Chapter 15 #2
“Oh yes, I did. Because they are. You know we’re irrevocably attached at the hip for the duration of the drug trial.”
“We need to get through this drug trial without getting exposed by Hogarth.”
“I need to get through it without being exposed as John Doe.”
“More importantly, you need to get through it without compromising your health.”
He grunted. “I’m fine, Doc.”
“I’ll do some tests while I’m at your place. Take some measurements.”
“Won’t that throw off your schedule?”
“No. I would be doing the tests in the morning anyway. Close enough.”
“I don’t know if I like that ‘close enough’ attitude in a doctor.” He smiled and raised a brow at her. The truth was he felt pleased that she was relenting from the rigidness that normally held her.
“Don’t worry—I know when to bend and when to stay straight.”
“Yes you do.” He pulled her in and she squealed when he nibbled on her ear.
“So here we are again,” she said, standing in front of his mesmerizing window on the sparkling night city sky.
“Here is a nice place, don’t you think?”
“You need my approval? I didn’t think of you as the needy type?”
He blinked. “Needy? Me?” He laughed. “I’m Mr. Tough Football Guy, remember? You must have me confused with your New York doctor or someone.”
She’d hit a nerve. His nerves were real, not her imagination.
“Let’s take some blood and urine samples now and I’ll do the labs in the morning myself.”
“You do your own testing? You don’t send the samples out?”
“No. Did I mention this was a super-secret research project?”
“So you have a lab set up—”
“Yes.”
“And you do—”
“Yes.”
“Do you live there? At the center?”
“I could ask you if you live at the stadium.”
“But here we both are now. Not at work.”
“After I get my samples.” She pulled away from him and went to the closet where she’d stored her black bag and a box of supplies. She took it out and put on her gloves, then lined up the test tubes and assembled the needle.
“Where do you want me?”
Heaven help her, but she couldn’t stop her smile.
He gave her a dark, brooding, predatory look in return, the look that made her heart skip a beat in a moment of frightened excitement.
She motioned him over to his kitchen island and he sat on a bar stool, perching his elbow on the counter.
She snapped the rubber strip around his ridiculously large forearm—it barely fit—and then tapped a vein twice until it popped out.
She swabbed the spot with alcohol and slid the needle into the vein, hitting her mark exactly, drawing his blood.
She switched vials twice until she had three of them lined up in the portable case, about seven-eighths full each.
He said nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t look away. He watched her and every move she made. By the time she’d finished she felt unnerved by his attention. If she hadn’t done it all a thousand times before, she might have been unnerved enough to make a mistake. But she made no mistakes.
“Are you going to leave now?” He spoke quietly as she packed up the small bag to take with her.
She didn’t want to go. He sat on the stool within inches of her and she felt aware of his body, his heat, his scent. He snaked his arm toward her along the countertop until he reached her hand and touched it. She flinched at the shock of his touch, of her own hyperawareness.
He didn’t withdraw his hand. Instead he clamped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward him. Made her face him.
“Do you want to stay?”
She needed to stay. She needed to be with him.
He was so close, so electrifying. It was so easy to forget everything in his arms. To remember everything and be aware of everything and believe it was all okay.
He was so physically strong. She needed him like he was her own special drug, her magical, energizing, euphoria drug.
Making love to him brought her back to life so that she could struggle on another day. Yes, she wanted to stay.
“I . . . I shouldn’t . . .” Her sister had told her to stay out. They had their regular nurse staying over. Suzette had insisted, had made the call and planned it.
“But?” he rasped and loosened his hold on her wrist so that he could circle his thumb in a caress of her palm. She shivered.
“But I could.” She forced herself to look at him, to raise her chin and not behave like she was a child. She was a grown woman. And she needed what he had to offer her. “I want to. Even though . . .”
“You want to. Then you should. I want you to. Desperately.” His voice vibrated, convincing her of his desperation.
She had never been a fan of the easy liaisons some women had with men—the sexual kind.
She prized mutual admiration and interests that led naturally to affection and then to a physical relationship.
She’d had those. They’d never been serious, never ardent or passion-filled.
She’d never given the attention—never cared enough to give the attention to those relationships, nor to take her attention away from her life’s pursuit: her research, her dream of finding a successful treatment for her mother. She bit her lip.
Or at least for her sister.
But this—her relationship with Trent—was outside her realm of experience, maybe even outside her realm of understanding, if she were to admit it. But that was only temporary. She would manage it. She would handle him.
She said, “I’ll stay—but not all night. I need to get back.”
“I understand.” He nodded and, though he didn’t sigh, she could sense a sigh inside him. More likely it was the sigh deep inside herself that she sensed.
He stirred. She felt everything about him shift, but there was little movement except for the sensual circling of his thumb on her palm. She allowed herself to concentrate on that feeling now and only on that, closing her eyes.
“You know I admire you. A great deal,” his voice rumbled with the same vibration his entire being seemed to emanate.
Her eyes popped open. Fear filled her. Excitement at the same time.
Did he read her mind? Did he see through her to her soul?
Or maybe it wasn’t some great skill—maybe she was that easily read for an experienced man like Trent.
That stopped the erratic flutter in her chest and this time she heaved an actual sigh.
“I admire you too.” She quirked a smile, sounding silly to herself.
“Don’t say it unless you mean it.” He tugged on her wrist, stopped the circling, and pulled her close in a demanding embrace.
“I do. Why wouldn’t I?” Surprise had her unnerved again, but not panicked. She was in control. Somehow she knew this and the dawning revelation excited her in a new, less-fearful way.
“You would—if you were as easily impressed as most women. But you’re not most women, are you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I don’t think of myself as a woman.”
He chuckled low and amused. “Exactly.”
Then he rose from his perch and pulled her with him, leading her to the living area, to the couch.
The sight of the couch and the thought of sitting there again with him brought a set of goose bumps to her skin and a trill of anticipation running through her blood so that she felt suddenly hot, felt moisture pooling, felt the clenching between her thighs.
Then she stopped in her tracks and realized what she’d said—how he took it. And she laughed.
“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Oh, I know. Very well.” He held her within the circle of his arms with the couch a few steps behind her.
She felt the tug of him and of the couch and saw the devilish look in his eyes.
Her heart pumped hard, her blood rushed fast, and she felt hot and moist everywhere but especially in that sweet spot.
All the pumping, rushing blood seemed to end between her thighs in a throbbing, electric need.
She felt the heat of his body as he held her, breathing steadily and in no rush, obviously not so affected by the proximity of his own couch.
This woman was driving him mad. She was not his type.
He had no idea what type she was, but one thing was certain, his body responded to hers and her body most definitely responded to his.
Maybe in spite of everything else about her, definitely in spite of their serious circumstances and ties to a potentially destructive secret they shared.
But right now, he couldn’t quite put together why or how that mattered.
Sucking in the scent of her now made his muscles tighten, causing a twitch in his cock.
It rubbed against her thigh. He felt her tense and heat up at the touch.
He tightened his grip around her and focused the only place his mind would go: on seducing her, pleasuring her, dragging every last ounce of carnal joy from their combustible coupling, all that was possible without utter destruction.
“I want you. Now.” He rasped the obvious as he moved her.
She didn’t resist. She moaned. He covered her lips and bit down and sucked in and felt the fire in his gut leap and grow along with his cock.
He pushed her back onto the couch and dragged her onto his lap, nuzzling her ear and breathing in whatever her essence was—it didn’t matter.
It was her and he wanted it—all of it, all of her—wanted to be inside her.
The sound of her heaving breaths and inarticulate mews of pleasure, before he’d even touched her, raced from unconscious electrifying spurs to a conscious level of impossibly tense nerves, making him buzz and shake with raw craving.
He raked his mouth and teeth down her neck as he lowered her back into the cushions and moved his hand over her heavy round breasts and fine-boned rib cage and down to the tender belly below.
Her sucking gasp at the skim of his fingers over that vulnerable flesh protecting her womb caused a thunderous pulse to rage through him.