by Alison Kent
She wanted to tell him to hurry, to finish her, to take down his pants and invite her onto his lap. But she said nothing. Her voice had long since vanished, her throat gone dry from her quick choppy breaths. She knew if she told him to hurry, he’d make her wait forever. And if she told him to wait, he’d do just that, knowing too well the ways her mind worked.
Saying anything quickly became moot. Patrick knew exactly what he was doing, exactly how to bring her off in fierce and fiery sparks. She was wet, so incredibly wet. Moisture trickled down her inner thighs. She smelled her scent and her arousal heightened. She brought up her palms to cup her breasts, her fingers to tug at her nipples.
He pushed one thumb into her, spreading his fingers over the curve of her bottom, sliding one intimately between her cheeks. His thumb pressed deeper, finding that pillow-soft spot of keen sensation inside, then withdrawing in a rhythmic motion timed to that of his tongue. He licked his way through her folds, one side then the other, swirling around her clit before sucking her into his mouth.
He stopped only once to whisper, “I love you,” before delving deep with his tongue.
That was all it took. She cried out, her legs spread wantonly, her hands moving to his shoulders for support. She shuddered, shivered, quaked where she stood, unable to do anything but give in.
Patrick continued to suck her, to finger her, to apply a teasing pressure where he knew she wanted him to play. Not even the chime of the elevator distracted him from seeing to the end of her undoing. His attentiveness remained, even as he began to ease away. He moved his mouth upward, kissed the round of her belly, the one spot she was never able to exercise away.
That disconnected thought finally returned her to the present, and the sound of the elevator motor whirring in the shaft. She took a step back from his hands, looked down at his reddened mouth, his chin glistening with her juices. Panic set in as she grabbed her dress from the floor, and she couldn’t find any words to say.
“I know, I know.” Patrick grabbed up his crutches and hoisted himself to his feet. He thumped his way to the kitchen sink, where he turned on the water. “You hate how I do that.”
She watched him pump liquid soap into one palm and carefully wash the lower half of his face. She watched him rinse just as neatly, keeping his cuffs and his collar dry. She watched him reach for a paper towel and blot the water from his face before turning off the water and facing her again.
“See? Good as new.” He frowned, taking in her state of dishabille with a smartly arched brow and a grin that was entirely too cocky. “Were you going to get the door or would you like me to do that?”
His question jarred her out of her trance. She rolled her eyes and shook out her dress. What the hell had just happened? All she’d been wanting to do was convince him that it wouldn’t kill him to stay and face what normally sent him running. Now she was the one battling the urge to flee, to get the hell away, as far away as she could.
Patrick Coffey was a dangerous man, and she couldn’t afford to love him.
TWO HOURS LATER, Patrick sat back in his chair, glaring at Annabel, who sat way the hell at the opposite end of the dining room table.
It wasn’t a hateful glare but one of aggravation. She’d seated six people between them, as if she needed a defensive line as well as the distance. Protecting her goal, as it were, with Chloe, Macy and Syd sitting in a zigzag formation with Eric, Leo and Ray.
Swirling the last half inch of his fourth glass of wine, Patrick decided to open a brewery specializing in alcohol of a proof sufficient to intoxicate any poor soul unable to get drunk. Getting drunk right now sounded like the best time a guy could have.
Especially since he’d sat through one hundred twenty minutes of drinking and dining and chitchatting. It was enough to drive a man to take up the bottle. Oh, yeah. It had. And damn little good it had done.
He’d played host to Annabel’s hostess, answering civilly when questions came his way. He didn’t have a lot of anecdotal input when the conversation turned to careers and Annabel’s forensic fetish. He doubted there would’ve been much interest in his chef’s apprenticeship under Soledad, though news of his recent interview at Tony’s Restaurant did earn him a round of applause.
He’d really started feeling like a circus freak then, sitting there with fourteen eyeballs aimed his way, the cuffs, collar and tie he wore being the least of his annoyance. Hell, if he’d known everyone shared Annabel’s obsession with his private life, he would’ve propped his cast on the corner of the table and given a graphic rendition of his injury, followed by sweeping tales of life on the high seas.
Fortunately, Ray had seen Patrick’s edgy discomfort with what felt like microscopic scrutiny, though it was really nothing more than attentive curiosity, and had swept the post-interview parking lot incident under the table. Patrick appreciated the save. It gave him time to catch his breath and rein in his temper. He would’ve walked off to deal with the stress except his crutches made for a lousy getaway vehicle.
And then there was the small detail of having promised Annabel he’d stay.
With Eric and Ray talking over Haydon’s Half-Time’s Superbowl plans, Patrick kept his gaze trained on the far end of the table. Macy, Sydney and Leo had moved to the living room to kick back and digest, leaving Annabel to lean forward and listen intently to Chloe’s whispers. The room wasn’t that large, nor the table overly long, but having the two men at his side talking sports, Patrick could hear nothing of the female conversation.
He supposed they could’ve been discussing the New Year’s Eve showing, but Chloe’s glum expression led him to believe otherwise. More than likely it was personal, and that meant Annabel would be pawing through the other woman’s baggage the same way she pawed through his. Not that what they were talking about was any of his business.
It just said a lot about who Annabel was, the way others sought her help and advice, getting her to bail them out of trouble and then turning around and doing the same for her. He liked that about her. It was one of so many things. More than he could ever list, yet as a whole had stolen his heart.
But the thought of her pawing sent his mind right back to dessert. Not the pecan-fudge pie sitting unfinished on his dessert plate, but her sweet juices he’d lapped up earlier.
He’d never intended to go at her when she’d dropped her dress to the floor, but she’d acted as if he was the one she was tempting, when he knew better. Sure, he was easy. He was the guy and he had the dick. That didn’t mean he was the only one to get off on her naked body. Even now she had her hands on her skin, one elbow on the table’s edge and her hand unconsciously stroking the hollow of her throat.
As he looked on, the fingers she’d had pressed to her collarbone drifted beneath the neckline of that wild red dress she wore. It wasn’t an obvious sexual touch, but a case of absentminded stroking as she talked. An innocent touch, but one that still managed to fire him up in a very big way.
“Hey, Patrick.”
He whipped his gaze to the side. “What?”
“Dude, don’t bite off my head,” Ray said. “I was telling Eric about your pitching arm.”
“Heh. I haven’t thrown a ball in years.”
“Still, playing college ball says a lot about the arm you did have,” Eric said, glancing from one brother to the other.
Ray reached for the bottle of wine Annabel had left on the table, and refilled his glass. “Yeah, doofus here screwed it up his junior year in a game of coed touch football.”
Eric chuckled, leaned farther onto the forearms he’d braced along the table’s edge. “Can’t say I wouldn’t have been tempted, too. I ended up losing my Major League dream to my rotator cuff.”
Patrick shook his head. “Man, that had to be tough. I wasn’t even close to that caliber and kissing my arm goodbye pretty much blew any reason I had for staying in school.”
Frowning into his drink, Ray shook his head. “Can you believe I never put that two and two together? I knew you had
a jones for the game, but I thought that was just you playing so you didn’t have to study.”
“Yeah, well…” Patrick’s mouth twisted. “It was. I might’ve had the arm, but I never had the discipline. If I had—”
“You wouldn’t have been playing coed touch football,” Eric finished for him.
Patrick nodded toward the other man, though he looked straight at Ray. “What he said.”
Ray leaned back and laughed. “Guess I wasn’t exactly the brother’s keeper I claimed to be.”
“You kept me just fine. You and your size twelve boots. I figured I’d better toe the line or I’d be digging leather out of my ass for years.”
Eric laughed. Ray chuckled. Patrick grinned and lifted his wineglass. His gaze cut to Annabel as he drained it, and he was glad there was no more than a swallow left or he would’ve choked to death.
Her head was bent down slightly as she listened to Chloe, her lashes slightly lower, but her eyes were pinpoint sharp, her focus on his face. Her mouth was what got to him, the way she held her lips in a bow that seemed more an effort to hide a smile than anything. He didn’t know what he’d done to draw her smile, but it wasn’t her expression that mattered.
No. What mattered was the relentless tease of her fingers playing in the neckline of her dress. She leaned at an angle that exposed more than the swell of one breast. He could see the dark circle of her areola, and the cherry tip of her nipple.
Neither of the men at Patrick’s end of the table faced her direction, their chairs clustered off to the right of his. With Chloe’s attention on her hands twisting in her lap, and Annabel’s back to the living room, she was in no danger of being found out.
But she was in danger of being tossed onto the table and having her legs thrown over his shoulders. This woman was going to be the death of him. The absolute death. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Ray, sweetie, are you about done here?”
Hearing Sydney’s voice, Patrick glanced from Annabel to his soon-to-be sister-in-law in time to catch Sydney’s grin.
“Dude’s reminiscing over my not-so-glorious glory days. He definitely needs to go home and sleep off that mountain of food he’s been shovelling in.” In fact, Patrick decided, reaching for the crutches propped on the wall at his back, it was time for everyone to go. He pushed himself to his one good foot and braced his weight on the crutches. Annabel took his unspoken cue and got to her feet, as well.
“I guess we should go,” Ray said, groaning as he forced himself out of his chair. “Don’t want to keep Santa waiting.”
Sydney hooked her arm through Ray’s. “Let me help Poe clean up this mess first—”
“No.” All eyes turned on Patrick. “I’ve got her, er, it. I’ve got it. I’ll help her.” Could he have been more obviously horny? “I’ll help her.”
Sydney fought a grin with a frown. “Are you sure? It won’t take ten minutes.”
“He’s sure,” Annabel said, making her way around the back of the table. “We’re just glad all of you could come. The company has been wonderful.” She was right. As much as he’d pissed and moaned, it had been. Though not half as mind-blowing as hearing her refer to the two of them as “we.”
“The best part was her not making me cook.” He gave her a wink as she sidled up beside him. She smiled in return—right before sliding a hand down his back to cup his ass.
With the kitchen bar on his right, Annabel and the table on his left, he knew no one could see where she’d planted her hand. But that didn’t matter, since the view from the front was rapidly becoming as scenic as Everest.
“Good luck with Tony’s,” Macy said, as Leo helped her into her quilted denim jacket. “They’ll be lucky to have you.”
“Thanks,” Patrick answered, feeling the first tingling beads of sweat on his brow.
He shook the hand Leo offered, then returned Sydney’s one-armed hug before casting a sideways glance at the woman with her fingers probing between his legs. He cleared his throat. “Let me get the elevator, then I’ll be back to help.”
Her pulse beating visibly in the deep V of her dress, Annabel nodded, saying her goodbyes to Ray and Sydney as Patrick walked away. Eric and Chloe were already at the elevator. Patrick pulled back the grate, hit the code for the door and rolled it up on its tracks.
He shook Eric’s pitching hand with his own, sharing a moment of male bonding that was rare. Chloe pushed past them and got into the elevator; Leo and Macy followed. Sydney kissed Patrick on the cheek before following Eric inside.
Ray was the last to go. He took hold of Patrick’s offered hand, then pulled him into a brotherly bear hug. “We’ll see you and Poe out at the house tomorrow, right?”
Patrick nodded as his brother backed away. “Not sure what time we’ll be there.”
“Whenever. It’s an all-day-long, come-and-go sort of thing.” He stepped into the elevator car and grinned. “Thanks for dinner. And thanks for staying.”
Patrick tried to keep a straight face—and failed. It was good to see his brother smile. He waved as Ray pulled down the rolling door.
Once the car was on the way to the ground, Patrick made his way to the kitchen at his crutches’ top speed. Anytime, anywhere, any way. That was the only thing he could think about—especially once he reached the kitchen.
It was empty save for a sinkful of dirty dishes and a red silk dress on the floor.
WITH HER EYES CLOSED and leather coat drawn tight against the evening’s chill, Chloe slumped into the curve of the Mustang’s bucket seat for the short ride home through Midtown.
For the most part the evening had gone well. Eric had been attentive if not as solicitous as Leo had been with Macy or as openly affectionate as Sydney with Ray. And then there was the way Patrick looked at Poe, which had caused even Chloe to shiver.
She wasn’t sure Eric had ever looked at her like that, as if wanting to singe off her clothes with his eyeballs. Then again, she knew he had, and more than once, though a particular mechanical room on one of the lower floors of the Renaissance Hotel was the first incident that came to mind. The way he’d wanted her then…She shivered and sighed and curled in on herself even more.
“You cold, princess? Say the word and I’ll up the heat.”
The comeback to his double entendre didn’t even make it all the way to the tip of her tongue. She missed that fiery passion they’d once shared. “No. I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he asked, moving his hand from the stick shift to her knee.
She wanted to touch him, wanted to remind him of how hard it used to be to keep their clothes on around each other. She wanted to know if he remembered the Renaissance Hotel, or the strawberry shortcake she’d made of his body.
“I’m good. Don’t worry about me.”
He returned his hand to the steering wheel, and she felt him sit straighter in his seat. “I do worry about you, Chloe. That’s part of loving you. It bugs me that you haven’t been yourself lately.”
Her eyes came open at that. She turned a bit in her seat, leaning back against her door as, arms still crossed, she faced him. “You think that I haven’t been myself?”
He pressed his mouth into a line, and nodded. “I’m trying not to be a pig about it, but it’s like you’re on permanent menstrual cycle.”
“Well, sugar, I guess that’s better than being on permanent spin.”
“Spin?”
“Yeah, you know. Turning a situation so that your viewpoint is the one people see.”
His tight expression quickly became a frown. “I’m trying not to seem dense over here, but you’ve lost me. What is it that I’m supposed to be spinning?”
Men! Were they all this incredibly clueless? “Our relationship, Eric. You’d think there wasn’t anything going on with us, judging by what all of our friends think. We’re the only ones who don’t seem to be moving forward, making plans. It’s like we’ve stalled, and I’m not sure why.”
There. She’d said it. She
’d given him an opening to spill the gripes, the complaints, the bitching and the moaning, all that he’d been holding back. But he didn’t say a word. At least not right away.
He simply kept his eyes on the road ahead. She stared at him for a long time, for what seemed like ages though was no more than seconds. Seconds became suspended while nigh on two years of their time together unwound in her mind like a movie reel. He’d broken into her house once, like William Hurt had broken into Kathleen Turner’s in Body Heat, wanting her that much, needing to set things right before they lost another day.
Now their days seemed nothing but a blur.
“What is going on with us?” he finally asked, his voice low and tense, a restrained whisper. “It’s obvious that you’re unhappy, but I can’t fix anything until you tell me what’s broke.”
Oh, why the hell not? She’d had just enough wine to loosen her inhibitions and with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as background music she was sufficiently pumped. “Okay then. You used to talk about wanting kids. Now when I bring up the subject, you change it. Every single time.”
Eric ground his teeth. The light of the moon and that from the streetlights glinted off the hard lines of his jaw. “We’re not ready for kids, Chloe. Not to mention that I’d like to get married first.”
She pushed away his comment about marriage. It was the issue of babies confusing her most. “What do you mean, we’re not ready for kids? That’s all you used to talk about.”
“I do want kids. Eventually. But you don’t decide to have them just because your friends are starting their families. Baby-making isn’t like scrapbooking. It’s not a trendy little hobby.”
Is that what he really thought? That she wanted his babies in order to be fashionable? “Macy doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
He snorted. “Hell she doesn’t. You’ve been baby-obsessed ever since you heard she was pregnant.”
“Maybe that’s because it got me to wondering why you’d changed your mind.” She drew her coat even tighter.
“I haven’t changed my mind, Chloe,” he said, his voice softer now, more patient, more like that of the Eric she’d fallen in love with instead of the one she couldn’t even coax into bed.