surprise, it wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d thought it would be. Odd, that.
Overlaying the regret for the past was a new set of emotions, far more complex than he could define at present. Balancing the heaviness of spirit was a lightness he hadn’t felt for…mmm, years. Hunger pinged through him as he recalled the night. A pleasant sensation rolled over him.
Going into the hospital, he smoothed his hair, tousled by an impish breeze, and assumed the role he was accustomed to and comfortable with—that of the physician.
Do no harm.
That was the creed he tried to live by. Jenna was doubly vulnerable at the moment although she didn’t seem to realize it. First from the pregnancy, then from the accident.
He hoped he hadn’t hurt the relationship between him and his favorite trauma team aide by answering the passion that had sprang into being like a phoenix rising from the ashes. He would never forgive himself if he had.
* * *
Shortly before ten that night, Jenna finished bandaging the knife wound that she had cleaned and sutured while Eric observed the patient’s vital signs.
“He’s stable,” the doctor said. “Let’s keep him overnight and let his doctor look him over in the morning.”
Following him into the supply room, she stripped gloves, mask and gown and tossed them in the proper bins while he did the same. “I’ll write it up.”
A hand caught her wrist. She glanced at Eric in surprise. Electric tingles rushed up her arm. No surprise there. She’d reacted to the slightest brush of his arm against hers the entire shift.