“You’re welcome,” she said softly and he heard the smile in her voice. She just kept stroking, stroking, stroking…lower back, midback, shoulders, and then working her way down again. He felt himself sinking deeper into the table, surrendering to the magic of her touch, and wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into.
Chapter Four
Chloe walked her last patient of the day to the front desk. She scheduled the sweet, retired lieutenant colonel with a freshly unlocked scapula for a follow-up appointment next week and then waved good-bye as he made his way through the empty waiting room and out the door.
A sticky note on the computer screen at the desk advised her Mr. Sempler had gone to get his car washed and would be back in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes? Chloe fumed for a second, then shrugged out of her white coat and laid it on the back of the desk chair. She took the note and stared a hole through it.
Her shift ended in ten minutes. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave until Sempler got back. He needed to sign off on her time card, and, even if she’d been inclined to let that wait until tomorrow, she didn’t have a key and refused to leave the clinic unlocked and unattended. Looked like she’d be sticking around, off the clock and unpaid, for an additional twenty minutes. She could try to add the involuntary overtime to her time card, but even after less than two weeks on the job, she knew Sempler well enough to know he’d nix it. He was a real stickler…with everyone but
himself.
There’s no such thing as a perfect assignment. With that piece of Lynne wisdom floating in her mind, she trashed the note and headed down the hall. Might as well use the extra twenty minutes productively. First, she needed to wake sleeping beauty in treatment room three, if he hadn’t already woken up and left. Then she’d ready the rooms for tomorrow and complete her time card. A knock on the last door yielded no response. She peeked inside the room she’d darkened over an hour ago. From the light coming in around the edges of the blinds she saw Michael lying on the table. He’d flipped over onto his back sometime during his nap and flung his forearm over his forehead. The sheet dipped low across his chiseled hips. His deep, steady breathing told her he was still asleep. She stepped into the room, shut the door behind her as softly as possible, and tiptoed to the table.
Tiptoeing was unnecessary, considering the flutey music still wafting from the speakers and the gurgling fountain dampened the other sounds in the room. Besides, she needed to wake him, but she wanted an extra moment or two to admire him, close-up. Shadows slanted across his neck, his abs, gathered in the folds where the sheet draped over him. God, he really was a work of art. Not that she hadn’t appreciated the carved-from-granite body while she’d had him on her table earlier, but, then, he’d been a client in need of help, and she, a trained professional on a mission to relieve his pain. Now her shift, like his appointment, had ended, and he was simply a hot guy wearing nothing but a thin sheet and a pair of socks, sleeping like a log. What red-blooded heterosexual woman wouldn’t stare?
She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but her fingers somehow ended up buried in his thick, dark hair. Lifting it, sifting it, letting the short, silky strands caress her skin. His slow, steady breathing hitched. His eyelids fluttered, and suddenly, she found herself caught in the same impenetrable brown gaze that had hijacked her dreams last night—hot, restless dreams from which she’d woke with a groan of raw frustration.
“Feeling better?” she murmured.
He held her in the tractor beam of his stare and nodded. Then slowly, very slowly, he reached up, cupped the back of her head, and brought her mouth close to his…stopping when their lips almost touched.
Hers parted, and blood flowed into her lips, plumping them up in an effort to bridge the infinitesimal gap.
“You’ve healed me and tormented me at the same time, Chloe.”
Sweet Jesus, the things this man did to her with nothing but words. Muscles contracted deep inside her and she shivered from the unbidden sensation, even as she had the comforting thought that at least she wasn’t the only one to experience the dubious honor of waking up edgy and needy.
He nibbled her lower lip. She sighed and sank into him. He moved on to the upper lip, and she pressed closer, craving more. He sat up and gave her more, sliding his tongue into her mouth. The contact threatened to unleash all the longing she’d been struggling to hold in check since last night. Would it be so wrong to loosen the leash and satisfy the longings? So what if they didn’t belong together in the long run. There wasn’t any “long run” in a six-week assignment. She grabbed for his shoulders…his neck. She couldn’t get her tongue tangled around his fast enough.
Apparently he picked up on her urgency, because he fused his lips to hers and proceeded to whip her into an absolute frenzy. She had a sudden, violently clear vision of him teasing another vulnerable part of her into the exact same state. Heat sizzled through her system, starting fires in all her erogenous zones. She rubbed her thighs together to ease the burn but quickly realized she’d only made matters worse.
Maybe she moaned, because he slid to the edge of the table, wedged his thigh between hers, and hauled her up against him until she was on her tiptoes. Her knees went weak. She felt precarious in this position, like straddling a bicycle a little bit too big for her.
Her panties were soaked. She knew it, and, when his groan rumbled in her ear, she figured he knew it too. Then, with a seemingly effortless flex of his arm, he rocked her against him. His muscle-corded, sheet-covered thigh provided plenty of rough, soul-fracturing friction, and all she could do was think, Again. Again. Can I ride this ride forever?
She pressed her face into his neck and held on. The warmth of his skin intensified the smell of the massage oil and she wondered, belatedly, if sandalwood had previously unknown intoxicating properties. He was so big and warm and solid, she felt ridiculously delicate and…almost…protected, in his arms.
“I want you, Chloe. It’s insane how much.” The words ground over his vocal chords, so low and raw and honest she felt tears burn her eyes. His need sank into every cell in her body. She absorbed it like a drug and immediately wanted more. Because it’s been so long, she told herself. Otherwise the depth of her response to this man would be frightening. She raised her head and dove into another hungry kiss.
Strong fingers traced the scooped neckline of her top and then shoved it down beneath her breasts. He broke the kiss to look at what he’d uncovered. She stood there, panting, blind to everything except him. Instead of taking up where he’d left off, however, he tugged her cotton-candy pink bra down as well and lowered his mouth to her bared breasts.
When he caught her sensitive nipple and drew it into his mouth, she cried out and speared her fingers into his hair. He sucked her in. Deep. Hard. Her toes curled in her pink ballet flats.
One of his hands snuck under the back of her skirt and kneaded her ass, rubbing her against his hard-packed quad in time with every contraction of his mouth around her nipple. Perfect rhythm. Perfect position. Perfect everything. Pressure intensified, and centered until she could almost catch hold of the orgasm shimmering tantalizingly close…almost reach it, almost…scream with impatience when he stopped. The scream turned to a thin cry when he switched to the other breast and started the insanity again.
Soon her thighs burned from repeatedly clenching around his. Her hips strove for their own rhythm—a little bit quicker. “Now,” she moaned, moving her hands all over his back, his shoulders, down his chest. “I need you. Now. Now. Now.” This could happen, if they hurried, and she focused, and didn’t blow it.
An insidious tentacle of anxiety coiled in her gut. Stop overthinking things. Just feel.
The sheet still rode low across his lap. She grabbed it and flung it to the floor.
Her hand closed around him at the same time she looked down.
Ohmigod. He was huge. Some very personal muscles tightened at the glorious sight. The thought of him thrusting into her oh-so-neglected body, filling her until she cried out from the sweet strain of having him inside her, sent shivers shimmying through her.
He closed his hand around hers, and showed her how he liked to be handled. At the same time, he kissed his way from her breast to her ear. “How do you like it?”
“It’s stunning. I haven’t seen one this impressive in a long time.” A looong time.