Chapter 7 #2
“Unless someone’s in the yard, you should be able to. The backyard is pretty private.” Priya appeared to his right on the other side of an expansive dining room. She wore leggings, the black ones with sparkles. One of his favorite pairs. Her oversized sweater swallowed her whole—like he wanted to.
Heat licked up the back of his spine. Maybe coming here wasn’t the best idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
That look. Priya backed up a step. A giant of a woodsman stepped into her house, all rumpled and sexy in his jeans and flannel shirt. The intensity of his look pinned her in place. She was a rabbit caught in his crosshairs—and she didn’t want out of them.
“Do it often?” he asked, his voice lowering to an octave that vibrated deep inside of her.
She held back a shiver. “Do what?”
“Strut through here naked?”
Her laugh came out far too nervous. “If it were my private house, maybe. But not when I’m living with my parents.”
Just like that, the vacuum his presence had created flooded with air. He stood straighter, like he’d been ready to pounce but decided she was too scrawny for good prey.
The timer on the oven beeped as it reached its programmed temperature. It was hot enough, and it wasn’t the only one.
“Dinner isn’t quite ready.” The meat had yet to go into the oven. She spun and called over her shoulder, “The risotto should be done with the pork chops.”
The wave of heat following her must mean that he was right behind her.
“Smells good.” He was close. She didn’t turn to look. It was hard enough to concentrate as it was. “But maybe a little burnt?”
This time she did turn and look at him over her shoulder. Burnt?
His blue eyes twinkled. “Just teasing.”
“Ha. No pressure.” She went through the motions of finishing supper, but her mind was on the man in the kitchen. “You could’ve gotten a professional meal. Instead, I have to represent.”
“This’ll be even better. Because you made it for me.” They stared at each other for a heartbeat. “And it’s free.”
Perhaps the simmering tension between them had been her imagination. Wishful thinking. “I can do free.”
“All kidding aside, Priya. This means a lot. Everything you do for me means a lot.”
She removed the pot of risotto from the stove and flipped the burner off. She kept her back to him. “Of course.” That was her. Reliable.
He planted himself against the counter next to her. “Hey.”
He didn’t say more but the burn of his gaze blazed into her. She peeled her gaze off the marbled granite and met his.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shrugged as casually as she could manage, but after the last three months, it was a piss-poor effort. “Nothing.”
He tilted his head. “Really? I’m pretty dense, but I’ve picked up on some signs. Spill it.”
Where did she begin?
Her family took her for granted, and while they were off having the time of their lives, they were all okay leaving her behind.
Or how about that all her friends lived in other towns and were also friends with her ex, who was off doing fabulous things? Meanwhile, she’d managed to lose the trust of all her patients, who were slowly and painfully canceling all their appointments and going to different doctors.
So, yeah, she might lose her job. Wouldn’t that suck? To get fired in her own hometown? Who would hire her if the place she was born in wouldn’t even keep her?
Even worse, they were leaving her because of what had happened to Maisy.
“It’s just work pressure,” she finally said.
He lifted a blond brow and slid closer. “I don’t think so. You can talk to me, you know. We’ve done a lot of talking.”
Her traitorous body turned closer to him as he faced her. “Because we’re friends.” Bravo. She kept the bitterness out of her voice.
“Friends…talk.”
Her gaze dipped to his mouth. His whiskers weren’t long enough to hide his lips. Would they tickle if she kissed him? “What else do friends do?”
The question evaporated between them, leaving no time for her to be mortified about what she’d said or how he’d interpret it.
“I hope they kiss, because I’ve been dying to do that for a while.”
Her lips parted. His confession obliterated her good sense, and hope exploded like fireworks. He dropped his head and she stretched up to meet him.
Slowly, he pressed his mouth to hers. They were each tense, only their lips touching.
Then he groaned, and she clutched his shirt.
He wrapped his strong arms around her. To her, he’d always been taller, broader, just big.
But as he swamped her, she gladly burrowed into him.
His warmth, his strength, his solidness. It was all there for her.
He deepened the kiss, teasing her lips apart with his tongue. She reveled in the soft scratch of his beard and his faintly minty flavor. Letting go of his shirt, she took her time brushing her hands up his hard chest and around his neck.
He didn’t stop. She was making out with Justin Walker in her house. Her teenage self would’ve never believed it.
Stooping, he gripped her ass, lifted, and turned.
Her butt hit the counter and she automatically wrapped her legs around his waist. There was no moment of indecision, no wondering if she was doing the right thing or not.
They were each succumbing to this…whatever…
between them. She thought it’d been only one-sided, but he must’ve felt it, too.
He tipped his head and she met each stroke of his tongue with her own. She clamped her legs tighter, seeking some sort of release for the ache between her legs. He was the remedy.
She had no clue how much time went by. Lost in him, the world faded away.
Chalk it up to not having been thoroughly kissed like this in a couple of years, or the mountain of man in front of her, but she was nowhere near done with him.
She liked the gentle tickle of his whiskers, the way his hot breath wafted over her cheek as they synchronized their inhales and exhales, and the subtle rocking of his hips, as if the pressure building inside of him was as strong as hers.
Neither one of them seemed to be in any hurry to move further, as if it would shatter the bubble of intimacy around them and allow reality to crash in.
The alarm on the oven blared. She jerked, then instantly regretted her reaction. Would he think she was sitting here with her legs twined around him, ruing what they’d done?
The oven beeped again. The pork chops were thin, but had they made out for fifteen minutes? It had felt like ten seconds.
He stepped back, sucking in his lower lip and then releasing it slowly as his gaze swept her face.
The alarm continued to beep but she didn’t move, and Justin didn’t break out of the ring of her legs.
“That was unexpected,” he said.
“Yes.” She regarded him cautiously. Was he plagued with a case of the we shouldn’t have s?
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple working up and down. Her fingers twitched to stroke the area. Fine whiskers feathered down his neck. Were they as delightful to the senses as the ones on his face?
The beep beep of the alarm was as loud as a bullhorn. She released her legs and he stepped back. To her surprise, he held out a hand to help her slide down to the floor.
She hit the button to stop the timer and grabbed the oven mitts. Each second that ticked by, the air grew heavier. Were regrets weighing it down? How would she react if he got weird?
Was she going to get weird? There was a lot of history between them, but none of it sexual.
She plopped the pan of pork chops on the counter next to the cooling risotto and steeled herself. She faced him.
His arms were crossed and he was eyeing her from under hooded lids. The guarded expression he wore didn’t clarify at all where he stood with what had just happened.
“Hungry?” She had no idea what else to say. The last guy she’d made out with had left her for his career, but he’d stepped out on her long before that. The breakup had been an it’s-not—you-it’s-me-because-I-don’t-want-to-be-tied-to-just-you thing. Not that it still stung or anything.
His look morphed from evaluating to sizzling hot like the pan behind her. He was hungry, but not for food.
She held her breath, refusing to be the first to act on it.
All at once, the tension drained out of him and he dragged in an audible breath. Tipping his head back, he stared at the ceiling. “We’re friends, Priya. I don’t want to risk that.”
Someone might as well have tossed her in a snowbank. She wasn’t enough for him to put in the effort.
“Me, neither.” She hugged her arms around herself. Friend zoned. Justin had had a moment of weakness and she’d happened to be in the proximity. And she thought Emmett’s breakup excuse had been humiliating.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came—”
“Don’t you dare.” Her burst of anger was out of character, but her week had been too crappy to restrain it. “I’ve never been the sexpot who made men lose their minds, so if you keep going, it’s going to sound like you’re horrified you kissed someone like me.”
His look of shock melted into amusement. “Every time you wear leggings you’re a sexpot.”
A hot flush smeared her cheeks. She always wore leggings. “Wait until you see me in scrub pants.”
He flinched. “I have before. Once.”
She was about to ask when, but then horror flooded her. The night Maisy had died. And here she was kissing him. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. Not about—” His scowl danced around the kitchen before returning to her. “You and I are good. I don’t hold anything that happened against you.”
One of Maisy’s office visits ran through her head. Will a test tell me I’m pregnant this early?
But you used protection, right?
Maisy’s laugh still haunted her. She’d looked so hopeful. It was so old, Pri. It totally broke. I had a new pack, but I saw that one lying in the drawer and figured it was destiny. Justin had come back to me after all.
Since she was Maisy’s doctor and had never written her a prescription for birth control, Priya had ordered the pregnancy test. Never had she wanted to break the rules more than when the result pinged on her computer. Positive, and she hadn’t been allowed to give Justin a heads-up.
“She knew how to play both of us,” she said.
“Yeah. Sometimes I suspect she did more than that.” The intensity of his gaze deepened, like he was mentally ripping up the HIPPA policy and willing her to spill Maisy’s office confession.
When she didn’t offer any confirmation, he propped one hand on the counter beside her.
His other hand was on his hip, and he towered over her, but she didn’t feel intimidated.
More like protected. “No one but you understands how it was for me. No one but me understands how it was for you.”
“And no one’s going to know because you have a son to raise and he can’t grow up hearing about how troubled his mom was.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “If it helps, I know what came over me.”
“Oh?” The heaviness drained out of the air around them.
“Yep. But I don’t know if I should tell you.” His expression turned cocky. “I don’t know how you feel about me.”
No way was she going to confess how she’d wanted him since puberty.
But dropping the conversation now was just unfair.
Couldn’t she have, if not one night with him, at least one conversation?
A few moments to pretend their past wasn’t an emotionally loaded cannon with a short fuse?
“You’re a good-looking guy. And you happen to be a decent man. ”
“Just what every man wants to hear. I can hear the women falling over themselves now.”
She giggled. “Stop it.”
His expression sobered. “I trust you, and I can only say that about a few people. No one I’ve dated. I worry if we— I’m a single dad and I don’t even know yet how I’m going to work and raise my kid at the same time. I need your friendship more than I need…you know.”
“Sex?” The flare of heat in his eyes could’ve cooked the pork chops well done. “I’m a doctor, Justin. You can say it around me.”
“If I say it, then I’ll want it.”
That shut her up. But not for long. No matter how he’d couched it, he didn’t want to sleep with her. Or he didn’t want to want to sleep with her. “Right. And we can’t, apparently.”
She stepped out from the cove he’d made around her. He was also blocking the food, but she could set the table. Time to prepare for the most awkward meal ever.
“Priya.”
She opened the cupboard and yanked two plates out with more force than intended. Where did Mom keep the paper plates? Now she’d be stuck doing dishes with nothing to think about but Justin’s rebuke.
“No, I get it.” She rushed out to the dining room. “We’re friends and you don’t think we can be any more and not ruin our friendship.”
True or not, after that kiss, she was willing to try. And wasn’t that what bothered her? Her ass on the counter, grinding into him, was enough to make her toss their history and her career just to see how hot they could blaze into the future. But he was like, whoa, you’re a better friend ?
It chafed.
Because he was right. They understood each other as far as Maisy’s influence was concerned. Her patients didn’t. They were already leaving. If anyone learned she and Justin were in a romantic relationship, the accusations would fly, and it was her career they would damage.
He followed her. She almost jumped at how close he sounded. “Do you really think we can sleep together and keep it casual?”
Her? No.
The fear of losing her job had just run through her mind, but here she was spinning out over “sleep together.” And the key word: casual.
She wanted this. No one had to know. Her private life was just that.
She squared her shoulders and faced him. His challenging look propelled her to an answer she wasn’t ready for.
“Yeah, actually. I think we can.”