Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“I don’t eat breakfast. I’m sorry you went to all the trouble to cook,” she said after he opened the door and had her follow him down a hall to an open kitchen-living area with soaring windows and ceilings.
He turned and looked at her. Feeling off-balance again, she didn’t know what to say and glanced around the intimidating kitchen with the gigantic shiny appliances and gleaming black stone countertops.
“No trouble. I eat a big breakfast every day. Protein shake. Eggs, bacon, fruit, and, if I’m living dangerously, I throw in some home fries.
” He flashed her that down-home-charm smile he had mastered, too bad it was shallow and meaningless.
She tried imagining what his full-tilt smile with all his real warmth and attention would feel like, then she snapped out of it.
“I have coffee. Black.”
“I’m not surprised. You take your coffee seriously like everything else.”
She knew it wasn’t a compliment and tried not to care.
Then she noticed his coffee was black too as he picked up his mug and took a sip.
She held back from saying a thing. She needed to pick up the papers and the check and get out of there.
Being alone with him in his home was unnerving, doubly so after spending all that time learning about him.
He poured her a mug of coffee and handed it to her.
She took it out of politeness. She needed to extricate herself from there before . . . she didn’t know what. His attraction and energy were like a live thing, capturing her, holding her, making her feel not like herself. She had to leave before she said the wrong thing. Did the wrong thing.
He paused and considered her, staring a fraction too long so that she had to look away. Then he spoke in a teasing voice, maybe even a flirtatious voice but she couldn’t be sure.
“Tell me, Doc, what do you have for breakfast if you’re living dangerously?”
Heat rose to her cheeks. She was living dangerously right now. He was flirting, if the glint in his eye was any indication. She straightened her spine and shook off the heat. Throwing on her professional mantle, she said, “If I’m living dangerously, I have a yogurt.”
He nodded, not bothering to hide a suppressed grin, and sat at the breakfast bar in front of a plate heaped with all the items he’d mentioned, including the home fries.
“I see you’re living dangerously today.”
He snorted. “You’re here. That was the first risk.
Risk number two, I’m about to hand over my papers giving you free rein to experiment on my body.
And risk number three,” he paused and lowered his voice, “I’m about to hand over ten million smacks to you in a certified bank check.
” He leaned in toward her so that his scent surrounded her, overpowering the smell of the food, overpowering her.
“The home fries—and anything else I might do—seem like a walk in the park.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by anything else I might do, but her imagination leapt to him in his boxers and . . . the most inappropriate, unprofessional place. Charline clamped down on her imagination before the telling blush caught up with her, yet again. She needed to change the subject.
“You cooked all this for yourself?” She looked around as if a cook might pop out from the cabinets.
“Sure. I’m not a one-dimensional, lazy-ass billionaire jock.” He stopped to take a bite of bacon, and watched her while he chewed. “I do all kinds of things.” He used that same teasing smile, had that same glint in his eye and that same charming shallow smile as if they were on a date.
She said, “I don’t cook.” It was all she could think of.
“That’s funny—I never met a woman who didn’t cook—or at least no woman who ever admitted it.” He pushed a dish of food across the counter toward her and patted the barstool next to him. She swallowed hard.
“I’m a physician first and a woman second.
” She said it to remind herself as much as him.
The change in his expression was like someone had ripped a mask off him.
She sucked in a breath at the rawness of hunger she saw.
Too late to take back what amounted to a slap of a white glove across his genuinely compelling face.
He looked like a starved animal about to pounce on his prey. And she was stunned to realize he thought of her as his prey. Her heart pumped furiously, making her flush hot, and she had the ridiculous thought that her blood pressure must be up to 250 over 180.
“Is that right?” The look of a challenge that had to be met took over his expression, but his voice was calm and certain and sexy as hell.
“If you gave me the chance, I could make you feel like nothing but a woman right down to the last cell in your overeducated body.”
She backed up a step and took a breath for her sanity. “Whoa, cowboy. We have strictly a doctor-patient relationship here.” She hoped he hadn’t heard the telltale vibration in her voice. It could have been anxiety—or excitement.
“I’m a southern gentleman. Not a cowboy. I would never touch you unless you wanted me to.” He took a long breath and leveled a slow smile. “Do you want me to touch you, darlin’?” He rose and stepped toward her, erasing her step backwards.
Her mouth dropped open. Staring at the glisten of desire in his eyes, she knew her eyes glistened with the same arousal right back at him.
Heat flamed in her most feminine parts. Damn if he couldn’t make good on his promise.
The high-pitched sensitivity between her legs took over her mind where intelligent thought and sensibility once resided.
She could damn well smell her own arousal.
Her hand reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt. Bunching the starched fabric in her fingers, she yanked herself forward until her face was close enough to feel his grumbling whisper when he spoke.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
She watched his mouth move down toward hers and felt his hands reach around behind her to cup her buttocks in a demanding grip as he pulled her hips into him.
The feel of her center grinding against his erection at the same time his mouth covered hers caused a jolt of pre-orgasmic electricity to arc through her.
She gasped and threw herself into him all the way.
Her mind filled with wanting more. She pumped her hips forward.
His tongue lunged and she felt the headiness of the plunging wetness.
Moans of pleasure and raspy breathing filled the air around them.
She’d never heard anything like it before, never felt this wild abandon.
Had never let her passion rule her like this before.
It was disquieting and thrilling at the same time.
Her strong scent made it impossible for him to resist moving his hand under her skirt to caress her thighs and move in between her legs to test her heat.
While he feasted on her lips, plump with desire, he rolled his thumb under her panties and over her swollen nub.
The gasp and scream of release came into his mouth as she shuddered in his arms.
Now the roaring in his ears and the pulsing of his erection moved him to wrap his hands around her buttocks and lift her to the counter in front of him, forcing him to let go of her mouth.
Her arms still wrapped around him, he found his face pillowed against her white blouse into her soft breasts.
After ripping her panties and hose down her legs, he yanked her skirt up so it was bunched at her hips.
She gripped his shoulders as she panted and kissed his hair.
He pulled her forward to the edge of the counter and separated himself from her enough to look at her face as he stood between her legs.
Her eyes were enormous and glazed and her skin glowed with color and glistened with ecstasy.
He didn’t remember ever seeing a woman look so beautiful.
She pulled his mouth to hers and plunged her tongue into a deep kiss that didn’t stop her from purring her pleasure.
His jeans tightened around his erection and he throbbed with need, but his desire to escalate her ecstasy overpowered him even more, like a challenge he needed to conquer.
Pulling himself from her kiss, he smiled at her confused face and bent down. With his hands firmly gripping and caressing her butt, he pushed his face between her legs and forced them wide until his lips found her marble-like bud and he flicked it with his tongue.
Her spasm and scream didn’t divert him, though it sent a hot surge through him.
He’d expected it and he clamped down with his hands gripping her firmly, pressing his mouth down to suck and nibble and drive her to squirm and scream his name with pleasure over and over again.
Waves of her release washed over him and he sucked it in and tasted and licked all the dripping moisture he could get from her.
She pulled at his hair and he lifted his head.
He straightened up to meet her mouth again.
She kissed him ravenously and licked his lips, licked the taste of her own cum from his mouth.
The headiness of her brazen abandon filled him to bursting.
He pushed his hands under her and lifted her from the counter.
She held onto his shoulders and clamped her legs around his waist as he carried her over to the couch.
Lowering her, he pulled himself from her grip to unzip his pants.
Sweeping his gaze over the picture of her, legs wide and inviting, lips swollen and face elegantly dewy with desire and glowing with ecstasy, mouth slightly parted, skin pink, breasts heaving with her quick deep breaths, he moved quickly.
She reached for him and said, “I want you inside me.”
He pulled his zipper all the way down and then reached into his back pocket. It was empty. The condoms were in his bedroom. He leaned forward to sweep her up again. He would carry her to his bed.
“What—?” she rasped.