Chapter 17 #2
Wren couldn’t drop her eyes from his face, couldn’t break their connection. He was here, back in H-Town, because he’d chosen to be here, he’d chosen her… She didn’t know how she felt about that. Happy? Thrilled? Guilty? Very guilty?
“I’m so sorry I left the way I did, for the things I said, how I acted,” he stated. His apology was simple, sincere, and eloquent, but it wasn’t important. Not right now, anyway.
“Dane, don’t they need you?”
Big shoulders under his pistachio-colored button-down, the cuffs casually rolled back, lifted and fell. “Humanatus has other surgeons, Wren. No one but you is irreplaceable.”
Sorry? What? Her mouth fell open, and she struggled to make sense of his words. What did that last sentence mean? What did he expect from her? Why was he here and not in Kashmir? What the hell was happening?
Dane placed his finger under her chin and pushed her mouth closed, before quietly, reverently, placing his mouth on hers in a too-brief kiss. “Luna is about to make a speech, so shall we continue this later?”
Wren, from a place far away, heard someone testing a microphone. She nodded, still unable to wrench her eyes off this man who was here instead of there. Who’d, if she was interpreting him correctly, chosen her.
Dane seemed as uninterested in Luna’s speech as she was, as his eyes remained on her face. “Please stop looking at me like that,” she whispered, her heart in her throat.
“How am I looking at you, sweetheart?”
She licked her lips. “Like you want to kiss me.”
“I do want to kiss you,” he murmured, not bothering to hide how thrilled he was to be here, with her. No one had ever looked at her in this way before. “But that’s, hopefully, for later.”
Hopefully? She guaranteed that they’d be kissing later. And more. A lot, lot more. For a long, long time.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention, please,” Luna boomed from her soapbox, painted purple and decorated with gold stars. “And that includes you, Wren Dunlop, if you can drag your eyes off the town’s new doctor for a moment.”
New doctor? What the hell? Had Luna gotten her way? Was Dane going to be H-Town’s new GP? No!
“You can’t, Dane,” she told him, gripping his arm. She waved her other hand, agitated. “You need to be out there saving lives. It’s what you do, it’s what you love. Don’t give it up for me … for anyone.”
She loved him too much to allow him to make such a massive sacrifice. Dane simply smiled at her. “Your godmother has jumped the gun again, sweetheart. If I do stay, it won’t be forever, I promise. Look, Luna is glaring at us… I’ll explain later.”
He’d better. Unable to keep her eyes off his face—okay, a huge part of her was terrified he’d disappear again—Wren gripped his hand and threaded her fingers through his. She couldn’t keep her next words from escaping. It was, after all, Lammas, and she was grateful. Profoundly so.
“I am so happy to see you, Dane.” Dane dropped his head to kiss her forehead, and Wren felt his fingers wrap around hers. And sitting on that log, Wren felt like she’d finally come home.
* * *
Wren had no idea where they were going, but Dane’s hand in hers, her fingers linked with his, gave her all the reassurance she needed. All that mattered was that Dane was back in H-Town for her. She knew this now, as well as she knew her own name.
He’d chosen her.
This smart, hot, crazy-sexy man had opted to stick and stay. For her. The thought made her breath hitch, her lungs contract, and her stomach squirm.
“Breathe, sweetheart.”
Dane’s calm command had her hauling in some much-needed air, and she felt her heart rate settle a little; instead of being at a gallop, it was now only sprinting. “Shall we talk?” she asked, her voice jerky. “I feel like we should talk.”
He looked at her, his gaze tender. “We’re going to talk, Wren, I promise.”
Dane led her down Main Street, veered left, and walked her down the path to the community center, to the door leading to the dance studio. He punched in the code to unlock the door, pushed it open, pulling her inside the dark room.
“I know we have things to say, but I need to kiss you first,” he told her, yanking her into his arms as the door closed behind them.
Samezies.
Since first seeing him, back on the log, looking masculine and so damn hot she felt her panties melting. In a fast, so fast, movement, his one hand captured the back of her head, his fingers pushed into her back, and then he was kissing her…
No, that was too tame a word. Devouring her, inhaling her, they all worked.
Wren wound her arms around his neck, gratefully accepting his hard kiss, his tongue winding around hers, his hard chest flattening her breasts.
Needing more, she pushed closer, desperate to climb inside him.
She tasted his groan and sighed when his hand came up to hold her breast, his thumb sliding over her already hard nipple.
Ribbons of intensity spread through her, and she pulled his shirt out of his pants, desperate for skin, desperate for him.
His thick cock, long, hard, full, ground into her, and she tipped her hips to increase the contact, her panties soaking and her breath harsh in her throat.
Dane seemed equally out of control, his hand clumsily unbuckling her belt, dropping it to the wooden floor and he lifted her shirt to find her stomach, the band of her skirt.
His hand skated around her hips and dipped under the cord of her thong, palming her ass, bending his knees to push between her legs, skating her folds.
He wrenched his mouth off hers and groaned. “God, you are so wet.”
“Don’t you dare stop kissing me,” she muttered, standing on her tiptoes to reach his mouth.
Instead of kissing her, he made his way down her jaw to her neck, his tongue painting her skin with dirty words and hot kisses. “I need you so damn much, Wren,” he said, every word coated with frustrated longing.
She turned her head, saw the huge floor-to-ceiling window, and bit her lip.
Could they, quickly? The window was tinted, and she doubted anyone would see anything, not with the lights off and her long flowing shirt.
Feeling naughty, and free, and utterly at the mercy of her feelings for him, she fumbled to open his belt.
He tangled their hands together, and when his eyes met hers, they were wide. Excited but cautious.
He swallowed and licked his lips. “You’re not really thinking—”
Her grin was naughty. “We can if we’re quick.”
He kissed her softly, reverently. “Sweetheart, if I get inside you, I’m not going to be anything but quick. But I think you deserve better than being taken against the studio wall—”
“I’ve had fantasies about making love to you here, like this.
And I deserve you, right here, right now,” Wren told him, managing to slide down his zipper.
She pulled open his pants, dug her fingers beneath the band of his underwear, and pulled them down.
His cock, free, sprang forward, and she wrapped her hand around him.
She tipped her face up to grin at a still shellshocked Dane. “I’m gonna need your help here, Hot Doc.”
Dane, always quick to react, snaked his hand under her skirt and skimmed her clit with his clever fingers, hitting the spot with dexterity. Wren released a tiny scream and rocked against his fingers. “Need you, need you, need you,” she chanted. “Pull my panties aside.”
Dane lifted her, easily, and her legs gripped his waist. She pulled out her skirt caught between them, and then he was there, his tip probing her folds.
Wiggling a little, God, that felt so good, she pushed forward at the same time he did, and then he was in her, filling her, every part of her now a part of him.
Dane rocked against her, and Wren whimpered as she climbed up and up. This was going to be fast and hot. Dane rotated his hips, hit another spot deep inside her, and Wren released a low groan.
“You need to come, sweetheart, I can’t … you … fuck, this. Us. I’m so close.”
Wren rocked into him, felt that exquisite build-up, and pulled back to look into his gorgeous face. His eyes were closed, all his concentration on holding back. She was his priority, she knew this as well as she knew H-Town, Poppy, and her own signature. He might even love her…
Dane opened his eyes, and in that light blue, aqua with passion, she saw the essence of him … calm, stoic, but not unfeeling. Complex, lovely, kind … good. Trustworthy.
Someone as crazy about her as she was about him.
Staring into his eyes, into his soul, Wren felt her body fall apart, the exquisite crash, the splintering of her mind and body, that little death. Dane came hard, rocking into her, his groan dropping between them, but, like her, he didn’t drop his eyes, didn’t look away.
They slowly came back to themselves, to each other, and she found her feet. Her skirt settled around her ankles, and she regained her balance. Dane tidied himself up, rebuttoned, and picked up her belt. Their eyes remained locked.
His were the only eyes she wanted to look into from this point forward. Dane, seeming to hear her unspoken thoughts—just like he had heard her silent plea earlier to kiss her—curled his hand around her neck and rested his forehead against hers.
“Let’s figure it out, Wren,” he murmured.
She nodded, her hands on his chest. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
* * *
Dane and Wren sank to the wooden floor, her sitting in a cross-legged position in the middle of the studio. Her feet were bare, and her ankle bracelet glistened in the low light coming in from the streetlights outside on Main Street.
Sitting opposite her, Dane wished he had a bottle of wine, a beer, something to lubricate his suddenly tight throat. Overwhelmed by emotion, unable to believe that maybe, just maybe, happiness was within his grasp, he swallowed and rubbed his throat.
Wren looked around and placed her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. “Why here, Dane? We could’ve gone to your cottage.”