CHAPTER 34
Claire
“Be careful, Penny. I might get used to this VIP treatment.”
Claire finished massaging Ian’s scalp, her soapy fingertips slick with the fresh-smelling citrus verbena shampoo she’d purchased for him from L’Occitane.
“Head back.” She held up the hand shower and waited for Ian to comply.
For a second, she stood over him, her gaze trained on his beautiful face.
His cheeks were flushed from the heat of the bathwater, and a sheen of sweat spread over his cheekbones and sinewy neck.
A thick layer of creamy bubbles hid his body, thank God.
After his horrible ordeal with the anesthesia, he’d spiked a fever, and for the past ten days, she’d cared for him, making sure he rested and took his antibiotics at the precise times each day.
He’d made repeated advances over the past few days, but she was determined nothing would tire him. She wanted him whole and well first.
Ian, in a coma, flashed before her eyes again, and she blinked to chase away the terrifying image. The hand shower dipped and splashed his chin.
He opened one eye and peered at her. “What’s up?”
She glanced at the red light in the ceiling. “An infrared heat lamp, I believe. Close your eyes.”
Those beautiful blue eyes. Every morning, she looked into them, overcome with gratitude to see them.
He chuckled. “You have to stop treating me like a pretzel stick.”
She adjusted the temperature of the water. “Pretzel stick?”
“They break easily when bitten.” He grinned and wriggled his eyebrows. “I miss your teeth on me.”
She raised the hand shower and began rinsing his hair. His beautiful lips curved into a smile as she aimed the water at his scalp, using her free hand to massage away the shampoo, careful to keep soap out of his eyes.
“Feel good?”
“Your hands on me always feel good.”
She ignored his suggestive tone. “Stand up. I’ll do your back first.”
His lips twitched. “Yes, ma’am.”
Bracing his palms on the tub’s rim, he slowly rose to his feet, turning.
Creamy white streams ran down his broad back and over his perfectly muscled backside.
She sprayed the foam away and ran her hand over his spine, helping the last of the soap slide off him.
He clenched when her fingers slid to his backside, her fingertips slipping over his firm, round cheeks.
“What are you doing, Penny?”
“Rinsing you off.”
“Rinsing me off. I was hoping—”
“I’m taking care of you.”
She hadn’t touched him that way. Not yet. His only job had been to rest. She could tell he was tired of lying around, but that was what the doctor ordered, and that was what she was determined he’d do.
She aimed the spray between his shoulder blades and quickly cleared his back of all soap.
“Adam called today.”
She paused, listening to the rush of the water. “Oh?”
“I told him I’m ready to go back to work.”
She frowned. “The doctor said ten days.”
“This is day ten.”
“Nine. It’s only day nine.”
He shook his head and heaved a sigh. It was she who wasn’t ready, and they both knew it. After his discharge from the hospital, Ian quickly began feeling better and better, but Claire didn’t. She still had nightmares of him lying there unconscious.
“OK. Turn around.”
He did, with that half-smile that made his dimple appear and always sent her heart into an erratic rhythm.
She didn’t need to look down to know that he was jutting out, hard and ready.
Resolutely keeping her eyes away, she angled the spray down his body, her hand sliding over the ripples on his chest and abs.
She reached his abdomen and started back up, but he gripped her wrist.
The contact sent a pulse between her thighs, which quickly progressed to a dull, tingling throb. “Ian—”
She ended in a gasp as he pulled her hand downward, making her palm land on his raging erection.
“Want me to feel better, Penny?” His voice was gravelly.
A violent shudder racked her body at the feel of him. God, how she wanted him. She’d missed this. Missed being … well, normal.
Her fingers closed around him. Swallowing back a moan, she stroked him a couple of times before she released him. He groaned.
She shut off the water and, grabbing a towel, threw it over his head, leaving him to dry his hair while she fetched his terry robe. No sooner had he shrugged into it than he bent and swiftly swept her up into his arms.
“The convalescent period,” he said, his voice rough, “is officially over.”
He hadn’t even bothered to close the robe. She clung to his neck, her gaze dipping to his chest, water droplets still clinging to his smooth skin. You’d never guess that not too long ago, he’d lain in a hospital bed helpless.
She buried her face in the crook of his neck, still damp and smelling of Irish Spring.
He carried her straight to bed and nearly tossed her on the mattress, whipping off his robe in seconds. She watched him advance, gloriously naked, an almost predatory gleam in his blue eyes.
“You’ve been treating me like a patient.” He hooked his fingers on the waistband of her yoga pants and tugged. “It’s time to treat me like a man.”
He sent the pants flying across the room. Her panties followed the next second.
“Ian—”
“Arms up.” There was no arguing. He stripped off her T-shirt, then unhooked her bra with swift efficiency and tossed that, too. In no time, she was naked, and he was seizing her thighs, spreading her wide open.
“Ah …” He leaned in.
She closed her eyes. His tongue. God, how she’d missed his talented tongue.
“My turn to take care of you.”
With that, he dove right in, slamming his mouth over her.
She swallowed back a cry.
He was ravenous, relentless, his mouth sucking mercilessly while his fingers delved deep, working their magic, stoking a raging fire in her in seconds.
He paused just long enough to ask, “Feel good?”
“Uh-huh.”
He always asked. Always.
Her beautiful, considerate Ian.
The image of him lying in that coma flashed, unbidden, across her mind again, and she reached down to grasp a handful of his still-damp hair.
He was here. He was alive. God, he was making her come … She lifted her chin, mouth open, teetering on the precipice.
But no.
He paused to press fevered kisses there, his hands roving over her open thighs. For what seemed like forever, Ian prolonged her pleasure, stopping, starting, softer, harder, until she writhed under his mouth, her entire body thrumming with the desperate need for release.
“Ian …”
She felt him smile against her. “Mm-hmm.”
Those vibrations pushed her higher. She bucked, grinding into him, using both hands to fist his hair and try to pull him closer.
He shook his head.
A soft whimper escaped her as she realized he meant to pull away. In a haze, she released him. The next second, he raised her hips and filled her with such a hard thrust that she gasped.
He groaned. “Fuck, yes.”
He set a hard, fast rhythm that had her body humming and her mind spinning. And in that moment, she was transported back in time to that very first night in this very bed, where he had taken her body.
Unbeknownst to her, he had also taken her heart.
“Too much?” His voice was tight with effort and arousal.
Never too much of you.
“More.”
Humming his approval, he pulled out, lifted her legs and hooked her knees over his shoulders, plunging back in so deep that she cried out.
“That’s it. Take all of me.”
She braced her hands on his strong chest, lost in the force and power that was Ian. He pounded into her, every stroke driving her higher until she heard loud cries with every hard thrust and realized they were her own. Her nails dug into his flesh.
“Yeah. Let me hear you.” He rolled his hips. “Eyes on mine.”
She opened her eyes to look into his beautiful blue ones, and what she saw there sent her soaring.
“I love you,” she said.
A shudder racked his body. “God, yes.”
Ecstasy spilled through Claire, streams of light and heat and electricity rushing to every extremity.
Her entire body pulsed. Her lips parted in a gasp, and Claire lost all control, his name sailing from her lips in a loud cry.
Above her, she felt him spasm. Over and over and over again, the waves rocked her in a torrent of sparkling sensation, and she kept coming, crying out repeatedly as he gave her everything.
She took it all.
Still tingling and shaking, she clung to him when they both stilled, whispering his name as she kissed his neck, with Ian holding her so tightly that she could barely breathe.
At last, they both went slack, panting in unison, their bodies slick with sweat.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him. He kissed her temple.
She buried her face in his chest. After a few moments, he leaned down to retrieve the covers from the floor. He pulled the white down duvet over them and drew her close.
“You finally told me,” he murmured.
“But you already knew. You always could read my mind.”
He nodded, smiling against her hair. “Of course, I knew. Your beautiful green eyes kept telling me.”
She’d never forget how she had felt when she thought she might lose him.
“I love you so much that it scares me,” she admitted.
He gripped her chin and looked into her eyes. “Then I’ll just love you back until you stop being scared.”